Deglacial-Holocene variability in sea ice, primary productivity, and sea-level change in the Pacific-Arctic gateway area

• Main Authors: Stein, Rüdiger, Meheust, Marie, Manurung, Adelina, Schade, Inka, Fahl, Kirsten, Niessen, Frank, Nam, Seung-Ill
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Bering Sea; Chukchi; Climate change; Pacific Arctic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/33654/; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.42021

Sea-ice is an essential component of the global climate system and, especially, the Polar Oceans. An alarming decrease in term of sea-ice concentration, thickness and duration, has been observed in the Arctic Ocean and its marginal seas over the last 30 years. Thus, understanding the processes controlling modern sea-ice variability and reconstructing paleo-sea-ice extent and variability in polar regions have become of great interest for the international scientific community during the last years. Here, we present new proxy records from the Chukchi-Bering Sea area - including organic geochemical bulk parameters, specific biomarkers (IP25, sterols, alkenones), biogenic opal, etc. - that give new insight into the sea-ice variability and related changes in sea-surface temperatures, primary productivity, sea-level change, and terrigenous input during deglacial-Holocene times. Such high-resolution proxy records representing natural climate variability in the past on time scales going back in time beyond the period of direct measurements and observations, might be used to test the reliability of climate models for forecasting future climate change.