Beschreibung: Disentangling the external and internal forcing responsible for the variability of the Earth's climate and associated extreme events over the Holocene is crucial for producing reliable scenarios of adaptation to the effects of ongoing climate change. At mid-latitudes, significant relationships between westerly storminess, solar activity and internal atmospheric and oceanic modes of variability have been repeatedly evidenced to exist over millennial and centennial time scales. However, at shorter (decadal) scale, it is still challenging to establish clear control links between the forcing mechanisms and the spatio-temporal variability of past extra-tropical storms. This probably owes to the existence of complex multi-scale relationships and feedback loops, as well as to the difficulty of producing proxy-records of sufficiently high-resolution and wide spatial significance. Here we present a reconstruction of westerly storminess in western Denmark between 4840 and 2300 yrs. cal. B·P. Past-storminess is retrieved from an organic-rich sedimentary succession by combining markers of aeolian sand influx, μ-XRF geochemistry and plant macrofossils. Particular focus is paid to the c. 4840–4350 yrs. cal. B·P. period for which our record is characterized by a pluri-annual resolution. We evidence concurrent pluri-decadal shifts in storminess and humidity regime at our site that we interpret as relocations of the mean westerly storm-track over the North-Atlantic. The signal is dominated by ≈ 90, ≈ 50–80 and ≈ 35-yr periods, evoking possible links with solar activity, the North-Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) modes of variability, respectively. The ≈ 35-yr periodicity found in our record is especially strong and stationary, suggesting that storminess could have been closely linked with the AMOC over the study period. Our records of storminess indeed show some great similarities with a record of deep overflow of a branch of the AMOC. Opposite to some model outputs, the strength of the AMOC seems to have often co-varied with storminess at pluri-decadal scales over the study period. We also find periods of high storminess activity to be significantly correlated with solar minima and relative pluri-decadal lows in the NAO. We suggest that small lowering in the strength of the NAO in an otherwise positive NAO context may have caused southward relocations of the mean westerly storm-track from subpolar latitudes to northern Europe. This invites to reconsider the importance given to using the NAO as a binary index. Finally, an attempt is made to explore the temporal lead-lag relationships between storminess and different potential forcing agents such as the Total Solar Irradiance, the NAO and the AMOC. Unfortunately, the insufficient chronological precision of the proxy-records available for the TSI, the NAO and the AMOC over the study period prevents us from deriving any robust interpretations regarding potential teleconnections at a decadal-scale between past north-Atlantic westerly storminess activity, solar forcing, the NAO and north-Atlantic surface and deep oceanic circulation.

Beschreibung: Raw data acquired by a thermosalinograph (SBE21, SeaBird GmbH) on board RV HEINCKE were processed to receive a calibrated and validated data set of seawater temperature and salinity. Data were downloaded from DAVIS SHIP data base (https://dship.awi.de) with a resolution of 1 sec. The SBE21 was equipped with an additional external temperature sensor (SBE38, Sea-Bird GmbH). Raw data are converted to temperature and conductivity values using the calibration coefficients from the calibration before deployment. However, data can only be finally processed after replacement and renewed calibration because correction values for the sensor drift can only be obtained by the post cruise calibration. The thermosalinograph on board RV HEINCKE is exchanged about once a year and calibration procedures are conducted after every exchange. Salinity was calculated according to the instructions from the Practical Salinity Scale PSS-78 using the obtained internal temperature and conductivity data. Processed data are provided as 1min means of salinity and seawater temperature aligned with position data taken from master track of the respective cruise. Quality flags are appended according to the SeaDataNet Data Quality Control Procedures (version from May 2010).

Beschreibung: Raw data acquired by an SBE21 thermosalinograph and an auxiliary SBE38 temperature sensor (Sea-Bird Scientific, USA) installed in an underway seawater flow-through system on board RV Heincke were processed to yield a calibrated and validated data set of seawater temperature and salinity along the cruise track. The seawater inlet is located at a depth of 2 m. The raw hexadecimal data were downloaded from the DAVIS SHIP data base (https://dship.awi.de) at a resolution of 1 s, and converted to temperature and conductivity using the pre-deployment factory calibration coefficients. The converted data were averaged to 1 min values, outliers were removed, and sensor drift was corrected using coefficients obtained from a post-season calibration performed at Sea-Bird at the end of the measurement season. Salinity was calculated from internal temperature, conductivity and pressure according to the PSS-78 Practical Salinity Scale. Processed data are provided as 1 min means of seawater temperature, conductivity and salinity, aligned with position data taken from the master track. Quality flags are appended according to the SeaDataNet Data Quality Control Procedures (version from May 2010). More details are described in the attached processing report.

Beschreibung: A recently encountered fossil oyster bed (Ostrea edulis) located in the sublittoral zone offshore the island of Helgoland (German Bight, Europe) was investigated. During a ship campaign in June 2019 onboard RV „Mya II“, the local extent and surface properties of the oyster bed were determined by submersible underwater drift video and grab sampling. The aim of this study was to facilitate the first description of a sublittoral oyster bed in the area and to understand its past ecological state and the reasons of its demise. Ostera edulis and associated habitats disappeared from the North Sea at the beginning of the last century and are a current focal point of restoration initiatives across Europe. Oyster shells were collected from the grab samples, cataloged and systematically analyzed. The weight of the valves was determined on a laboratory scale in grams with a precision of two decimals. The length (mm), width (mm), and degree of infestation (%) by the boring sponge Cliona sp. were digitally determined for each valve on the base of photographic images in the open-source software ImageJ (https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/).