SYNCHRONOUS CLIMATE CHANGES IN ANTARCTICA AND THE NORTH-ATLANTIC

Central Greenland ice cores provide evidence of abrupt changes in clim ate over the past 100,000 years. Many of these changes have also been identified in sedimentary and geochemical signatures in deep-sea sedim ent cores from the North Atlantic, confirming the Link between millenn ial-scale climate variability and ocean thermohaline circulation. It i s shown here that two of the mast prominent North Atlantic events-the rapid warming that marks the end of the Last glacial period and the Bo lling/Allerod-Younger Dryas oscillation-are also recorded in an ice co re from Taylor Dome, in the western Ross Sea sector of Antarctica. Thi s result contrasts with evidence from ice cores in other regions of An tarctica, which show an asynchronous response between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.