Multidecadal to Centennial Scale Variability in the Surface Ocean of the Northern Gulf of Mexico over the Late Holocene

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With this award the PI will develop highly resolved records of mean annual surface temperature and d18O(water) variability from the Northern Gulf of Mexico over past 3000 years. The PI will document the magnitude and spatial character of variability, and explore the results in the context of previous work that has shown spectral peaks in geochemical and faunal variability linked to solar output. The proposed work will test several hypotheses: 1) that significant changes in mean annual sea surface temperature (SST) occurred in response to the Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Periods, 2) that mean annual SST approached modern levels several times over the study interval, and 3) that surface ocean variability in the Gulf of Mexico is linked to solar variability. Broader impacts include generation of records of natural climate variability on human timescales (i.e., the last few thousands years), and graduate and undergraduate involvement in research and fieldwork.