Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Antarctic Cold Reversal - Glacier Advance in Southern Middle-latitudes

As Antarctica was warming during the last deglaciation a return to colder conditions, the Antarctic Cold Reversal, occurred from about 14,540 to 12,760 BP, and the event is well documented in ice cores from Antarctic (Lemieux-Dudon, 2010), though how widely the cooling extended geographically across the Southern Hemisphere has been  uncertain (Broecker, 2003). In the study carried out by the authors'¹ they used ¹⁰B surface exposure ages from 2 sets of glacial moraines in the Southern Alps, New Zealand, to assess any association between glacier advance and the Antarctic Cold Reversal. The results of the study indicated that the glacier resurgence culminated at the peak of the Antarctic Cooling, 13,000 BP. When glacier retreat subsequently occurred in the Southern Alps it coincided with the warming of Antarctica. The conclusion reached by the authors¹ was that the deterioration of climate associated with the Antarctic Cold Reversal reached as far as the southern mid-latitudes of the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The authors¹ suggest that the extensive cooling resulted from the northward migration of the southern sub-tropical Front and the expansion to the north of the cold waters of the Southern Ocean.

Sources & Further reading

1. Putnam, Aaron E., George H. Denton, Joerg M. Schaefer, David J. A. Barrell, Bjorn G. Andersen, Robert C. Finkel, Roseanne Schwartz, et al. "Glacier Advance in Southern Middle-Latitudes During the Antarctic Cold Reversal." Nature Geosci 3, no. 10 (10//print 2010): 700-04.