Dinocyst-based reconstructions of sea ice cover concentration during the Holocene in the Arctic Ocean, the northern North Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas

Sea ice cover extent expressed in terms of mean annual concentration was reconstructed from the application of the modern analogue technique to dinocyst assemblages. The use of an updated database, which includes 1492 sites and 66 taxa, yields sea ice concentration estimates with an accuracy of +/- 1.1/10. Holocene reconstructions of sea ice cover were made from dinocyst counts in 35 cores of the northern North Atlantic and Arctic seas. In the Canadian Arctic, the results show high sea ice concentration (>7/10) with little variations throughout the interval. In contrast, in Arctic areas such as the Chukchi Sea and the Barents Sea, the reconstructions show large amplitude variations of sea ice cover suggesting millennial type oscillations with a pacing almost opposite in western vs. eastern Arctic. Other records show tenuous changes with some regionalism either in trends or sea ice cover variability. During the mid-Holocene, and notably at 6 +/- 0.5 ka, minimum sea ice concentration is recorded in the eastern Fram Strait, northern Baffin Bay and Labrador Sea. However, this minimum cannot be extrapolated at the scale of the Arctic and circum-Arctic. The comparison of recent observations and reconstructions suggests larger variations in the Arctic sea ice cover during the last decades than throughout the Holocene. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.