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Polar temperatures during the Last Interglacial [LIG; ~129 to 116 thousand years (ka)] were warmer than today, making this time period an important testing ground to better understand how ice sheets respond to warming. However, it remains debated how much and when the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets changed during this period. Here, we present a combination of new and existing absolutely dated LIG sea-level observations from Britain, France, and Denmark. Because of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), the LIG Greenland ice melt contribution to sea-level change in this region is small, which allows us to constrain Antarctic ice change. We find that the Antarctic contribution to LIG global mean sea level peaked early in the interglacial (before 126 ka), with a maximum contribution of 5.7 m (50th percentile, 3.6 to 8.7 m central 68% probability) before declining. Our results support an asynchronous melt history over the LIG, with an early Antarctic contribution followed by later Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss. 

Abstract Over the last 3.3 million years, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) has undergone phases of ice sheet growth and decay, impacting sea level and climate globally. Presently, the largely marine‐terminating AIS loses mass primarily by iceberg calving and basal melt of ice shelves. Quantifying past rates and timing of AIS melt is vital to understanding future cryosphere and sea level changes. One proxy for past ice sheet instabilities is iceberg rafted debris (IRD) fluxes. However, traditional methods of IRD quantification are labor‐intensive. Here, we present a new method of identifying IRD grains in sediment core X‐ray images using a convolutional neural network machine learning algorithm. We present a 3.3‐million‐year record of AIS IRD melt events using sediment cores from International Ocean Discovery Program Sites U1536, U1537, and U1538 in the Southern Ocean's “Iceberg Alley.” We identify two increases in the IRD fluxes throughout this period, at ∼1.8 and 0.43 Ma. We propose that after 1.8 Ma, the AIS expanded and transitioned from a primarily terrestrial‐terminating to a primarily marine‐terminating ice sheet. Therefore, after 1.8 Ma, glacial terminations and AIS iceberg discharge are associated with variations in global ice volume, presumably through the mechanism of sea level and, therefore, grounding line change. The second AIS regime change occurs during the Mid‐Brunhes Event (∼0.43 Ma). After this time, there are heightened and continuous IRD fluxes at each glacial termination, indicating increased AIS size and instability after this time. 

Carbonate mud represents one of the most important geochemical archives for reconstructing ancient climatic, environmental, and evolutionary change from the rock record. Mud also represents a major sink in the global carbon cycle. Yet, there remains no consensus about how and where carbonate mud is formed. Here, we present stable isotope and trace-element data from carbonate constituents in the Bahamas, including ooids, corals, foraminifera, and algae. We use geochemical fingerprinting to demonstrate that carbonate mud cannot be sourced from the abrasion and mixture of any combination of these macroscopic grains. Instead, an inverse Bayesian mixing model requires the presence of an additional aragonite source. We posit that this source represents a direct seawater precipitate. We use geological and geochemical data to show that “whitings” are unlikely to be the dominant source of this precipitate and, instead, present a model for mud precipitation on the bank margins that can explain the geographical distribution, clumped-isotope thermometry, and stable isotope signature of carbonate mud. Next, we address the enigma of why mud and ooids are so abundant in the Bahamas, yet so rare in the rest of the world: Mediterranean outflow feeds the Bahamas with the most alkaline waters in the modern ocean (>99.7th-percentile). Such high alkalinity appears to be a prerequisite for the nonskeletal carbonate factory because, when Mediterranean outflow was reduced in the Miocene, Bahamian carbonate export ceased for 3-million-years. Finally, we show how shutting off and turning on the shallow carbonate factory can send ripples through the global climate system. 

During the last interglacial (LIG) period, global mean sea level (GMSL) was higher than at present, likely driven by greater high-latitude insolation. Past sea-level estimates require elevation measurements and age determination of marine sediments that formed at or near sea level, and those elevations must be corrected for glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). However, this GIA correction is subject to uncertainties in the GIA model inputs, namely, Earth’s rheology and past ice history, which reduces precision and accuracy in estimates of past GMSL. To better constrain the GIA process, we compare our data and existing LIG sea-level data across the Bahamian archipelago with a suite of 576 GIA model predictions. We calculated weights for each GIA model based on how well the model fits spatial trends in the regional sea-level data and then used the weighted GIA corrections to revise estimates of GMSL during the LIG. During the LIG, we find a 95% probability that global sea level peaked at least 1.2 m higher than today, and it is very unlikely (5% probability) to have exceeded 5.3 m. Estimates increase by up to 30% (decrease by up to 20%) for portions of melt that originate from the Greenland ice sheet (West Antarctic ice sheet). Altogether, this work suggests that LIG GMSL may be lower than previously assumed.