Compiling multiproxy quantitative hydrographic data from Holocene marine archives in the North Atlantic: A way to decipher oceanic and climatic dynamics and natural modes?

Abstract This paper illustrates a new compilation of sea-surface hydrographic data (SST mainly) derived from multiproxy reconstructions on high time-resolution (decadal to centennial) marine archives. This compilation is focussed on the boreal Atlantic and gathers Holocene sedimentological records (defining the HAMOC database) which were retrieved in the vicinity of the subpolar and subtropical oceanic gyres. It provides for the first time a 12 ka long and multi-sourced (i.e. from different ecological groups) document of the evolution of sea-surface parameters over the North Atlantic, highlighting common regional trends but also discrepancies which need to be considered and integrated to further understand the Atlantic circulation dynamics and related climatic modes. Selective records have been extracted from the database and their significance tested considering proxy-dependent responses. This sheds light on the importance of intrinsic meaning carried by each proxies, often misconsidered and eluded while they typify critical ecological changes (living depth, seasonality of blooms, ect). To disentangle those changes is not easy and implies integrating artefacts linked both to ecological adaptations and environmental shifts (themselves being nested), but needs urgently to be considered in future works as it is the only way to progress in our knowledges of the (living) ocean resilience to climate hazards.