Deepwater variability in the Holocene epoch: Palaeo-oceanography

The conversion of surface water to deep water in the North Atlantic results in the release of heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, which may have amplified millennial-scale climate variability during glacial times 1 and could even have contributed to the past 11,700 years of relatively mild climate (known as the Holocene epoch) 2 , 3 , 4 . Here we investigate changes in the carbon-isotope composition of benthic foraminifera throughout the Holocene and find that deep-water production varied on a centennial–millennial timescale. These variations may be linked to surface and atmospheric events that hint at a contribution to climate change over this period.