Holocene storminess reconstruction based on aeolian sand Influx measured along core F-02, Filsø, Western Denmark

• Main Authors: Goslin, Jérôme, Gałka, Mariusz, Sander, Lasse, Mokenbusch, Johannes, Thibault, Nicolas, Clemmensen, Lars B
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2019
• Subjects: Aeolian; flux; size fraction > 0.063 mm; size fraction > 0.125 mm; AGE; ASI; DEPTH; sediment/rock; F-02; Filso; Filsø; western Denmark; Holocene; Section; SEDCO; Sediment corer; sand; storminess; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.908550; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.908550

Disentangling the external and internal forcing responsible for the variability of the Earth's climate and associated extreme events over the Holocene is crucial for producing reliable scenarios of adaptation to the effects of ongoing climate change. At mid-latitudes, significant relationships between westerly storminess, solar activity and internal atmospheric and oceanic modes of variability have been repeatedly evidenced to exist over millennial and centennial time scales. However, at shorter (decadal) scale, it is still challenging to establish clear control links between the forcing mechanisms and the spatio-temporal variability of past extra-tropical storms. This probably owes to the existence of complex multi-scale relationships and feedback loops, as well as to the difficulty of producing proxy-records of sufficiently high-resolution and wide spatial significance. Here we present a reconstruction of westerly storminess in western Denmark between 4840 and 2300 yrs. cal. B·P. Past-storminess is retrieved from an organic-rich sedimentary succession by combining markers of aeolian sand influx, μ-XRF geochemistry and plant macrofossils. Particular focus is paid to the c. 4840–4350 yrs. cal. B·P. period for which our record is characterized by a pluri-annual resolution. We evidence concurrent pluri-decadal shifts in storminess and humidity regime at our site that we interpret as relocations of the mean westerly storm-track over the North-Atlantic. The signal is dominated by ≈ 90, ≈ 50–80 and ≈ 35-yr periods, evoking possible links with solar activity, the North-Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) modes of variability, respectively. The ≈ 35-yr periodicity found in our record is especially strong and stationary, suggesting that storminess could have been closely linked with the AMOC over the study period. Our records of storminess indeed show some great similarities with a record of deep overflow of a branch of the ...