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Late Quaternary Surface Temperatures and Productivity in the East-Equatorial South Atlantic: Response to Changes in Trade/Monsoon Wind Forcing and Surface Water Advection

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The South Atlantic

Abstract

In order to reconstruct Late Quaternary variations of surface oceanography in the east- equatorial South Atlantic, time series of sea-surface temperatures (SST) and paleoproductivity were established from cores recovered in the Guinea and Angola Basins, and at the Walvis Ridge. These records, based on sedimentary alkenone and organic carbon concentrations, reveal that during the last 350,000 years surface circulation and productivity changes in the east-equatorial South Atlantic were highly sensitive to climate forcing at 23- and 100-kyr periodicities. Covarying SST and paleoproductivity changes at the equator and at the Walvis Ridge appear to be driven by variations in zonal trade-wind intensity, which forces intensification or reduction of coastal and equatorial upwelling, as well as enhanced Benguela cold water advection from the South. Phase relationships of precessional variations in the paleoproductivity and SST records from the distinct sites were evaluated with respect to boreal summer insolation over Africa, movements of southern ocean thermal fronts, and changes in global ice volume. The 23-kyr phasing implies a sensitivity of eastern South Atlantic surface water advection and upwelling to West African monsoon intensity and to changes in the position of the subtropical high pressure cell over the South Atlantic, both phenomena which modulate zonal strength of southeasterly trades. SST and productivity changes north of 20°S lack significant variance at the 41-kyr periodicity; and at the Walvis Ridge and the equator lead changes in ice volume. This may indicate that obliquity-driven climate change, characteristic for northern high latitudes, e.g fluctuations in continental ice masses, did not substantially influence subtropical and tropical surface circulation in the South Atlantic. At the 23-kyr cycle SST and productivity changes in the eastern Angola Basin lag those in the equatorial Atlantic and at the Walvis Ridge by about 3500 years. This lag is explained by variations in cross-equatorial surface water transport and west-east countercurrent return flow modifying precessional variations of SST and productivity in the eastern Angola Basin relative to those in the mid South Atlantic area under the central field of zonal trade winds. Sea level-related shifts of upwelling cells in phase with global climate change may be also recorded in SST and productivity variability along the continental margin off Southwest Africa. They may account for the delay of the paleoceanogreaphic signal from continental margin sites with respect to that from the pelagic sites at the equator and the Walvis Ridge.

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  1. Fachbereich Geowissenschafien, Universität Bremen, 28334, Bremen, Germany

    R. R. Schneider, P. J. Müller, G. Ruhland, G. Meinecke, H. Schmidt & G. Wefer

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  2. P. J. Müller
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Schneider, R.R., Müller, P.J., Ruhland, G., Meinecke, G., Schmidt, H., Wefer, G. (1996). Late Quaternary Surface Temperatures and Productivity in the East-Equatorial South Atlantic: Response to Changes in Trade/Monsoon Wind Forcing and Surface Water Advection. In: The South Atlantic. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-80353-6_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-80353-6_27

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