Sample records for modern climate variability

  1. Assessing performance and seasonal bias of pollen-based climate reconstructions in a perfect model world

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Rehfeld, Kira; Trachsel, Mathias; Telford, Richard J.; Laepple, Thomas

    2016-12-01

    Reconstructions of summer, winter or annual mean temperatures based on the species composition of bio-indicators such as pollen, foraminifera or chironomids are routinely used in climate model-proxy data comparison studies. Most reconstruction algorithms exploit the joint distribution of modern spatial climate and species distribution for the development of the reconstructions. They rely on the space-for-time substitution and the specific assumption that environmental variables other than those reconstructed are not important or that their relationship with the reconstructed variable(s) should be the same in the past as in the modern spatial calibration dataset. Here we test the implications of this "correlative uniformitarianism" assumption on climate reconstructions in an ideal model world, in which climate and vegetation are known at all times. The alternate reality is a climate simulation of the last 6000 years with dynamic vegetation. Transient changes of plant functional types are considered as surrogate pollen counts and allow us to establish, apply and evaluate transfer functions in the modeled world. We find that in our model experiments the transfer function cross validation r2 is of limited use to identify reconstructible climate variables, as it only relies on the modern spatial climate-vegetation relationship. However, ordination approaches that assess the amount of fossil vegetation variance explained by the reconstructions are promising. We furthermore show that correlations between climate variables in the modern climate-vegetation relationship are systematically extended into the reconstructions. Summer temperatures, the most prominent driving variable for modeled vegetation change in the Northern Hemisphere, are accurately reconstructed. However, the amplitude of the model winter and mean annual temperature cooling between the mid-Holocene and present day is overestimated and similar to the summer trend in magnitude. This effect occurs because temporal changes of a dominant climate variable, such as summer temperatures in the model's Arctic, are imprinted on a less important variable, leading to reconstructions biased towards the dominant variable's trends. Our results, although based on a model vegetation that is inevitably simpler than reality, indicate that reconstructions of multiple climate variables based on modern spatial bio-indicator datasets should be treated with caution. Expert knowledge on the ecophysiological drivers of the proxies, as well as statistical methods that go beyond the cross validation on modern calibration datasets, are crucial to avoid misinterpretation.

  2. Assessing performance and seasonal bias of pollen-based climate reconstructions in a perfect model world

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Trachsel, M.; Rehfeld, K.; Telford, R.; Laepple, T.

    2017-12-01

    Reconstructions of summer, winter or annual mean temperatures based on the species composition of bio-indicators such as pollen are routinely used in climate model-proxy data comparison studies. Most reconstruction algorithms exploit the joint distribution of modern spatial climate and species distribution for the development of the reconstructions. They rely on the space-for-time substitution and the specific assumption that environmental variables other than those reconstructed are not important or that their relationship with the reconstructed variable(s) should be the same in the past as in the modern spatial calibration dataset. Here we test the implications of this "correlative uniformitarianism" assumption on climate reconstructions in an ideal model world, in which climate and vegetation are known at all times. The alternate reality is a climate simulation of the last 6000 years with dynamic vegetation. Transient changes of plant functional types are considered as surrogate pollen counts and allow us to establish, apply and evaluate transfer functions in the modeled world. We find that the transfer function cross validation r2 is of limited use to identify reconstructible climate variables, as it only relies on the modern spatial climate-vegetation relationship. However, ordination approaches that assess the amount of fossil vegetation variance explained by the reconstructions are promising. We show that correlations between climate variables in the modern climate-vegetation relationship are systematically extended into the reconstructions. Summer temperatures, the most prominent driving variable for modeled vegetation change in the Northern Hemisphere, are accurately reconstructed. However, the amplitude of the model winter and mean annual temperature cooling between the mid-Holocene and present day is overestimated and similar to the summer trend in magnitude. This effect occurs because temporal changes of a dominant climate variable are imprinted on a less important variable, leading to reconstructions biased towards the dominant variable's trends. Our results, although based on a model vegetation that is inevitably simpler than reality, indicate that reconstructions of multiple climate variables based on modern spatial bio-indicator datasets should be treated with caution.

  3. Exploring the impact of climate variability during the Last Glacial Maximum on the pattern of human occupation of Iberia.

    PubMed

    Burke, Ariane; Levavasseur, Guillaume; James, Patrick M A; Guiducci, Dario; Izquierdo, Manuel Arturo; Bourgeon, Lauriane; Kageyama, Masa; Ramstein, Gilles; Vrac, Mathieu

    2014-08-01

    The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was a global climate event, which had significant repercussions for the spatial distribution and demographic history of prehistoric populations. In Eurasia, the LGM coincides with a potential bottleneck for modern humans and may mark the divergence date for Asian and European populations (Keinan et al., 2007). In this research, the impact of climate variability on human populations in the Iberian Peninsula during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is examined with the aid of downscaled high-resolution (16 × 16 km) numerical climate experiments. Human sensitivity to short time-scale (inter-annual) climate variability during this key time period, which follows the initial modern human colonisation of Eurasia and the extinction of the Neanderthals, is tested using the spatial distribution of archaeological sites. Results indicate that anatomically modern human populations responded to small-scale spatial patterning in climate variability, specifically inter-annual variability in precipitation levels as measured by the standard precipitation index. Climate variability at less than millennial scale, therefore, is shown to be an important component of ecological risk, one that played a role in regulating the spatial behaviour of prehistoric human populations and consequently affected their social networks. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Reconstructing Tropical Southwest Pacific Climate Variability and Mean State Changes at Vanuatu during the Medieval Climate Anomaly using Geochemical Proxies from Corals

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Lawman, A. E.; Quinn, T. M.; Partin, J. W.; Taylor, F. W.; Thirumalai, K.; WU, C. C.; Shen, C. C.

