48 Warm Times/Cold Times: Holocene Climate Variability in the North Atlantic Region

Monday, 28 July 2003
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

HOLOCENE CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN ATLANTIC CANADA AND ADJACENT MAINE

Paper number: 48-4
Program: SYMPOSIA
Time: 8:50 AM – 9:10 AM

Authors

Abstract

Much of the study of millennial-scale Holocene climate change in the circum-North Atlantic has focussed on marine and ice core records. We present evidence from lake sediment cores for the Pre-boreal Oscillation in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Maine, and for the 8200 event in western Maine. High-resolution (10-15 cal yrs/sample) chironomid analyses across the 8200 event at two sites in Maine do not reveal any consistent temperature departures. Variance analyses of high-resolution loss-on-ignition data from two well-dated sites (each with 15 AMS radiocarbon dates) in western Maine reveal multiple periods of enhanced variability. For the higher elevation, more sensitive site, six broad variance maxima occur over the past 10,000 cal yrs with a mean spacing of 1426 +/- 315 cal yrs; variance maxima peaks at this site coincide with a North Atlantic marine core record of hematite-stained grains.