Heinrich events: hydrological impact

The hydrological impact of the massive iceberg discharges during Heinrich events has been quantified for Heinrich 4 about 37 kyr ago. This event took place in a context of relatively stable orbital forcing and global ice volume. In this article, we propose to quantify the hydrological impact of the Heinrich event 1 which occurred at about 16 kyr BP. This time period is particularly interesting because orbital forcing was strong and it marks the onset of the last deglaciation. The results obtained here show that Heinrich event 1 has a larger isotopic amplitude than Heinrich event 4 when considering the cores located near the melting source. Concerning surface circulation, the northward progression of the North Atlantic Drift is affected only by Heinrich event 4, possibly because of the latitudinal extension of the melting area during this event. To cite this article: E. Cortijo et al., C. R. Geoscience 337 (2005).