A subtropical fate awaited freshwater discharged from glacial Lake Agassiz

摘要: [1] The 8.2 kyr event is the largest abrupt climatic change recorded in last 10,000 years, and widely hypothesized to have been triggered by release of thousands kilometers cubed freshwater into North Atlantic Ocean. Using a high-resolution (1/6°) global, ocean-ice circulation model we present an alternative view that discharged from glacial Lake Agassiz would remained on continental shelf as narrow, buoyant, coastal current, transported south subtropical Atlantic. The pathway describe contrast conceptual idea this lake outburst spread over most sub-polar Atlantic, covered deep, open-ocean, convection regions. This coastally confined consistent with present-day routing Hudson Bay, well paleoceanographic evidence event. coarse-resolution (2.6°) version same model, demonstrate previously reported spreading across results inability numerical models resolution accurately resolve narrow flows, producing instead diffuse advects away boundaries. To understand impact released past or future (e.g. Greenland Antarctica), ocean needs be modeled at sufficient dynamics buoyant flows.