Henning Bauch (GEOMAR): 'The impact of glacial boundary conditions on interglacial climate development'

Abstract: Marine sediment cores from the North Atlantic (mid-latitude to the Arctic) provide ample evidence for large-scale waxing and waning activities of Pleistocene ice sheets during past glaciations. These marine data of iceberg discharge rates in combination with marine oxygen isotope and faunal data, therefore, point to significant temporal changes in ice-sheet coverage (and volume) over the abounding continents. And indeed, comparing reconstructions when North Eurasian ice sheets expanded to their largest size there seems to be a good match between, for instance, the last versus the penultimate glacial maximum (Weichselian vs. Saalian). This study explores the causes for different ice-sheet size history and then elaborates on the consequences that arose after the onset of deglaciations, and which determined the timing and further development of environmental conditions during the ensuing peak interglacials.