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No freshwater-filled glacial Arctic Ocean

Nature volume 602, pages E1–E3 (2022)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 02 February 2022

The Original Article was published on 03 February 2021

arising from W. Geibert et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03186-y (2021)

The Arctic Ocean is surrounded largely by continents, and the Fram Strait (sill depth 2,500 m) is the only deep connection to the Nordic Seas and further south to the North Atlantic across the Greenland–Scotland Ridge (sill depth approximately 950 m). This configuration strongly limits water exchange with the other world oceans, in particular in glacials when other shallower straits are closed. Based on 230Th and 10Be concentration profiles of sediment cores from the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas deep basins, Geibert et al.1 claim that during two previous glacial episodes, the connections were blocked by an approximately 1-km-thick ice shelf with only freshwater underneath. Here we put forward several strong arguments that contradict this interpretation and render it unlikely that the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas were filled by freshwater during the intervals discussed.

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Fig. 1: Bathymetric map of the Nordic Seas.
Fig. 2: Published stable oxygen isotope records from Fram Strait and the Nordic Seas sediment cores6,11,13,14.

Data availability

All data shown in this contribution have been published previously and are fully referenced.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel, Germany

    Robert F. Spielhagen, Henning A. Bauch & Anton Eisenhauer

  2. Institute for Geosciences, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany

    Jan C. Scholten

  3. Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Henning A. Bauch

Authors
  1. Robert F. Spielhagen
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  2. Jan C. Scholten
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  3. Henning A. Bauch
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  4. Anton Eisenhauer
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Contributions

R.F.S. initiated the project. R.F.S. and J.C.S. collected the data from published sources and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to data interpretation and to refining the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Robert F. Spielhagen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Figs. 1–3 and refs. 1–20. Supplementary Fig. 1 shows a simplified cross section over the Arctic Ocean and the Nordic Seas and consequences of the decay of a thick ice sheet covering this area. Supplementary Fig. 2 shows a map of the northern North Atlantic with core locations. Supplementary Fig. 3 shows oxygen isotope records of cores in the North Atlantic.

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Spielhagen, R.F., Scholten, J.C., Bauch, H.A. et al. No freshwater-filled glacial Arctic Ocean. Nature 602, E1–E3 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04089-8

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