A palaeoclimatic and palaeoceanographic record of the last 11 000 14C years from the Skagerrak-Kattegat, northeastern Atlantic margin

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Abstract
Marine sediments of about 116 m drilled onshore at Skagen near the northernmost tip of Jutland, Denmark, provides a continuous and detailed palaeoceanographic and palaeoenvironmental record of the last 11 000 14C years in the Skagerrak-Kattegat. The whole Younger Dryas was characterized by an arctic-subarctic environment where the North Jutland Current flows today, instead of being succeeded by a minor climate warming at about 10 600 BP as recorded in the southern Kattegat and in the areas strongly influenced by the Baltic Current and currents along the Swedish west coast. The changes in components of diatom assemblages, combined with previously published benthic foraminiferal data from the present core, reflect a two-step climatic warming and consequently environmental change during the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Preboreal. An abrupt warming of the sea surface waters took place at about 10 100 BP, which resulted from the inflow of warm Atlantic surface water. Summer sea-surface temperature rose about 8°C. It had a great influence on the surface water of the Skagerrak-Kattegat and shallow areas, but had only little effect on the bottom water in the deep parts of the region. Warming of bottom water occurred a few hundred years after the first warming, and is most likely simultaneous with the end of the Preboreal oscillation. A warm period at 7700-5100 BP is registered by diatom assemblages that resulted from the opening of the English Channel because of eustatic sea-level rise, and by larger influence of the Norwegian Coastal Current and currents along the Swedish west coast. A climate cooling was documented at about 5100 BP by acceleration of the South Jutland Current.