    2017-12-01

    The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA: 950-1250 CE) is identified as a period during the last 2 millennia with Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures similar to the present. However, our understanding of tropical climate variability during the MCA is poorly constrained due to a lack of sub-annually resolved proxy records. We investigate seasonal and interannual variability during the MCA using geochemical records developed from two well preserved Porites lutea fossilized corals from the tropical southwest Pacific (Tasmaloum, Vanuatu; 15.6°S, 166.9°E). Absolute U/Th dates of 1127.1 ± 2.7 CE and 1105.1 ± 3.0 CE indicate that the selected fossil corals lived during the MCA. We use paired coral Sr/Ca and δ18O measurements to reconstruct sea surface temperature (SST) and the δ18O of seawater (a proxy for salinity). To provide context for the fossil coral records and test whether the mean state and climate variability at Vanuatu during the MCA is similar to the modern climate, our analysis also incorporates two modern coral records from Sabine Bank (15.9°S, 166.0°E) and Malo Channel (15.7°S, 167.2°E), Vanuatu for comparison. We quantify the uncertainty in our modern and fossil coral SST estimates via replication with multiple, overlapping coral records. Both the modern and fossil corals reproduce their respective mean SST value over their common period of overlap, which is 25 years in both cases. Based on over 100 years of monthly Sr/Ca data from each time period, we find that SSTs at Vanuatu during the MCA are 1.3 ± 0.7°C cooler relative to the modern. We also find that the median amplitude of the annual cycle is 0.8 ± 0.3°C larger during the MCA relative to the modern. Multiple data analysis techniques, including the standard deviation and the difference between the 95th and 5th percentiles of the annual SST cycle estimates, also show that the MCA has greater annual SST variability relative to the modern. Stable isotope data acquisition is ongoing, and when complete we will have a suite of records of paired coral Sr/Ca and δ18O measurements. We will apply similar statistical techniques developed for the Sr/Ca-SST record to also investigate variability in the δ18O of seawater (salinity). Modern salinity variability at Vanuatu arises due to hydrological anomalies associated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation in the tropical Pacific.

  5. The impact of using different modern climate data sets in pollen-based paleoclimate reconstructions of North America

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ladd, M.; Way, R. G.; Viau, A. E.

    2015-03-01

    The use of different modern climate data sets is shown to impact a continental-scale pollen-based reconstruction of mean July temperature (TJUL) over the last 2000 years for North America. Data from climate stations, physically modeled from climate stations and reanalysis products are used to calibrate the reconstructions. Results show that the use of reanalysis products produces warmer and/or smoother reconstructions as compared to the use of station based data sets. The reconstructions during the period of 1050-1550 CE are shown to be more variable because of a high latitude cold-bias in the modern TJUL data. The ultra-high resolution WorldClim gridded data may only useful if the modern pollen sites have at least the same spatial precision as the gridded dataset. Hence we justify the use of the lapse-rate corrected University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) based Whitmore modern climate data set for North American pollen-based climate reconstructions.

  6. Reconstructing medieval climate in the tropical North Atlantic with corals from Anegada, British Virgin Islands

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kilbourne, K. H.; Xu, Y. Y.

    2014-12-01

    Resolving the patterns of climate variability during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) is key for exploring forced versus unforced variability during the last 1000 years. Tropical Atlantic climate is currently not well resolved during the MCA despite it being an important source of heat and moisture to the climate system today. To fill this data gap, we collected cores from Diploria strigosa corals brought onto the low-lying island of Anegada, British Virgin Islands (18.7˚N, 64.3˚S) during an overwash event and use paired analysis of Sr/Ca and δ18O in the skeletal aragonite to explore climate in the tropical Atlantic at the end of the MCA. The three sub-fossil corals used in this analysis overlap temporally and together span the years 1256-1372 C.E. An assessment of three modern corals from the study site indicates that the most robust features of climate reconstructions using Sr/Ca and δ18O in this species are the seasonal cycle and inter-annual variability. The modern seasonal temperature range is 2.8 degrees Celsius and the similarity between the modern and sub-fossil coral Sr/Ca indicates a similar range during the MCA. Today seasonal salinity changes locally are driven in large part by the migration of a regional salinity front. The modern corals capture the related large seasonal seawater δ18O change, but the sub-fossil corals indicate stable seawater δ18O throughout the year, supporting the idea that this site remained on one side of the salinity front continuously throughout the year. Inter-annual variability in the region is influenced by the cross-equatorial SST gradient, the North Atlantic Oscillation and ENSO. Gridded instrumental SST from the area surrounding Anegada and coral geochemical records from nearby Puerto Rico demonstrate concentrations of variance in specific frequency bands associated with these phenomena. The sub-fossil coral shows no concentration of variance in the modern ENSO frequency band, consistent with reduced ENSO variability found in central Pacific corals growing at the same time.

