Centennial-to-millennial-scale periodicities of Holocene climate and sediment injections off the western Barents shelf, 75°N

Abstract

At the western continental margin of the Barents Sea, 75°N, hemipelagic sediments provide a record of Holocene climate change with a time resolution of 10–70 years. Planktic foraminifera counts reveal a very early Holocene thermal optimum 10.7–7.7 kyr BP, with summer sea surface temperatures (SST) of 8°C and a much enhanced West Spitsbergen Current. There was a short cooling between 8.8 and 8.2 kyr BP. In the middle and late Holocene summer, SST dropped to 2.5°‐5.0°C, indicative of reduced Atlantic heat advection, except for two short warmings near 2.2 and 1.6 kyr BP. Distinct quasi‐periodic spikes of coarse sediment fraction (with large portions of lithic grains, benthic and planktic foraminifera) record cascades of cold, dense winter water down the continental slope as a result of enhanced seasonal sea ice formation and storminess on the Barents shelf over the entire Holocene. The spikes primarily cluster near recurrence intervals of 400–650 and 1000–1350 years, when traced over the entire Holocene, but follow significant 885–/840– and 505–/605‐year periodicities in the early Holocene. These non‐stationary periodicities mimic the Greenland‐10Be variability, which is a tracer of solar forcing. Further significant Holocene periodicities of 230, (145) and 93 years come close to the deVries and Gleissberg solar cycles.