Collaborative research: Construction of a continuous, high resolution and absolutely-dated marine chronology from the Gulf of Maine during the last millennium

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Reconstructing and understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of late Holocene climate variability remains a fundamental challenge in paleoclimatology, particularly with respect to coupled systems such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Records with absolute chronologies on annual or better timescales have offered the most robust data for quantitative climate reconstructions, however such records are generally limited to terrestrial regions or the tropical oceans. This collaborative research between scientists from Iowa State University and the University of Maine uses sclerochronological analysis of the growth increments of the long-lived bivalve Arctica islandica to generate annually resolved records of temperature in the Gulf of Maine covering the last 1000 years. The PIs explore the specific relationship among the NAO mode, NAO extremes, seawater temperature, and shell growth rate and chemistry, as well as the response of the ocean-climate system in the Gulf of Maine to rapid climate changes during the last millennium. The results from this research shed light on climate change in a region that will affect large populations in the 21st century. Graduate and undergraduate students are participating in the research, and the PIs are working with a variety of regional research centers to interactive displays highlighting the research.