[1] Observed North Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures have changed in a non-monotonic and non-uniform fashion over the last century. Here we assess the relative roles of greenhouses gases, anthropogenic aerosols, natural forcings and internal variability to the North Atlantic surface temperature decadal fluctuations using multi-model climate simulations driven by estimates of observed external...

Organochlorine pollutants (OCs), such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT, chlordanes (CHLs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs) were determined in blubber biopsies from free-ranging Baltic and Atlantic gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) pups. Well-fed pups from the Baltic Sea had concentrations of DDT, PCBs, and HCHs that were 2 to 10 times higher than in corresponding ...

The mechanisms that determine population structure in highly mobile marine species are poorly understood, but useful towards understanding the evolution of diversity, and essential for effective conservation and management. In this study, we compare putative sperm whale populations located in the Gulf of Mexico, western North Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea and North Sea using mtDNA control region ...

Genome sequencing of the teleost Atlantic cod demonstrated loss of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class II, an extreme gene expansion of MHC class I and gene expansions and losses in the innate pattern recognition receptor (PRR) family of Toll-like receptors (TLR). In a comparative genomic setting, using an improved version of the genome, we characterize PRRs in Atlantic cod with em...

Millennial-scale climate variability has been increasingly recognized as one of the most prominent features of the Holocene. However, regional responses, especially in terms of moisture conditions, are poorly documented and understood. Here we present lithologic and magnetic evidence from White Lake in northern New Jersey, USA, to show that low lake levels occurred at about 1.3, 3.0, 4.4 and 6....

[1] Variations in the poleward-directed Atlantic heat transfer was investigated over the past 135 ka with special emphasis on the last and present interglacial climate development (Eemian and Holocene). Both interglacials exhibited very similar climatic oscillations during each preceding glacial terminations (deglacial TI and TII). Like TI, also TII has pronounced cold–warm–cold changes akin to...

Much of the atmospheric variability in the North Atlantic sector is associated with variations in the eddy-driven component of the zonal flow. Here we present a simple method to specifically diagnose this component of the flow using the low-level wind field (925-700 hPa). We focus on the North Atlantic winter season in the ERA-40 reanalysis. Diagnostics of the latitude and speed of the eddy-dri...

The banded coral shrimp, Stenopus hispidus (Crustacea: Decapoda: Stenopodidea) is a popular marine ornamental species with a circumtropical distribution. The planktonic larval stage lasts ∼120-253 days, indicating considerable dispersal potential, but few studies have investigated genetic connectivity on a global scale in marine invertebrates. To resolve patterns of divergence and phylogeograph...

Foraminiferal stable isotopes and assemblages from Franz Victoria and St. Anna troughs provide a valuable record of freshwater and Atlantic Water flows to the northern Barents and Kara seas from deglaciation to present. The dO and dC of planktonic Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (s) and benthic Elphidium excavatum were up to 1.4% lower than present at ca 13, 11.5, and 10 Cka (global sea-level corre...

[1] It is generally accepted that surface freshwater anomalies in the Southern Ocean drive increases in North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) formation via a bipolar density see-saw. We find that a Southern Ocean freshwater pulse of comparable magnitude to meltwater pulse 1A, shuts down, instead of strengthens, NADW in a glacial climate simulation. Unlike the modern-day simulation, the glacial exper...