Dr. Anna Cruz from CSUB Geology was a co-author with international collaborators on a study published in the high-impact open-access journal Science Advances.
Neodymium isotope data from this study indicate that changes in climate variations between ~1.25 and 0.7 million years ago were not triggered by Northern Hemisphere processes, as was previously thought. Instead, the growth of Antarctic ice sheets to a critical size about 1.8 million years ago primed the climate system for this change. This iceberg- associated effect ultimately reduced deep water formation in the Northern Hemisphere. Once the change in climate cyclicity was initiated in the Southern Hemisphere, its subsequent climatic changes were dominated by Northern Hemisphere processes.
