Significant Southern Hemisphere contribution to the Indonesian Throughflow over the last 800,000 years

Abstract

The low-latitude flow of water masses from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF), is a choke point of the surface ocean return flow of the ocean conveyor belt. Even though the significance of the ITF for the modern global ocean circulation and climate has long been established, little is known about the hemispheric origin of the water masses contributing to its overall transport in the past. Here, we take advantage of the distinctly different isotopic composition of subsurface nitrate in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere source waters to document the admixture of these waters in the ITF through time. Our record of bulk sedimentary delta 15N from the Banda Sea, at the heart of the ITF, shows that Southern Hemisphere-sourced subsurface waters contributed significantly to the total ITF transport during the last 800,000 years. Because Southern Ocean processes ultimately set the biogeochemical source signature of the Southern Hemisphere endmember, the Banda Sea record implies an important conduit by which high southern latitude climate and ocean variability is transmitted into the global ocean.