Utenlandsstipend application for Kari Sire Berner

Berner is invited by Dr. J. McManus to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) to colloborate with them on their ongoing research on changes in the strength of Holocene ocean circulation. Berner´s project aims at reconstructing both short and long term trends in the natural climate during the Holocene that can not be monitored by instrumental data. Main task of the project is to reconstruct Holocene SSTs utilizing diatoms by help of quantitative statistical methods from a number of selected sites. The s tudy focuses on assessment of the Holocene climate development and the natural variability of the North Atlantic Drift and the Norwegian Atlantic Current which play a key-role in the climate of Norway. Therefore, we have chosen 3 sites that lie under thes e current systems; LO14 from the Reykjanes Ridge, MD952011 from the Voring Plateau and a site north of the Faeroys. Holocene records, focussing on the time intervals of the last 1000 years and the Holocene Climate Optimum (HCO) with decadal resolution, wi ll be generated. This is to assess whether climate displays a different character in variability during a warm HCO period versus the cooler last 1000 years, as contribution to the NORPAST2 and PACLIVA projects. We will also provide quantitative SST recons tructions for the Younger Dryas/Holocene transition, Neoglaciation transition and the transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age for estimation of changes in the Meridional Ocean Circulation during these abrupt transitions within NoCli m2 Module B. The purpose of the stay at WHOI for Berner is: to discuss the sedimentology and chronology of core LO14, to present her results from LO14 and MD952011 to colleagues at WHO, to put her own results in context of the benthic and planktonic foram inifera assemblage and isotope based results from Reykjanes Ridge which the colleagues at WHOI are generating and to start a colloborative multi-proxy manuscript with colleagues from WHOI.