David A Hodell, Fatima F Abrantes, C. A. Alvarez Zarikian, Timothy D. Herbert, Mengyao Du, Simon J Crowhurst, Maryline J. Vautravers, James Rolfe, X. Chen, Hannah L. Brooks, William Clark, Louise F.B. Dauchy-Tric, Viviane Aline dos Santos Rocha, José‐Abel Flores, Sophia K. V. Hines, Huai‐Hsuan May Huang, Hisashi Ikeda, Stefanie Kaboth‐Bahr, Junichiro Kuroda, Jasmin M. Link, Jerry McManus, Bryce Mitsunaga, Lucien Nana Yobo, C.T. Pallone, Xiaolei Pang, Marion Y. Peral, Emı́lia Salgueiro, Saray Sanchez, Komal Verma, Jiawang Wu, Chuang Xuan, Jimin Yu, Lauren Haygood, Diederik Liebrand, Vitor Magalhães, Monserrat Alonso-Garcia, Mónica Duque-Castaño, Fernanda Ferreira, Mafalda Duarte Freitas, Lívia G.M.S. Cordeiro, I. Gil, María González-Martín, Ana Lopes, C. Lopes, Vasiliki Margari, Laura Martín-García, Lélia Matos, Aline Mega, Giulia Molina, Filipa Naughton, Dulce Oliveira, Andreia Rebotim, Teresa Rodrigues, André Santana, Raúl Trejos-Tamayo, Polychronis C. Tzedakis
The Quaternary Period (the past 2.58 million years) was characterized by the waxing and waning of large ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere. Using sediment sequences from the Iberian Margin, we have demonstrated that expansion of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets around 2.7 million years ago was accompanied by the emergence of millennial climate variability (MCV) during glacial periods. The onset of MCV at ~2.7 million years ago was heralded by isolated precursor events, followed by multiple millennial climate oscillations at ~2.5 million years ago. These events coincided with deposition of ice-rafted detritus in the North Atlantic, suggesting a role for marine-terminating ice sheets. Once established, MCV became an intrinsic feature of glacial climates of the Quaternary. Our findings underscore the profound impact Northern Hemisphere glaciation had on climate variability across multiple timescales.