ORCID

Abstract

The Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica’s largest by area, may face increased instability under future warming, threatening the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Understanding its past response to climate change is critical for anticipating future sea-level rise. We present a multi-proxy reconstruction of ocean and cryosphere conditions in the Ross Sea over the past 40,000 years. Our data show that warm Circumpolar Deep Water reached the JOIDES Trough in the western Ross Sea shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum, coinciding with the retreat of an ancestral ice shelf. This oceanic warming aligns with a southward shift of both the westerly and easterly wind belts, indicating a large-scale atmospheric mechanism driving regional ocean changes. The timing and nature of these processes reveal the tight coupling between atmospheric circulation, ocean heat transport, and ice shelf dynamics. These interactions led to reduced ice shelf extent, highlighting the role of ocean-atmosphere coupling in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean during deglaciation.

Publication Date

2025-06-27

Publication Title

Science advances

Volume

11

Issue

26

Acceptance Date

2025-05-23

Deposit Date

2026-01-05

Funding

We thank S. Moretti, P. Montagna, P. Giordano, L. Langone, and S. Miserocchi for productive discussions; the sorting center of the Italian national Antarctic Museum for providing the sedimentary material; R. Melis for cooperation during the sampling party; F. Adolphi and P. Bohleber for productive discussions regarding the age model construction; the technicians at Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany, which assisted during the analysis of the studied samples; and A.Gallerani and the institute of marine sciences (CnR-ISMAR) in Bologna, Italy, which hosted the subsampling of the studied core. t.t. and A.D.R. acknowledge funding by the Programma nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PnRA), grant nos. PnRA19_00018 and PnRA16_00055, respectively. G.M. acknowledges funding from the PAIGE programme (Chronologies for Polar Paleoclimate Archives Italian-German Partnership) funded by Helmholtz. t.t. acknowledges collaboration within the PAIGE framework Acknowledgments: We thank S. Moretti, P. Montagna, P. Giordano, l. langone, and S. Miserocchi for productive discussions; the sorting center of the italian national Antarctic Museum for providing the sedimentary material; R. Melis for cooperation during the sampling party; F. Adolphi and P. Bohleber for productive discussions regarding the age model construction; the technicians at Alfred Wegener institute (AWi), helmholtz centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany, which assisted during the analysis of the studied samples; and A.Gallerani and the institute of marine sciences (cnR-iSMAR) in Bologna, italy, which hosted the subsampling of the studied core. Funding: t.t. and A.d.R. acknowledge funding by the Programma nazionale di Ricerche in Antartide (PnRA), grant nos. PnRA19_00018 and PnRA16_00055, respectively. G.M. acknowledges funding from the PAiGe programme (chronologies for Polar Paleoclimate Archives italian-German Partnership) funded by helmholtz. t.t. acknowledges collaboration within the PAiGe framework. Author contributions: conceptualization: t.t., c.P., and S.t.B. investigation: c.P., t.t., l.c., F.G., A.d.R., and J.h. data curation: c.P. and t.t., Formal analysis: c.P., t.t., F.B., and F.M. Funding acquisition: t.t. Methodology: c.P., t.t., F.M., A.n., J.h., M.S., l.c., and A.G. Project administration: t.t. and A.d.R. Resources: c.P., t.t., G.M., l.c., F.G., A.d.R., and J.h. validation: c.P., t.t., and F.G. visualization: c.P., G.G., and l.c. Software: c.P. Supervision: t.t., G.M., c.P., F.G., and F.M. Writing—original draft: c.P. and t.t. Writing—review and editing: c.P., t.t., A.n., M.S., F.B., F.G., l.c., G.M., J.h., A.d.R., S.t.B., e.P., F.M., A.G., e.c., G.G., and F.t. Competing interests: the authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional datasets generated and analyzed in this study have been deposited in dryad and are available at https://doi. org/10.5061/dryad.rfj6q57mn.

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