Age determination and paleotemperatures of western Mediterranean Sea sediments ...

• Main Authors: Cacho, Isabel, Grimalt, Joan O, Canals, Miquel, Sbaffi, Laura, Shackleton, Nicholas J, Schönfeld, Joachim, Zahn, Rainer
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2001
• Subjects: Gravity corer; Gravity corer Kiel type; Calypso Corer; M39/1; MD101; Meteor 1986; Marion Dufresne 1995; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.735765; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.735765

Sea surface temperature (SST) profiles over the last 25 kyr derived from alkenone measurements are studied in four cores from a W-E latitudinal transect encompassing the Gulf of Cadiz (Atlantic Ocean), the Alboran Sea, and the southern Tyrrhenian Sea (western Mediterranean). The results document the sensitivity of the Mediterranean region to the short climatic changes of the North Atlantic Ocean, particularly those involving the latitudinal position of the polar front. The amplitude of the SST oscillations increases toward the Tyrrhenian Sea, indicating an amplification effect of the Atlantic signal by the climatic regime of the Mediterranean region. All studied cores show a shorter cooling phase (700 years) for the Younger Dryas (YD) than that observed in the North Atlantic region (1200 years). This time diachroneity is related to an intra-YD climatic change documented in the European continent. Minor oscillations in the southward displacement of the North Atlantic polar front may also have driven this ... : For akenone-derived Holocene sea-surface temperures of sediment core MD95-2043 see Cacho et al. (1999) datasets: doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.735759 ...