Abstract
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) represents the world's largest ocean-current system and affects global ocean circulation, climate and Antarctic ice-sheet stability(1-3). Today, ACC dynamics are controlled by atmospheric forcing, oceanic density gradients and eddy activity(4). Whereas palaeoceanographic reconstructions exhibit regional heterogeneity in ACC position and strength over Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles(5-8), the long-term evolution of the ACC is poorly known. Here we document changes in ACC strength from sediment cores in the Pacific Southern Ocean. We find no linear long-term trend in ACC flow since 5.3 million years ago (Ma), in contrast to global cooling(9) and increasing global ice volume(10). Instead, we observe a reversal on a million-year timescale, from increasing ACC strength during Pliocene global cooling to a subsequent decrease with further Early Pleistocene cooling. This shift in the ACC regime coincided with a Southern Ocean reconfiguration that altered the sensitivity of the ACC to atmospheric and oceanic forcings(11-13). We find ACC strength changes to be closely linked to 400,000-year eccentricity cycles, probably originating from modulation of precessional changes in the South Pacific jet stream linked to tropical Pacific temperature variability(14). A persistent link between weaker ACC flow, equatorward-shifted opal deposition and reduced atmospheric CO(2) during glacial periods first emerged during the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). The strongest ACC flow occurred during warmer-than-present intervals of the Plio-Pleistocene, providing evidence of potentially increasing ACC flow with future climate warming.