Stable oxygen isotope composition of benthic foraminifera from sediments of the Skagerrak, North Sea

DOI

Benthic foraminiferal tests of a sediment core from southwestern Skagerrak (northeastern North Sea, 420 m water depth) were investigated for their ratio of stable oxygen isotopes. During modern times sudden drops in temperature and salinity of Skagerrak deep waters point to advection-induced cascades of colder and denser central North Sea waters entering the Skagerrak. These temperature drops, which are recorded in benthic foraminiferal tests via the stable oxygen isotopic composition, were used to reconstruct deep-water renewal in the Skagerrak. In a second step we will show that, at least during the last 1200 years, Skagerrak deep-water renewal is triggered by the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). The NAO exerts a strong influence on the climate of northwestern Europe. It is currently under debate if the long-term variability of the NAO is capable of influencing Northern Hemisphere climate on long timescales. The data presented here cannot reinforce these speculations. Our data show that most of the 'Little Ice Age' was dominated by comparably warm deep-water temperatures. However, we did find extraordinary strong temperature differences between central North Sea waters and North Atlantic water masses during this time interval.

Project: Integrated Baltic Sea Environmental Study (IBSEN); funded by German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Supplement to: Brückner, Sylvia; Mackensen, Andreas (2006): Deep-water renewal in the Skagerrak during the last 1200 years triggered by the North Atlantic Oscillation: evidence from benthic foraminiferal d18O. The Holocene, 16(3), 331-340

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.676724
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1191/0959683605hl931rp
Metadata Access https://ws.pangaea.de/oai/provider?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=datacite4&identifier=oai:pangaea.de:doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.676724
Provenance
Creator Brückner, Sylvia; Mackensen, Andreas ORCID logo
Publisher PANGAEA
Publication Year 2006
Rights Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
OpenAccess true
Representation
Language English
Resource Type Supplementary Publication Series of Datasets; Collection
Format application/zip
Size 2 datasets
Discipline Earth System Research
Spatial Coverage (8.709 LON, 57.841 LAT); Skagerrak