Coherent high- and low-latitude climate variability during the holocene warm period

A faunal record of sea-surface temperature (SST) variations off West Africa documents a series of abrupt, millennial-scale cooling events, which punct uated the Holocene warm period. These events evidently resulted from increa sed southward advection of cooler temperate or subpolar waters to this subt ropical location or from enhanced regional upwelling. The most recent of th ese events was the Little Ice Age, which occurred between 1300 to 1850 A.D. , when subtropical SSTs were reduced by 3 degrees to 4 degrees C. These eve nts were synchronous with Holocene changes in subpolar North Atlantic SSTs, documenting a strong, in-phase link between millennial-scale variations in high- and Low-latitude climate during the Holocene.