Variations in temperature and extent of Atlantic Water in the northern North Atlantic during the Holocene

Abstract

We compare six high-resolution Holocene, sediment cores along a S–N transect on the Norwegian–Svalbard continental margin from ca 60°N to 77.4°N, northern North Atlantic. Planktonic foraminifera in the cores were investigated to show the changes in upper surface and subsurface water mass distribution and properties, including summer sea-surface temperatures (SST). The cores are located below the axis of the Norwegian Current and the West Spitsbergen Current, which today transport warm Atlantic Water to the Arctic. Sediment accumulation rates are generally high at all the core sites, allowing for a temporal resolution of 10–102 years. SST is reconstructed using different types of transfer functions, resulting in very similar SST trends, with deviations of no more than ±1.0/1.5°C. A transfer function based on the maximum likelihood statistical approach is found to be most relevant. The reconstruction documents an abrupt change in planktonic foraminiferal faunal composition and an associated warming at the Younger Dryas–Preboreal transition. The earliest part of the Holocene was characterized by large temperature variability, including the Preboreal Oscillations and the 8.2k event. In general, the early Holocene was characterized by SSTs similar to those of today in the south and warmer than today in the north, and a smaller S–N temperature gradient (0.23°C/°N) compared to the present temperature gradient (0.46°C/°N). The southern proxy records (60–69°N) were more strongly influenced by slightly cooler subsurface water probably due to the seasonality of the orbital forcing and increased stratification due to freshening. The northern records (72–77.4°N) display a millennial-scale change associated with reduced insolation and a gradual weakening of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (THC). The observed northwards amplification of the early Holocene warming is comparable to the pattern of recent global warming and future climate modelling, which predicts greater warming at higher latitudes. The overall trend during mid and late Holocene was a cooling in the north, stable or weak warming in the south, and a maximum S–N SST gradient of ca 0.7°C/°N at 5000cal. years BP. Superimposed on this trend were several abrupt temperature shifts. Four of these shifts, dated to 9000–8000, 5500–3000 and 1000 and ∼400cal. years BP, appear to be global, as they correlate with periods of global climate change. In general, there is a good correlation between the northern North Atlantic temperature records and climate records from Norway and Svalbard.