Millennial-scale latitudinal shifts of the Southern Westerlies during the last glacial

Abstract

To reconstruct the latitudinal shifts of Southern Westerlies during the last glacial, we examined compositional changes of marine sediment cores (MR16-09, PC2), obtained from coastal southern Chile. The obtained elemental compositions show periodic (millennial-scale) increase in potassium (K) and decrease in titanium (Ti) contents. K contents likely reflects the increased precipitation due to the equatorward shift of Southern Westerlies around the core site during Antarctic cold intervals. Several lines of evidence suggest that equatorward/poleward shifts of Southern Westerlies and weakening/strengthening of Antarctic Circumpolar Current likely occurred simultaneously in response to the Antarctic colder/warmer episodes during the last glacial.