Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:34:06.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

North Atlantic Climate–Ocean Variations and Sea Level in Long Island Sound, Connecticut, Since 500 cal yr A.D.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Orson van de Plassche*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract

A record of detrended mean high water (MHW) variations from Hammock River marsh, Connecticut, is extended from ca. 850 to ca. 500 cal yr A.D. and correlated with summer-temperature reconstructions from northern Fennoscandia and northern Eurasia, Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 δ18O, and Greenland Ice Core Project borehole-temperature variations from central Greenland, a Sargasso Sea sea-surface temperature (SST) record, and a proxy record for deep-ocean flow south of Iceland. The records from northern Fennoscandia/Eurasia and central Greenland document century-scale intervals of warming (four) and cooling (three) since ca A.D. 850. The MHW fluctuations lag behind these climate intervals by 0–100 yr, with the two larger MHW rises corresponding to the two larger temperature increases. This positive correlation suggests that surface air temperature (SAT) is a dominant variable controlling sea level in the northwestern North Atlantic since ca. A.D. 850. The SST variations parallel the MHW fluctuations back to ca. 950 cal yr A.D. A positive correlation is found also for (sub)century-scale SAT and MHW variations during the period A.D. 500–850, but this result is less firm. MHW–SST correlation over this time interval is not consistent.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bianchi, G.G., McCave, I., (1999). Holocene periodicity in North Atlantic climate and deep-ocean flow south of Iceland. Nature 397, 515517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., (1992). “Little Ice Age” summer temperature variations: Their nature and relevance to recent global warming trends. The Holocene 3, 367376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briffa, K.R., Osborn, T.J., (1999). Seeing the wood from the trees. Science 284, 926927.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briffa, K.R., Jones, P.D., Bartholin, T.S., Eckstein, D., Schweingruber, F.H., Karlen, W., Zetterberg, P., Eronen, M., (1992). Fennoscandian summers from AD 500; Temperature changes on short and long time scales. Climate Dynamics 7, 111119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briffa, K. R, Baillie, M. K. L, Bartholin, T, Bonde, N., et al., in press,Analysis of dendrochronological variability and associated natural climates in Eurasia—The last 10,000 years (ADVANCE-10K). In, Proceedings of the European Climate Science Conference, Vienna, October(1998). Google Scholar
Dahl-Jensen, D., Mosegaard, K., Gundestrup, N., Clow, G.D., Johnsen, S.J., Hansen, A.W., Balling, N., (1998). Past temperatures directly from the Greenland Ice Sheet. Science 282, 268271.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ezer, T., Mellor, G.L., Greatbatch, R.J., (1995). On the interpentadal variability of the North Atlantic Ocean: Model simulated changes in transport, meridional heat flux and coastal sea level between 1955–1959 and 1970–1974. Journal of Geophysical Research 96, 1055910566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, P.D., Briffa, K.R., Barnett, T.P., Tett, S.F.B., (1998). High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: Interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures. The Holocene 8, 455471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jouzel, J., Alley, R.B., Cuffey, K.M., (1997). Validity of the temperature reconstruction from water isotopes in ice cores. Journal of Geophysical Research 102, 26,47126,487.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keigwin, L.D., (1996). The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea. Science 274, 15041508.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noble, M.A., Gelfenbaum, G.R., (1992). Seasonal fluctuations in sea level on the South Carolina shelf and their relationship to the Gulf Stream. Journal of Geophysical Research 97, 95219529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunn, P.D., (1998). Sea-level changes over the past 1,000 years in the Pacific. Journal of Coastal Research 14, 2330.Google Scholar
Nydick, K.R., Bidwell, A.B., Thomas, E., Varekamp, J.C., (1995). A sea-level rise curve from Guilford, Connecticut, USA. Marine Geology 124, 137159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peltier, W.R., (1998). Postglacial variations in the level of the sea: Implications for climate dynamics and solid-earth geophysics. Reviews of Geophysics 36, 603689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M., Pearson, G.W., (1993). High precision bidecadal calibration of the radiocarbon time scale, AD 1950–500 BC and 2500–6000 BC. Radiocarbon 35, 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M., Grootes, P.M., Braziunas, T.F., (1995). The GISP2 δ18O climate record of the past 16,500 years and the role of the sun, ocean, and volcanoes. Quaternary Research 44, 341354.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, E., Varekamp, J.C., (1991). Paleo-environmental analyses of marsh sequences (Clinton, Connecticut): Evidence for punctuated rise in relative sea level during the latest Holocene. Journal of Coastal Research 11, 125158.Google Scholar
Thompson, W., Kreulen, B., Tobey, E., Thomas, E., Varekamp, J.C., (1997). The Farm River Marsh, CT: Evolution and pollution. EOS, Transactions 78, .Google Scholar
van de Plassche, O., (1991). Late Holocene sea-level fluctuations on the shore of Connecticut inferred from transgressive and regressive overlap boundaries in salt-marsh deposits. Journal of Coastal Research 11, 159180.Google Scholar
van de Plassche, O., (1995). The "Coastal Records" (CORE) project. In "Agglutinated Foraminifera as Indicators of Salt Marsh Development in Relation to Late Holocene Sea Level Rise (Great Marshes at Barnstable, Massachusetts),". de Rijk, S., published Ph.D. dissertation, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam., pp. 173178.Google Scholar
van de Plassche, O., van der Borg, K., de Jong, A.F.M., (1998). Sea level–climate correlation during the past 1400 yr. Geology 26, 319322.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van de Plassche, O., van der Borg, K., de Jong, A.F.M., (1998). A correction. Geology 26, 672.Google Scholar
van de Plassche, O., van der Borg, K., de Jong, A.F.M., (1999). Sea level–climate correlation during the past 1400 years: Reply. Geology 27, 190.Google Scholar
Varekamp, J.C., Thomas, E., Thompson, W.G., (1999). Sea level–climate correlation during the past 1400 yr: Comment. Geology 27, 189190.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varekamp, J.C., Thomas, E., van de Plassche, O., (1992). Relative sea-level rise and climate change over the last 1500 years. Terra Nova 4, 293304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar