A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa
The southern Cape coastal region is important for understanding both the behavioural history of modern humans, and regional and global climate dynamics, because it boasts a long archaeological record and occupies a key geographical location near the intersection of two major oceans. The western boun...
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Elsevier
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44312/ |
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| author | Loftus, Emma Sealy, J. Leng, Melanie J. Lee-Thorp, J.A. |
| author_facet | Loftus, Emma Sealy, J. Leng, Melanie J. Lee-Thorp, J.A. |
| author_sort | Loftus, Emma |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | The southern Cape coastal region is important for understanding both the behavioural history of modern humans, and regional and global climate dynamics, because it boasts a long archaeological record and occupies a key geographical location near the intersection of two major oceans. The western boundary Agulhas Current, implicated in global heat exchange dynamics, is an important modulator of southern African climates and yet we understand its past behaviour only broadly as the Current itself scours the coastal shelf and marine sediment core records necessarily provide little detail. Numerous archaeological sites from both the late Pleistocene and Holocene provide the opportunity for reconstruction of near-shore seasonal SST records, which respond both to localized wind-driven upwellings and Agulhas temperature shifts, corresponding in turn with terrestrial precipitation trends in the near-coastal and summer rainfall regions. Here we present a record of seasonal SSTs extending over MIS5, MIS4, and the Holocene, from serial δ18O measurements of a single gastropod species, Turbo sarmaticus. The results show that mean SST shifts accord well with global SST trends, although they are larger than those recorded in the Agulhas Current from coarser-scale marine sediment records. Comparison with a record of Antarctic sea-ice suggests that annual SST amplitude responds to Antarctic sea-ice extent, reflecting the positioning of the regional wind systems that drive upwelling dynamics along the coast. Thus, near-shore SST seasonality reflects the relative dominance of the westerly and easterly wind systems. These data provide a new climate archive for an important but understudied climate system. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:55:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-44312 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:55:07Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-443122020-05-04T19:03:26Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44312/ A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa Loftus, Emma Sealy, J. Leng, Melanie J. Lee-Thorp, J.A. The southern Cape coastal region is important for understanding both the behavioural history of modern humans, and regional and global climate dynamics, because it boasts a long archaeological record and occupies a key geographical location near the intersection of two major oceans. The western boundary Agulhas Current, implicated in global heat exchange dynamics, is an important modulator of southern African climates and yet we understand its past behaviour only broadly as the Current itself scours the coastal shelf and marine sediment core records necessarily provide little detail. Numerous archaeological sites from both the late Pleistocene and Holocene provide the opportunity for reconstruction of near-shore seasonal SST records, which respond both to localized wind-driven upwellings and Agulhas temperature shifts, corresponding in turn with terrestrial precipitation trends in the near-coastal and summer rainfall regions. Here we present a record of seasonal SSTs extending over MIS5, MIS4, and the Holocene, from serial δ18O measurements of a single gastropod species, Turbo sarmaticus. The results show that mean SST shifts accord well with global SST trends, although they are larger than those recorded in the Agulhas Current from coarser-scale marine sediment records. Comparison with a record of Antarctic sea-ice suggests that annual SST amplitude responds to Antarctic sea-ice extent, reflecting the positioning of the regional wind systems that drive upwelling dynamics along the coast. Thus, near-shore SST seasonality reflects the relative dominance of the westerly and easterly wind systems. These data provide a new climate archive for an important but understudied climate system. Elsevier 2017-09-01 Article PeerReviewed Loftus, Emma, Sealy, J., Leng, Melanie J. and Lee-Thorp, J.A. (2017) A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews, 171 . pp. 73-84. ISSN 1873-457X Late Pleistocene; Holocene; Palaeoclimatology; Southern Africa; Agulhas Current; Oxygen isotopes; Mollusc shells; Westerly winds http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116306242 doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.07.003 doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.07.003 |
| spellingShingle | Late Pleistocene; Holocene; Palaeoclimatology; Southern Africa; Agulhas Current; Oxygen isotopes; Mollusc shells; Westerly winds Loftus, Emma Sealy, J. Leng, Melanie J. Lee-Thorp, J.A. A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa |
| title | A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa |
| title_full | A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa |
| title_fullStr | A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa |
| title_short | A late Quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern Africa |
| title_sort | late quaternary record of seasonal sea surface temperatures off southern africa |
| topic | Late Pleistocene; Holocene; Palaeoclimatology; Southern Africa; Agulhas Current; Oxygen isotopes; Mollusc shells; Westerly winds |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44312/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44312/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/44312/ |