  7. A modern pollen-climate dataset from the Darjeeling area, eastern Himalaya: Assessing its potential for past climate reconstruction

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ghosh, Ruby; Bruch, Angela A.; Portmann, Felix; Bera, Subir; Paruya, Dipak Kumar; Morthekai, P.; Ali, Sheikh Nawaz

    2017-10-01

    Relying on the ability of pollen assemblages to differentiate among elevationally stratified vegetation zones, we assess the potential of a modern pollen-climate dataset from the Darjeeling area, eastern Himalaya, in past climate reconstructions. The dataset includes 73 surface samples from 25 sites collected from a c. 130-3600 m a.s.l. elevation gradient along a horizontal distance of c. 150 km and 124 terrestrial pollen taxa, which are analysed with respect to various climatic and environmental variables such as mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP), mean temperature of coldest quarter (MTCQ), mean temperature of warmest quarter (MTWQ), mean precipitation of driest quarter (MPDQ), mean precipitation of wettest quarter (MPWQ), AET (actual evapotranspiration) and MI (moisture index). To check the reliability of the modern pollen-climate relationships different ordination methods are employed and subsequently tested with Huisman-Olff-Fresco (HOF) models. A series of pollen-climate parameter transfer functions using weighted-averaging regression and calibration partial least squares (WA-PLS) models are developed to reconstruct past climate changes from modern pollen data, and have been cross-validated. Results indicate that three of the environmental variables i.e., MTCQ, MPDQ and MI have strong potential for past climate reconstruction based on the available surface pollen dataset. The potential of the present modern pollen-climate relationship for regional quantitative paleoclimate reconstruction is further tested on a Late Quaternary fossil pollen profile from the Darjeeling foothill region with previously reconstructed and quantified climate. The good agreement with existing data allows for new insights in the hydroclimatic conditions during the Last glacial maxima (LGM) with (winter) temperature being the dominant controlling factor for glacial changes during the LGM in the eastern Himalaya.

  8. Modern Climate Analogues of Late-Quaternary Paleoclimates for the Western United States.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Mock, Cary Jeffrey

    This study examined spatial variations of modern and late-Quaternary climates for the western United States. Synoptic climatological analyses of the modern record identified the predominate climatic controls that normally produce the principal modes of spatial climatic variability. They also provided a modern standard to assess past climates. Maps of the month-to-month changes in 500 mb heights, sea-level pressure, temperature, and precipitation illustrated how different climatic controls govern the annual cycle of climatic response. The patterns of precipitation ratios, precipitation bar graphs, and the seasonal precipitation maximum provided additional insight into how different climatic controls influence spatial climatic variations. Synoptic-scale patterns from general circulation model (GCM) simulations or from analyses of climatic indices were used as the basis for finding modern climate analogues for 18 ka and 9 ka. Composite anomaly maps of atmospheric circulation, precipitation, and temperature were compared with effective moisture maps compiled from proxy data to infer how the patterns, which were evident from the proxy data, were generated. The analyses of the modern synoptic climatology indicate that smaller-scale climatic controls must be considered along with larger-scale ones in order to explain patterns of spatial climate heterogeneity. Climatic extremes indicate that changes in the spatial patterns of precipitation seasonality are the exception rather than the rule, reflecting the strong influence of smaller-scale controls. Modern climate analogues for both 18 ka and 9 ka clearly depict the dry Northwest/wet Southwest contrast that is suggested by GCM simulations and paleoclimatic evidence. 18 ka analogues also show the importance of smaller-scale climatic controls in explaining spatial climatic variation in the Northwest and northern Great Plains. 9 ka analogues provide climatological explanations for patterns of spatial heterogeneity over several mountainous areas as suggested by paleoclimatic evidence. Modern analogues of past climates supplement modeling approaches by providing information below the resolution of model simulations. Analogues can be used to examine the controls of spatial paleoclimatic variation if sufficient instrumental data and paleoclimatic evidence are available, and if one carefully exercises uniformitarianism when extrapolating modern relationships to the past.

  9. Medieval Warm Period Archives Preserved in Limpet Shells (Patella Vulgata) From Viking Deposits, United Kingdom

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Mobilia, M.; Surge, D.

    2008-12-01

    The Medieval Warm Period (700-1100 YBP) represents a recent period of warm climate, and as such provides a powerful comparison to today's continuing warming trend. However, the spatial and temporal variability inherent in the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) makes it difficult to differentiate between global climate trends and regional variability. The continued study of this period will allow for the better understanding of temperature variability, both regional and global, during this climate interval. Our study is located in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, which is a critical area to understand climate dynamics. The North Atlantic Oscillation and Gulf Stream heavily influence climate in this region, and the study of climate intervals during the MWP will improve our understanding of the behavior of these climate mechanisms during this interval. Furthermore, the vast majority of the climate archive has been derived from either deep marine or arctic environments. Studying a coastal environment will offer valuable insight into the behavior of maritime climate during the MWP. Estimated seasonal sea surface temperature data were derived through isotopic analysis of limpet shells (Patella vulgata). Analysis of modern shells confirms that growth temperature tracks seasonal variation in ambient water temperature. Preliminary data from MWP shells record a seasonal temperature range comparable to that observed in the modern temperature data. We will extend the range of temperature data from the 10th through 14th centuries to advance our knowledge of seasonal temperature variability during the late Holocene.

  10. Temporal and spatial variability of wind resources in the United States as derived from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis

    Treesearch

    Lejiang Yu; Shiyuan Zhong; Xindi Bian; Warren E. Heilman

    2015-01-01

    This study examines the spatial and temporal variability of wind speed at 80m above ground (the average hub height of most modern wind turbines) in the contiguous United States using Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) data from 1979 to 2011. The mean 80-m wind exhibits strong seasonality and large spatial variability, with higher (lower) wind speeds in the...

  11. The Interfaces Between Historical, Paleo-, and Modern Climatology

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Mock, C. J.

