The Southern Ocean is perhaps the only region where fluctuations in the global influence of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) can be monitored unambiguously in single deep-sea cores. A carbon isotope record from benthic foraminifera in a Southern Ocean core reveals large and rapid changes in the flux of NADW during the last deglaciation, and an abrupt increase in the NADW production rate which immediately preceded large-scale melting of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. This sudden strengthening of the NADW thermoha-line cell provides strong evidence for the importance of NADW in glacial-interglacial climate change.

Supplement to: Charles, Christopher D; Fairbanks, Richard G (1992): Evidence from Southern Ocean sediments for effects of North Atlantic deepwater flux on climate. Nature, 355(6359), 416-419