First Annually Resolved Marine Temperature Series For The Last 1000 Years From The North Atlantic

There remain very few high-resolution records of marine climate variability covering the last 1000 years; annually-resolved series have hitherto been confined to coral archives from the low latitude oceans and do not cover the full millennium. We have constructed a 1357-year crossdated sclerochronology based on annual growth increments in the long-lived bivalve mollusc Arctica islandica, collected by dredge from the temperate North Atlantic (Grimsey, North Icelandic shelf, 80 m water depth; Butler et al. 2013). We present here annual- to sub-annually-resolved oxygen isotope data from the last 1000 years of this absolute chronology. Radiocarbon analysis of the series demonstrates variability in the marine reservoir effect (ΔR) controlled by Atlantic vs. Arctic water masses (Irminger Current, East Icelandic Current) with enhanced ingress of Irminger Current water during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and since AD 1900; the Little Ice Age is conversely characterized by Arctic water masses (Wanamaker et al. 2012). We use the ΔR variability to correct for the isotopic content of seawater (δ18Ow) and hence convert δ18Oshell to seawater temperature at 80m, a calibration supported by comparison with instrumental series. This reveals the evolution of North Atlantic seawater temperatures over the last 1000 years in unprecedented detail and provides a basis for the comparison of marine with terrestrial series at the same resolution for the first time.