    2011-12-01

    Historical climatology, commonly defined as the study of reconstructing past climates from documentary and early instrumental data, has routinely utilized data within the last several hundred years down to sub-daily temporal resolution prior to the advent of "modern" instrumental records beginning in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Historical climate reconstruction methods generally share similar aspects conducted in both paleoclimate reconstruction and modern climatology, given the need to quantify, calibrate, and conduct careful data quality assessments. Although some studies have integrated historical climatic studies with other high resolution paleoclimatic proxies, very few efforts have integrated historical data with modern "systematic" climate networks to further examine spatial and temporal patterns of climate variability. This presentation describes historical climate examples of how such data can be integrated within modern climate timescales, including examples of documentary data on tropical cyclones from the Western Pacific and Atlantic Basins, colonial records from Belize and Constantinople, ship logbooks in the Western Arctic, plantation diaries from the American Southeast, and newspaper data from the Fiji Islands and Bermuda. Some results include a unique wet period in Belize and active tropical cyclone periods in the Western and South Pacific in the early 20th century - both are not reflected in conventional modern climate datasets. Documentary data examples demonstrate high feasibility in further understanding extreme weather events at daily timeframes such as false spring/killing frost episodes and hydrological extremes in southeastern North America. Recent unique efforts also involve community participation, secondary education, and web- based volunteer efforts to digitize and archive historical weather and climate information.

  12. Does using different modern climate datasets impact pollen-based paleoclimate reconstructions in North America during the past 2,000 years

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Ladd, Matthew; Viau, Andre

    2013-04-01

    Paleoclimate reconstructions rely on the accuracy of modern climate datasets for calibration of fossil records under the assumption of climate normality through time, which means that the modern climate operates in a similar manner as over the past 2,000 years. In this study, we show how using different modern climate datasets have an impact on a pollen-based reconstruction of mean temperature of the warmest month (MTWA) during the past 2,000 years for North America. The modern climate datasets used to explore this research question include the: Whitmore et al., (2005) modern climate dataset; North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR); National Center For Environmental Prediction (NCEP); European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) ERA-40 reanalysis; WorldClim, Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) and New et al., which is derived from the CRU dataset. Results show that some caution is advised in using the reanalysis data on large-scale reconstructions. Station data appears to dampen out the variability of the reconstruction produced using station based datasets. The reanalysis or model-based datasets are not recommended for paleoclimate large-scale North American reconstructions as they appear to lack some of the dynamics observed in station datasets (CRU) which resulted in warm-biased reconstructions as compared to the station-based reconstructions. The Whitmore et al. (2005) modern climate dataset appears to be a compromise between CRU-based datasets and model-based datasets except for the ERA-40. In addition, an ultra-high resolution gridded climate dataset such as WorldClim may only be useful if the pollen calibration sites in North America have at least the same spatial precision. We reconstruct the MTWA to within +/-0.01°C by using an average of all curves derived from the different modern climate datasets, demonstrating the robustness of the procedure used. It may be that the use of an average of different modern datasets may reduce the impact of uncertainty of paleoclimate reconstructions, however, this is yet to be determined with certainty. Future evaluation using for example the newly developed Berkeley earth surface temperature datasets should be tested against the paleoclimate record.

  13. The different climatic response of pedogenic hematite and ferrimagnetic minerals: Evidence from particle-sized modern soils over the Chinese Loess Plateau

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gao, Xinbo; Hao, Qingzhen; Wang, Luo; Oldfield, Frank; Bloemendal, Jan; Deng, Chenglong; Song, Yang; Ge, Junyi; Wu, Haibin; Xu, Bing; Li, Fengjiang; Han, Long; Fu, Yu; Guo, Zhengtang

    2018-01-01

    In recent years, increasing interest in loess studies has focused on qualitative and quantitative paleoclimatic reconstruction using the imperfect antiferromagnetic mineral hematite. However, the linkage between the hematite formation and climatic variables remains controversial. Here we present the results of a comprehensive investigation of the magnetic properties and statistical analysis of a suite of clay and silt fractions of modern soil samples from 179 sites across the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) and adjacent regions. Our objective was to clarify the relationships between modern climatic variables and pedogenic hematite, as well as pedogenic ferrimagnetic minerals. First-order reversal curve measurements were also conducted on representative particle-sized subsamples from a N-S transect to understand the differences in magnetic mineralogy between the two fractions. Our results show that pipette extraction separates the fine-grained superparamagnetic (SP) and most of the single-domain (SD) magnetic grains into the clay fraction, and that the remaining silt fraction displays the magnetic properties of coarse pseudo-single domain (PSD) or a mixture of multidomain (MD)/PSD and a few SD particles. Only the pedogenic clay fraction shows a strong correlation with climatic variables. The application of redundancy analysis helps to distinguish the climate variables controlling the formation of ferrimagnetic minerals and hematite during pedogenesis. On the CLP, pedogenic ferrimagnetic minerals are sensitive to mean annual precipitation, while pedogenic hematite formation is preferentially dependent on mean annual temperature. The confirmation of the temperature-dependent nature of hematite on the CLP provides a new possibility for quantitatively reconstructing the paleotemperature history of Chinese loess/paleosol sequences.

  14. The Different Climatic Response of Pedogenic Hematite and Ferrimagnetic Minerals: Evidence from Particle-Sized Modern Soils over the Chinese Loess Plateau

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gao, X.; Hao, Q.; Luo, W.; Oldfield, F.; Bloemendal, J.; Deng, C.; Song, Y.; Ge, J.; Wu, H.; Xu, B.; Li, F.; Han, L.; Fu, Y.; Guo, Z.

    2017-12-01

    In recent years, increasing interest in loess studies has focused on qualitative and quantitative paleoclimatic reconstruction using the imperfect antiferromagnetic mineral hematite. However, the linkage between the hematite formation and climatic variables remains controversial. Here we present the results of a comprehensive investigation of the magnetic properties and statistical analysis of a suite of clay and silt fractions of modern soil samples from 179 sites across the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) and adjacent regions. Our objective was to clarify the relationships between modern climatic variables and pedogenic hematite, as well as pedogenic ferrimagnetic minerals. First-order reversal curve measurements were also conducted on representative particle-sized subsamples from a N-S transect to understand the differences in magnetic mineralogy between the two fractions. Our results show that pipette extraction separates the fine-grained superparamagnetic (SP) and most of the single-domain (SD) magnetic grains into the clay fraction, and that the remaining silt fraction displays the magnetic properties of coarse pseudo-single domain (PSD) or a mixture of multidomain (MD)/PSD and a few SD particles. Only the pedogenic clay fraction shows a strong correlation with climatic variables. The application of redundancy analysis helps to distinguish the climate variables controlling the formation of ferrimagnetic minerals and hematite during pedogenesis. On the CLP, pedogenic ferrimagnetic minerals are sensitive to mean annual precipitation, while pedogenic hematite formation is preferentially dependent on mean annual temperature. The confirmation of the temperature-dependent nature of hematite on the CLP provides a new possibility for quantitatively reconstructing the paleotemperature history of Chinese loess/paleosol sequences.

  15. Evaluating the Significance of Paleophylogeographic Species Distribution Models in Reconstructing Quaternary Range-Shifts of Nearctic Chelonians

    PubMed Central

    Flecks, Morris; Ahmadzadeh, Faraham; Dambach, Johannes; Engler, Jan O.; Habel, Jan Christian; Hartmann, Timo; Hörnes, David; Ihlow, Flora; Schidelko, Kathrin; Stiels, Darius; Polly, P. David

    2013-01-01

    The climatic cycles of the Quaternary, during which global mean annual temperatures have regularly changed by 5–10°C, provide a special opportunity for studying the rate, magnitude, and effects of geographic responses to changing climates. During the Quaternary, high- and mid-latitude species were extirpated from regions that were covered by ice or otherwise became unsuitable, persisting in refugial retreats where the environment was compatible with their tolerances. In this study we combine modern geographic range data, phylogeny, Pleistocene paleoclimatic models, and isotopic records of changes in global mean annual temperature, to produce a temporally continuous model of geographic changes in potential habitat for 59 species of North American turtles over the past 320 Ka (three full glacial-interglacial cycles). These paleophylogeographic models indicate the areas where past climates were compatible with the modern ranges of the species and serve as hypotheses for how their geographic ranges would have changed in response to Quaternary climate cycles. We test these hypotheses against physiological, genetic, taxonomic and fossil evidence, and we then use them to measure the effects of Quaternary climate cycles on species distributions. Patterns of range expansion, contraction, and fragmentation in the models are strongly congruent with (i) phylogeographic differentiation; (ii) morphological variation; (iii) physiological tolerances; and (iv) intraspecific genetic variability. Modern species with significant interspecific differentiation have geographic ranges that strongly fluctuated and repeatedly fragmented throughout the Quaternary. Modern species with low genetic diversity have geographic distributions that were highly variable and at times exceedingly small in the past. Our results reveal the potential for paleophylogeographic models to (i) reconstruct past geographic range modifications, (ii) identify geographic processes that result in genetic bottlenecks; and (iii) predict threats due to anthropogenic climate change in the future. PMID:24130664

  16. Climatic and physiological controls on the stable isotope composition of modern and ancient Cupressaceae

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Zinniker, D.; Tipple, B.; Pagani, M.

    2007-12-01

    Unique and abundant secondary metabolites found in waxes and resins of the Callitroid, Cupressoid, and Taxodioid clades of the Cupressaceae family can be identified and quantified in complex mixtures of sedimentary organic compounds. This unusual feature makes it possible to study relatively simple (taxon-specific) isotope systems back in time across the broad array of environments in which these conifers are found. Work on these systems can potentially provide both robust paleoenvironmental proxies (i.e. for source water δD and growing season relative humidity) and quantitative probes into the ecophysiology of these plants in modern and ancient environments. Our research focuses on three genera representing environmental end-members of Cupressaceae - Juniperus, Thuja, and Chamaecyparis - (1) across geographic and environmental gradients in the field, and (2) in specific Holocene and late Pleistocene environmental records. The latter research focuses on peat cores from New England and Oregon and fossil packrat middens from the southwestern United States. Modern transects highlight the sensitivity of Cupressaceae to climatic variables. These include both variables during growth (relative humidity, soil moisture, etc.) and variables affecting seasonal and diurnal growth rates (temperature, winter precipitation, insolation, microhabitat, etc.). Work on ancient records has demonstrated the sensitivity of these unique taxon-specific archives to both subtle and dramatic climate shifts during the Pleistocene and Holocene. This work will result in an improved understanding of climatic and physiological controls on the stable isotopic composition of modern and ancient Cupressaceae - and by extension, other arborescent gymnosperms and C3 plants - providing a framework for understanding more complexly sourced organic inputs to sediments, coals, and petroleum prior to the advent of C4 plants. This research also has direct implications for stratigraphic stable isotope studies of gymnosperm markers across the last millenium, the Pleistocene, and important climatic events in the Mesozoic and Tertiary.

  17. Short-term climate change impacts on Mara basin hydrology

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Demaria, E. M.; Roy, T.; Valdés, J. B.; Lyon, B.; Valdés-Pineda, R.; Serrat-Capdevila, A.; Durcik, M.; Gupta, H.

    2017-12-01

    The predictability of climate diminishes significantly at shorter time scales (e.g. decadal). Both natural variability as well as sampling variability of climate can obscure or enhance climate change signals in these shorter scales. Therefore, in order to assess the impacts of climate change on basin hydrology, it is important to design climate projections with exhaustive climate scenarios. In this study, we first create seasonal climate scenarios by combining (1) synthetic precipitation projections generated from a Vector Auto-Regressive (VAR) model using the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (UEA-CRU) data with (2) seasonal trends calculated from 31 models in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP). The seasonal climate projections are then disaggregated to daily level using the Agricultural Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (AgMERRA) data. The daily climate data are then bias-corrected and used as forcings to the land-surface model, Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC), to generate different hydrological projections for the Mara River basin in East Africa, which are then evaluated to study the hydrologic changes in the basin in the next three decades (2020-2050).

  18. A modern plant-climate research dataset for modelling eastern North American plant taxa.

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Gonzales, L. M.; Grimm, E. C.; Williams, J. W.; Nordheim, E. V.

    2008-12-01

    Continental-scale modern pollen-climate data repositories are a primary data source for paleoclimate reconstructions. However, these repositories can contain artifacts, such as records from different depositional environment and replicate records, that can influence the observed pollen-climate relationships as well as the paleoclimate reconstructions derived from these relationships. In this paper, we address the issues related to these artifacts as we define the methods used to create a research dataset from the North American Modern Pollen Database (Whitmore et al., 2005). Additionally, we define the methods used to select the environmental variables that are best for modeling regional pollen-climate relationships from the research dataset. Because the depositional environment determines the relative strengths of the local and regional pollen signals, combining data from different depositional environments results in pollen abundances that can be influenced by the local pollen signal. Replicate records in pollen-climate datasets can skew pollen-climate relationships by causing an over- or under- representation of pollen abundances in climate space. When these two artifacts are combined, the errors introduced into pollen-climate relationship modeling are compounded. The research dataset we present consists of 2,613 records in eastern North America, of which 70.9% are lacustrine sites. We demonstrate that this new research database improves upon the modeling of regional pollen-climate relationships for eastern North American taxa. The research dataset encompasses the majority of the temperature and mean summer precipitation ranges of the NAMPD's climatic range and 40% of its mean winter precipitation range. NAMPD sites with higher winter precipitation are located along the northwestern coast of North America where a rainshadow effect produces abundant winter precipitation. We present our analysis of the research dataset for use in paleoclimate reconstructions, and recommend that mean winter and summer temperature and precipitation variables be used for pollen-climate relationship modeling.

  19. 2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Büntgen, Ulf; Tegel, Willy; Nicolussi, Kurt; McCormick, Michael; Frank, David; Trouet, Valerie; Kaplan, Jed O.; Herzig, Franz; Heussner, Karl-Uwe; Wanner, Heinz; Luterbacher, Jürg; Esper, Jan

    2011-02-01

    Climate variations influenced the agricultural productivity, health risk, and conflict level of preindustrial societies. Discrimination between environmental and anthropogenic impacts on past civilizations, however, remains difficult because of the paucity of high-resolution paleoclimatic evidence. We present tree ring-based reconstructions of central European summer precipitation and temperature variability over the past 2500 years. Recent warming is unprecedented, but modern hydroclimatic variations may have at times been exceeded in magnitude and duration. Wet and warm summers occurred during periods of Roman and medieval prosperity. Increased climate variability from ~250 to 600 C.E. coincided with the demise of the western Roman Empire and the turmoil of the Migration Period. Such historical data may provide a basis for counteracting the recent political and fiscal reluctance to mitigate projected climate change.

  20. Integrating the EMPD with an Alpine altitudinal training set to reconstruct climate variables in Holocene pollen records from high-altitude peat bogs

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Furlanetto, Giulia; Badino, Federica; Brunetti, Michele; Champvillair, Elena; De Amicis, Mattia; Maggi, Valter; Pini, Roberta; Ravazzi, Cesare; Vallé, Francesca

    2016-04-01

    Temperatures and precipitation are the main environmental factors influencing vegetation and pollen production. Knowing the modern climate optima and tolerances of those plants represented in fossil assemblages and assuming that the relationships between plants and climate in the past are not dissimilar from the modern ones, fossil pollen records offer many descriptors to reconstruct past climate variables. The aim of our work is to investigate the potential of high-altitude pollen records from an Alpine peat bog (TBValter, close to the Ruitor Glacier, Western Italian Alps) for quantitative paleoclimate estimates. The idea behind is that high-altitude ecosystems are more sensitive to climate changes, especially to changes in July temperatures that severely affect the timberline ecotone. Meantime, we met with difficulties when considering the factors involved in pollen dispersal over a complex altitudinal mountain pattern, such as the Alps. We used the EMPD-European Modern Pollen Database (Davis et al., 2013) as modern training set to be compared with our high-altitude fossil site. The EMPD dataset is valuable in that it provides a large geographic coverage of main ecological and climate gradients (at sub-continental scale) but lacks in sampling of altitudinal gradients and high-altitude sites in the Alps. We therefore designed an independent altitudinal training set for the alpine valley hosting our fossil site. 27 sampling plots were selected along a 1700m-elevational transect. In a first step, each plot was provided with (i) 3 moss polsters collected following the guidelines provided by Cañellas-Boltà et al. (2009) and analyzed separately to account for differences in pollen deposition at small scale, (ii) morphometrical parameters obtained through a high-resolution DEM, and (iii) temperature and precipitation were estimated by means of weighted linear regression of the meteorological variable versus elevation, locally evaluated for each site (Brunetti et al., 2014), starting from a dense and quality-controlled observational dataset. In the most advanced step, we designed calibration functions using modern pollen and climate data stored in the EMPD and integrated with the 27 samples from the altitudinal training set. Regression and calibration method (LWWA) and MAT (Modern Analogue Technique) were used to reconstruct temperatures and precipitation. We applied the models to our fossil site to infer temperatures of the coldest (Tjan) and warmest (Tjul) months and the mean annual precipitation (Pann). Finally we compared our results with established climate proxy records (oxygen isotope records from ice cores, records of Alpine Glaciers fluctuations, stalagmites). This research is promoted by the CNR-DTA NextData Project. Brunetti et al., 2014. International Journal of Climatology 34, 1278-1296. Cañellas-Boltà et al., 2009. The Holocene 19(8), 1185-1200. Davis et al., 2013. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 22, 521-530.

  1. Plant distributions in the southwestern United States; a scenario assessment of the modern-day and future distribution ranges of 166 Species

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Thomas, Kathryn A.; Guertin, Patricia P.; Gass, Leila

    2012-01-01

    The authors developed spatial models of the predicted modern-day suitable habitat (SH) of 166 dominant and indicator plant species of the southwestern United States (herein referred to as the Southwest) and then conducted a coarse assessment of potential future changes in the distribution of their suitable habitat under three climate-change scenarios for two time periods. We used Maxent-based spatial modeling to predict the modern-day and future scenarios of SH for each species in an over 342-million-acre area encompassing all or parts of six states in the Southwest--Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Modern-day SH models were predicted by our using 26 annual and monthly average temperature and precipitation variables, averaged for the years 1971-2000. Future SH models were predicted for each species by our using six climate models based on application of the average of 16 General Circulation Models to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emission scenarios B1, A1B, and A2 for two time periods, 2040 to 2069 and 2070 and 2100, referred to respectively as the 2050 and 2100 time periods. The assessment examined each species' vulnerability to loss of modern-day SH under future climate scenarios, potential to gain SH under future climate scenarios, and each species' estimated risk as a function of both vulnerability and potential gains. All 166 species were predicted to lose modern-day SH in the future climate change scenarios. In the 2050 time period, nearly 30 percent of the species lost 75 percent or more of their modern-day suitable habitat, 21 species gained more new SH than their modern-day SH, and 30 species gained less new SH than 25 percent of their modern-day SH. In the 2100 time period, nearly half of the species lost 75 percent or more of their modern-day SH, 28 species gained more new SH than their modern-day SH, and 34 gained less new SH than 25 percent of their modern-day SH. Using nine risk categories we found only two species were in the least risk category, while 20 species were in the highest risk category. The assessment showed that species respond independently to predicted climate change, suggesting that current plant assemblages may disassemble under predicted climate change scenarios. This report presents the results for each species in tables (Appendix A) and maps (14 for each species) in Appendix B.

  2. Deglacial climate variability in central Florida, USA

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Willard, D.A.; Bernhardt, C.E.; Brooks, G.R.; Cronin, T. M.; Edgar, T.; Larson, R.

    2007-01-01

    Pollen and ostracode evidence from lacustrine sediments underlying modern Tampa Bay, Florida, document frequent and abrupt climatic and hydrological events superimposed on deglacial warming in the subtropics. Radiocarbon chronology on well-preserved mollusk shells and pollen residue from core MD02-2579 documents continuous sedimentation in a variety of non-marine habitats in a karst-controlled basin from 20 ka to 11.5 ka. During the last glacial maximum (LGM), much drier and cooler-than-modern conditions are indicated by pollen assemblages enriched in Chenopodiaceae and Carya, with rare Pinus (Pinus pollen increased to 20–40% during the warming of the initial deglaciation (∼ 17.2 ka), reaching near modern abundance (60–80%) during warmer, moister climates of the Bølling/Allerød interval (14.7–12.9 ka). Within the Bølling/Allerød, centennial-scale dry events corresponding to the Older Dryas and Intra-Allerød Cold Period indicate rapid vegetation response (

  3. Pollen-based continental climate reconstructions at 6 and 21 ka: a global synthesis

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Bartlein, P.J.; Harrison, S.P.; Brewer, Sandra; Connor, S.; Davis, B.A.S.; Gajewski, K.; Guiot, J.; Harrison-Prentice, T. I.; Henderson, A.; Peyron, O.; Prentice, I.C.; Scholze, M.; Seppa, H.; Shuman, B.; Sugita, S.; Thompson, R.S.; Viau, A.E.; Williams, J.; Wu, H.

    2010-01-01

    Subfossil pollen and plant macrofossil data derived from 14C-dated sediment profiles can provide quantitative information on glacial and interglacial climates. The data allow climate variables related to growing-season warmth, winter cold, and plant-available moisture to be reconstructed. Continental-scale reconstructions have been made for the mid-Holocene (MH, around 6 ka) and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, around 21 ka), allowing comparison with palaeoclimate simulations currently being carried out as part of the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The synthesis of the available MH and LGM climate reconstructions and their uncertainties, obtained using modern-analogue, regression and model-inversion techniques, is presented for four temperature variables and two moisture variables. Reconstructions of the same variables based on surface-pollen assemblages are shown to be accurate and unbiased. Reconstructed LGM and MH climate anomaly patterns are coherent, consistent between variables, and robust with respect to the choice of technique. They support a conceptual model of the controls of Late Quaternary climate change whereby the first-order effects of orbital variations and greenhouse forcing on the seasonal cycle of temperature are predictably modified by responses of the atmospheric circulation and surface energy balance.

  4. Last interglacial temperature seasonality reconstructed from tropical Atlantic corals

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Brocas, William M.; Felis, Thomas; Obert, J. Christina; Gierz, Paul; Lohmann, Gerrit; Scholz, Denis; Kölling, Martin; Scheffers, Sander R.

