EARLY PREBOREAL COOLING IN THE NORDIC SEAS REGION TRIGGERED BY MELTWATER

At the Younger Dryas-Preboreal transition, a high-resolution core from the northeastern Norwegian Sea reveals a two-step warming of sea surf ace temperatures dated at respectively 10 200-10 000 and 9700-9500 C-1 4 yr B.P. (11450-11 350 and 11 150-11 000 cal. Sr B.P.). Warming was i nterrupted by a period having stable temperatures and a reduction in s ea surface salinity, and we suggest that this pause in warming was tri ggered by an increase in freshwater supply that mag have hampered the North Atlantic heat conveyor. The freshwater influx correlates to an a tmospheric cooling over both the Greenland ice sheet and northwest Eur ope and to cooling of surface temperatures in the Nordic seas. Freshwa ter may have been supplied from the waning Fennoscandian ice sheet.