The Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period in the Sargasso Sea
Lloyd D. Keigwin
Sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and flux of
terrigenous material oscillated on millennial time scales in the
Pleistocene North Atlantic, but there are few records of Holocene
variability. Because of high rates of sediment accumulation, Holocene
oscillations are well documented in the northern Sargasso Sea. Results
from a radiocarbon-dated box core show that SST was
1°C cooler
than today
400 years ago (the Little Ice Age) and 1700 years ago, and
1°C warmer than today 1000 years ago (the Medieval Warm
Period). Thus, at least some of the warming since the Little Ice Age
appears to be part of a natural oscillation.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA.