Galloway, J.M., Wigston, A., Patterson, R.T., Swindles, G.T., Reindardt, E., Roe, H.M. 2013. Climate change and decadal to centennial-scale climate periodicities recorded in a late Holocene NE Pacific marine record: Examining the role of solar forcing. Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeoecology v. 386, p. 669-689.
A 12-m late Holocene sediment core (VEC02A04) obtained from Frederick Sound in the Seymour-Belize Inlet Complex of central British Columbia, Canada, was deposited between ca. 4380 ± 240 cal. yr BP and ca. 1230 ± 315 cal. yr BP under primarily dysoxic conditions. This partially laminated sediment core contains well preserved marine microfossils that document fluctuations in primary productivity related to terrestrial hydrology due to the isolated location of Frederick Sound over 60 km inland from the Pacific Ocean. Between ca. 3270 ± 250 cal. yr BP and ca. 2030 ± 265 cal. yr BP, a change in diatom assemblages preserved in the Frederick Sound sediment record suggests that a relatively sunny and dry climate interval punctuated otherwise wet conditions at Frederick Sound. This change is related to millennial-scale variations in the relative influence of the Aleutian Low pressure system on the climate of the study region. Spectral and wavelet time-series analysis reveals centennial to decadal-scale cyclic changes in primary productivity that reflect ocean-atmosphere variability and solar irradiance cyclicities of the Suess-de Vries and Gleissberg frequencies that impacted the hydrology of the Seymour-Belize Inlet Complex. Solar activity is most pronounced during the dry and sunny climate interval documented at Frederick Sound and may have been manifested as a prolonged westward shift and/or weakening of the Aleutian Low pressure system in the mid-late Holocene.