The Impact of the Little Ice Age on Coccolithophores in the Central Mediterranea Sea

The Little Ice Age (LIA) is the last episode of
a series of Holocene climatic anomalies. There is still little
knowledge on the response of the marine environment to
the pronounced cooling of the LIA and to the transition towards
the 20th century global warming. Here we present
decadal-scale coccolithophore data from four short cores recovered
from the central Mediterranean Sea (northern Sicily
Channel and Tyrrhenian Sea), which on the basis of 210Pb
activity span the last 200-350 years. The lowermost part
of the record of one of the cores from the Sicily Channel,
Station 407, which extends down to 1650 AD, is characterized
by drastic changes in productivity. Specifically, below
1850 AD, the decrease in abundance of F. profunda and the
increase of placoliths, suggest increased productivity. The
chronology of this change is related to the main phase of
the Little Ice Age, which might have impacted the hydrography
of the southern coast of Sicily and promoted vertical
mixing in the water column. The comparison with climatic
forcings points out the importance of stronger and prolonged
northerly winds, together with decreased solar irradiance.