The impact of the Little ice age on coccolithophores in the central Mediterranea Sea
Incarbona, Alessandro (Università degli Studi di Palermo. Dipartimento di Geologia e Geodesia)
Ziveri, Patrizia (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Biologia Animal, de Biologia Vegetal i d'Ecologia)
Di Stefano, Enrico (Università degli Studi di Palermo. Dipartimento di Geologia e Geodesia)
Lirer, Fabrizio (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Mortyn, P. Graham (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)
Patti, Bernardo (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Pelosi, Nicola (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Sprovieri, Mario (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Tranchida, Giorgio (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Vallefuoco, Mattia (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Albertazzi, Sonia (Istituto Scienze Marine. Sezione di Geologia Marina)
Bellucci, Luca Giorgio (Istituto Scienze Marine. Sezione di Geologia Marina)
Bonanno, Angelo (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Bonomo, Sergio (Istituto di biomedicina e di immunologia molecolare "Alberto Monroy")
Censi, Paolo (Università degli Studi di Palermo. Dipartimento di Fisica e Chimica della Terra)
Ferraro, Luciana (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Giuliani, Silvia (Istituto Scienze Marine. Sezione di Geologia Marina)
Mazzola, Salvatore (Istituto per l'Ambiente Marino Costiero)
Sprovieri, R. (Università degli Studi di Palermo. Dipartimento di Geologia e Geodesia)

Date:	2010
Abstract:	The Little ice age (LIA) is the last episode of a series of Holocene climatic anomalies. There is still little knowledge on the response of the marine environment to the pronounced cooling of the LIA and to the transition towards the 20th century global warming. Here we present decadal-scale coccolithophore data from four short cores recovered from the central Mediterranean Sea (northern Sicily Channel and Tyrrhenian Sea), which on the basis of ²¹⁰Pb activity span the last 200-350 years. The lowermost part of the record of one of the cores from the Sicily Channel, Station 407, which extends down to 1650 AD, is characterized by drastic changes in productivity. Specifically, below 1850 AD, the decrease in abundance of F. profunda and the increase of placoliths, suggest increased productivity. The chronology of this change is related to the main phase of the Little Ice Age, which might have impacted the hydrography of the southern coast of Sicily and promoted vertical mixing in the water column. The comparison with climatic forcings points out the importance of stronger and prolonged northerly winds, together with decreased solar irradiance.
Grants:	European Commission 515871 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CTM2008-04365-E
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Coccolithophores ; Little ice age ; LIA ; Mediterranean Sea
Published in:	Climate of the past, Vol. 6 No. 6 (Dec. 2010) , p. 795-805, ISSN 1814-9324

DOI: 10.5194/cp-6-795-2010

12 p, 699.3 KB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles