Diatom evidence of climatic change in Holsteinsborg Dyb, west of Greenland, during the last 1200 years

Abstract

Diatom assemblages from Holsteinsborg Dyb on the West Greenland shelf were analysed with high temporal resolution for the last 1200 years. A high degree of consistency between changes in frequency of selected diatom species and instrumental data from the same area during the last 70 years confirms the reliability of diatoms (particularly sea-ice species and warm-water species) for the study of palaeoceanographic changes in this area. A general cooling trend with some fluctuations is marked by an increase in sea-ice species throughout the last 1200 years. A relatively warm period with increased influence of Atlantic water masses of the Irminger Current (IC) is found at ad 750–1330, although with some oceanographic variability after ad 1000. A pronounced oceanographic shift occurred at ad 1330, corresponding in time to the transition from the so-called ‘Medieval Warm Period’ (MWP) to the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA). The LIA cold episode is characterized by three intervals with particularly cold sea-surface conditions at ad 1330–1350, ad 1400–1575 and ad 1660–1710 as a result of variable influence of Polar waters in the area. During the last 70 years, two relatively warm periods and one cold period (the early 1960s to mid-1990s) are indicated by changes in the diatom components. Our study demonstrates that sedimentary records on the West Greenland shelf provide valuable palaeoenvironment data that confirm a linkage between local and large-scale North Atlantic oceanographic and atmospheric oscillations.