Coherent High- and Low-Latitude Climate Variability During the Holocene Warm Period

A faunal record of sea-surface temperature (SST) variations off West Africa documents a series of abrupt, millennial-scale cooling events, which punctuated the Holocene warm period. These events evidently resulted from increased southward advection of cooler temperate or subpolar waters to this subt...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: deMenocal, Peter, Ortiz, Joseph, Guilderson, Tom, Sarnthein, Michael
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2000
Subjects:
Multidisciplinary
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.288.5474.2198
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.288.5474.2198
Description
Summary:A faunal record of sea-surface temperature (SST) variations off West Africa documents a series of abrupt, millennial-scale cooling events, which punctuated the Holocene warm period. These events evidently resulted from increased southward advection of cooler temperate or subpolar waters to this subtropical location or from enhanced regional upwelling. The most recent of these events was the Little Ice Age, which occurred between 1300 to 1850 A.D., when subtropical SSTs were reduced by 3° to 4°C. These events were synchronous with Holocene changes in subpolar North Atlantic SSTs, documenting a strong, in-phase link between millennial-scale variations in high- and low-latitude climate during the Holocene.

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