Late Quaternary paleoclimatology and paleooceanography of the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay: an alternative viewpoint

Previous interpretations of Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay sediment cores were hampered by failure to recognize that the presence of small (62–149 μm) specimens of 'subpolar' planktic foraminifera in high-latitude marine sediments is primarily a function of the geochemistry of the water column and/or sediments rather than an indicator of environmental conditions in overlying surface waters. Assuming this rationale is correct, foraminiferal data from core HU75–42 indicate that surface conditions in the Labrador Sea were characterized by polar waters, with probable year-round sea-ice cover, throughout most of the period from isotope stage 5a to Termination I. The single exception to this sustained cold history for the eastern Labrador Sea was a transient pulse that apparently brought relatively warm, subpolar waters to the eastern Labrador Sea for a short (probably < 600 years) interval at the isotope stage 5a/4 transition.