Sea surface temperature pattern reconstructions in the Arabian Sea
Citable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/913As published
https://doi.org/10.1029/2005PA001162DOI
10.1029/2005PA001162Keyword
Arabian Sea; Mg/Ca; Indian monsoonAbstract
Sea surface temperature (SST) and seawater δ18O (δ18Ow) were reconstructed in a suite of sediment cores from throughout the Arabian Sea for four distinct time intervals (0 ka, 8 ka, 15 ka, and 20 ka) with the aim of understanding the history of the Indian Monsoon and the climate of the Arabian Sea region. This was accomplished through the use of paired Mg/Ca and δ18O measurements of the planktonic foraminifer Globigerinoides ruber. By analyzing basin-wide changes and changes in cross-basinal gradients, we assess both monsoonal and regional-scale climate changes. SST was colder than present for the majority of sites within all three paleotime slices. Furthermore, both the Indian Monsoon and the regional Arabian Sea mean climate have varied substantially over the past 20 kyr. The 20 ka and 15 ka time slices exhibit average negative temperature anomalies of 2.5°–3.5°C attributable, in part, to the influences of glacial atmospheric CO2 concentrations and large continental ice sheets. The elimination of the cross-basinal SST gradient during these two time slices likely reflects a decrease in summer monsoon and an increase in winter monsoon strength. Changes in δ18Ow that are smaller than the δ18O signal due to global ice volume reflect decreased evaporation and increased winter monsoon mixing. SSTs throughout the Arabian Sea were still cooler than present by an average of 1.4°C in the 8 ka time slice. These cool SSTs, along with lower δ18Ow throughout the basin, are attributed to stronger than modern summer and winter monsoons and increased runoff and precipitation. The results of this study underscore the importance of taking a spatial approach to the reconstruction of processes such as monsoon upwelling.
Description
Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2006. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Paleoceanography 21 (2006): PA1014, doi:10.1029/2005PA001162.
Collections
Suggested Citation
Paleoceanography 21 (2006): PA1014Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Arabian Sea mixed layer dynamics experiment : mooring deployment cruise report R/V Thomas Thompson cruise number 46, 14 April-29 April 1995
Trask, Richard P.; Weller, Robert A.; Ostrom, William M. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1995-07)This report describes in a general manner the work that took place during the R/V Thomas Thompson cruise number 46 which was the mooring turnaround cruise for the moored array program. A detailed description of the WHOI ... -
Hydrographic data from the U. S. Naval Oceanographic Office : Persian Gulf, Southern Red Sea, and Arabian Sea, 1923-1996
Alessi, Carol A.; Hunt, Heather D.; Bower, Amy S. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 1999-04)Temperature-salinity-depth profile data were obtained for the Persian Gulf, Southern Red Sea and parts of the Arabian Sea from the Master Oceanographic Data Set (MOODS), located at the U. S. Naval Oceanographic Office ... -
The upper ocean response to the monsoon in the Arabian Sea
Fischer, Albert S. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, 2000-09)Estimation of the upper ocean heat budget from one year of observations at a moored array in the north central Arabian Sea shows a rough balance between the horizontal advection and time change in heat when the one-dimensional ...