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 ...

[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...

[1] Benthic foraminiferal dC and Cd/Ca studies suggest that deep Atlantic circulation during the Last Glacial Maximum was very different from today, with high-nutrient (low dC, high Cd) deep Southern Ocean Water (SOW) penetrating far into the North Atlantic. However, if some glacial dC values are biased by productivity artifacts and/or air-sea exchange processes, then the existing dC data may b...

The influence of Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies on the atmospheric circulation over the North Atlantic sector during winter is investigated by performing experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). These consist of a 30-year run with observed SST anomalies for the period 1961–90 confined geographically to the Atlantic Ocean, and of a control run with clima...

In the 1960s North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST) cooled rapidly. The magnitude of the cooling was largest in the North Atlantic subpolar gyre (SPG), and was coincident with a rapid freshening of the SPG. Here we analyze hindcasts of the 1960s North Atlantic cooling made with the UK Met Office’s decadal prediction system (DePreSys), which is initialised using observations. It is shown ...

There are three described subspecies of fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus): B. p. physalus Linnaeus, 1758 in the Northern Hemisphere, B. p. quoyi Fischer, 1829 in the Southern Hemisphere, and a recently described pygmy form, B. p. patachonica Burmeister, 1865. The discrete distribution in the North Pacific and North Atlantic raises the question of whether a single Northern Hemisphere subspecies...

[1] The anomalously strong hurricane activity in the Atlantic sector during the recent years led to a controversy about the impact of global warming on hurricane activity in the Atlantic sector. Here we show that the temperature difference between the tropical North Atlantic and the tropical Indian and Pacific Oceans (IndoPacific) is a key parameter in controlling the vertical wind shear over t...

[1] We present high-resolution benthic dC records from intermediate water depth core site MD01-2461 (1153 m water depth), from the Porcupine Seabight, NE Atlantic, spanning 43 to 8 kyr B.P. At an average proxy time step of 160 ± 56 years this core provides information on the linkage between records from the Portuguese Margin and high-latitude North Atlantic basin, allowing additional insights i...

The objective of the paper is to identify the distinctive circulation patterns of storminess; of storm frequency, intensity and tracking on the Atlantic margin of Europe. The climatology of the extratropical cyclones that affect this region has been studied for the period 1940-1998. Coastal meteorological data from Ireland to Spain have been linked to the cyclone history for the North Atlantic ...

Holocene climate variability is investigated in the North Pacific and North Atlantic realms, using alkenone-derived sea-surface temperature (SST) records as well as a millennial scale simulation with a coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation model (AOGCM). The alkenone SST data indicate a temperature increase over almost the entire North Pacific from 7 cal kyr BP to the present. A dipole p...