Quaternary Science Reviews 21 (2002) 1917–1924 Rapid Communication Relation of subtropical Atlantic temperature, high-latitude ice rafting, deep water formation, and European climate 130,000–60,000 years ago Scott J. Lehman a, *, Julian P. Sachs b , Andrew M. Crotwell a , Lloyd. D. Keigwin c , Edward A. Boyle b a Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Campus Box 450, Boulder, CO 80309, USA b Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA c Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543, USA Received 22 February 2002; accepted 30 May 2002 Abstract A new, high-resolution record of sea surface temperature from the subtropical western North Atlantic documents a series of abrupt coolings within marine isotope stage 5 which can be objectively correlated with marine-core evidence for increased ice-sheet discharge at subpolar latitudes and reduced North Atlantic deep water formation. These results indicate that ice-sheet forcing of deep ocean circulation influenced surface temperatures over much of the North Atlantic. A proposed correlation to the pollen record of Grande Pile, France, indicates that each cold event seen in the pollen sequence has a unique counterpart in the record of subtropical ocean temperature. If this correlation is correct, it suggests that the warmest part of the European Eemian ended suddenly in response to oceanographic changes, and that the subsequent post-temperate phase of the Eemian extended well into the interval of ice sheet growth corresponding to marine isotope substage 5d. r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Despite longstanding interest in the climate of the last interglaciation, there are as yet few well-resolved, quantitative records of sea surface temperature (SST) spanning the interval in the open North Atlantic. Furthermore, prior studies have generally been re- stricted to subpolar latitudes where sites of rapid sediment accumulation are well known, and proxies of surface water conditions, ice sheet discharge, and deep circulation can be obtained from the same samples. But the presence of any associated temperature variations in the subtropics would be most significant—such a widespread change in the ocean surface boundary condition would be expected to influence terrestrial climate over a broad region, especially Europe. Here, we present a new SST record based on measurements of the alkenone unsaturation ratio (Brassell et al., 1986; Prahl and Wakeham, 1987) in sediments of the Bermuda Rise, a sediment drift in the subtropical western North Atlantic. The new record comprises 1100 SST determinations spanning the period 130,000–60,000 yr BP, and is an extension of the earlier paleo-temperature reconstruction of Sachs and Lehman (1999) for marine isotope stage (MIS) 3. 2. Materials and methods Core MD95-2036 (33141.444 0 N lat., 57134.548 0 W long.) was collected from 4462 m water depth on the Bermuda Rise. In the present study, we analyzed an approximately 12 m section of the 53 m long core corresponding to MIS 4 and 5 (from 4400 to 3200 cm). SSTs were determined in (mostly) adjacent 1 cm thick samples via the alkenone paleo-temperature tech- nique using methods described in Sachs and Lehman (1999) and the linear U k 0 37 -temperature regression re- lation for cultures of Emiliania huxleyi of Prahl et al. (1988). This relation (for which the temperature of synthesis is precisely known) is indistinguishable within *Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-303-492-8980. E-mail address: scott.lehman@colorado.edu (S.J. Lehman). 0277-3791/02/$ - see front matter r 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S0277-3791(02)00078-1