Late Pleistocene-Holocene radiolarian paleotemperatures in the Norwegian Sea based on artificial neural networks

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were trained by using an extensive radiolarian census dataset from the Nordic (Greenland, Norwegian, and Iceland) Seas. The regressions between observed and predicted Summer Sea Temperature (SST) indicate that lower error margins and better correlation coefficients are obtained for 100 m (SST₁₀₀) compared to 10 m (SST₁₀) water depth, and by using a subset of species instead of all species. The trained ANNs were subsequently applied to radiolarian data from two Norwegian Sea cores, HM 79-4 and MD95-2011, for reconstructions of SSTs through the last 15,000 years. The reconstructed SST is quite high during the Bølling-Allerød, when it reaches values only found later during the warmest phase of the Holocene. The climatic transitions in and out of the Younger Dryas are very rapid and involve a change in SST₁₀₀ of 6.2 and 6.8 °C, taking place over 440 and 140 years, respectively. SST₁₀₀ remains at a maximum during the early Holocene, and this Radiolarian Holocene Optimum Temperature Interval (RHOTI) predates the commonly recognized middle Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO). During the 8.2 ka event, SST₁₀₀ decreases by ca. 3 °C, and this episode marks the establishment of a cooling trend, roughly spanning the middle Holocene (until ca. 4.2 ka). Successively, since then and through the late Holocene, SST₁₀₀ follows instead a statistically significant warming trend. The general patterns of the reconstructed SSTs agree quite well with previously obtained results based on application of Imbrie and Kipp Transfer Functions (IKTF) to the same two cores for SST₀. A statistically significant cyclic component of our SST record (period of 278 years) has been recognized. This is close to the de Vries or Suess cycle, linked to solar variability, and documented in a variety of other high-resolution Holocene records.