    2016-09-01

    Reconstructions of last interglacial (LIG, MIS 5e, ∼127-117 ka) climate offer insights into the natural response and variability of the climate system during a period partially analogous to future climate change scenarios. We present well preserved fossil corals (Diploria strigosa) recovered from the southern Caribbean island of Bonaire (Caribbean Netherlands). These have been precisely dated by the 230Th/U-method to between 130 and 120 ka ago. Annual banding of the coral skeleton enabled construction of time windows of monthly resolved strontium/calcium (Sr/Ca) temperature proxy records. In conjunction with a previously published 118 ka coral record, our eight records of up to 37 years in length, cover a total of 105 years within the LIG period. From these, sea surface temperature (SST) seasonality and variability in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean is reconstructed. We detect similar to modern SST seasonality of ∼2.9 °C during the early (130 ka) and the late LIG (120-118 ka). However, within the mid-LIG, a significantly higher than modern SST seasonality of 4.9 °C (at 126 ka) and 4.1 °C (at 124 ka) is observed. These findings are supported by climate model simulations and are consistent with the evolving amplitude of orbitally induced changes in seasonality of insolation throughout the LIG, irrespective of wider climatic instabilities that characterised this period. The climate model simulations suggest that the SST seasonality changes documented in our LIG coral Sr/Ca records are representative of larger regions within the tropical North Atlantic. These simulations also suggest that the reconstructed SST seasonality increase during the mid-LIG is caused primarily by summer warming. A 124 ka old coral documents, for the first time, evidence of decadal SST variability in the tropical North Atlantic during the LIG, akin to that observed in modern instrumental records.

  5. ENSO in a warming world: interannual climate variability in the early Miocene Southern Hemisphere

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Fox, Bethany; Wilson, Gary; Lee, Daphne

    2016-04-01

    The El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant source of interannual variability in the modern-day climate system. ENSO is a quasi-periodic cycle with a recurrence interval of 2-8 years. A major question in modern climatology is how ENSO will respond to increased climatic warmth. ENSO-like (2-8 year) cycles have been detected in many palaeoclimate records for the Holocene. However, the temporal resolution of pre-Quaternary palaeoclimate archives is generally too coarse to investigate ENSO-scale variability. We present a 100-kyr record of ENSO-like variability during the second half of the Oligocene/Miocene Mi-1 event, a period of increasing global temperatures and Antarctic deglaciation (~23.032-2.93 Ma). This record is drawn from an annually laminated lacustrine diatomite from southern New Zealand, a region strongly affected by ENSO in the present day. The diatomite consists of seasonal alternations of light (diatom bloom) and dark (low diatom productivity) layers. Each light-dark couplet represents one year's sedimentation. Light-dark couplet thickness is characterised by ENSO-scale variability. We use high-resolution (sub-annual) measurements of colour spectra to detect couplet thickness variability. Wavelet analysis indicates that absolute values are modulated by orbital cycles. However, when orbital effects are taken into account, ENSO-like variability occurs throughout the entire depositional period, with no clear increase or reduction in relation to Antarctic deglaciation and increasing global warmth.

  6. Pollen-based temperature and precipitation inferences for the montane forest of Mt. Kilimanjaro during the last Glacial and the Holocene

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Schüler, L.; Hemp, A.; Behling, H.

    2014-01-01

    The relationship between modern pollen-rain taxa and measured climate variables was explored along the elevational gradient of the southern slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Pollen assemblages in 28 pollen traps positioned on 14 montane forest vegetation plots were identified and their relationship with climate variables was examined using multivariate statistical methods. Canonical correspondence analysis revealed that the mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation and minimum temperature each account for significant fractions of the variation in pollen taxa. A training set of 107 modern pollen taxa was used to derive temperature and precipitation transfer functions based on pollen subsets using weighted-averaging-partial-least-squares (WA-PLS) techniques. The transfer functions were then applied to a fossil pollen record from the montane forest of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the climate parameter estimates for the Late Glacial and the Holocene on Mt. Kilimanjaro were inferred. Our results present the first quantitatively reconstructed temperature and precipitation estimates for Mt Kilimanjaro and give highly interesting insights into the past 45 000 yr of climate dynamics in tropical East Africa. The climate reconstructions are consistent with the interpretation of pollen data in terms of vegetation and climate history of afro-montane forest in East Africa. Minimum temperatures above the frostline as well as increased precipitation turn out to be crucial for the development and expansion of montane forest during the Holocene. In contrast, consistently low minimum temperatures as well as about 25% drier climate conditions prevailed during the pre LGM, which kept the montane vegetation composition in a stable state. In prospective studies, the quantitative climate reconstruction will be improved by additional modern pollen rain data, especially from lower elevations with submontane dry forests and colline savanna vegetation in order to extend the reference climate gradient.

  7. Global temperature patterns 6000 years ago. Progress report

    DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

    Webb, T. III

    The overall goal is to illustrate the climatic patterns of 5000 to 7000 years ago over as wide an area of the northern hemisphere as possible. Mapping of the patterns in selected climatic variables at 5000 to 7000 years ago that can be reconstructed from pollen and marine-plankton data is planned. Multivariate statistical methods permit using the modern distribution of these data in order to transform their fossil remains into climate estimates of past times. Given these goals and methods, research during the first eight months focused on assembling the available modern and fossil data from each of the mainmore » areas under study. Two workshop conferences were held to help organize the joint work.« less

  8. Climate change. Six centuries of variability and extremes in a coupled marine-terrestrial ecosystem.

    PubMed

    Black, Bryan A; Sydeman, William J; Frank, David C; Griffin, Daniel; Stahle, David W; García-Reyes, Marisol; Rykaczewski, Ryan R; Bograd, Steven J; Peterson, William T

    2014-09-19

    Reported trends in the mean and variability of coastal upwelling in eastern boundary currents have raised concerns about the future of these highly productive and biodiverse marine ecosystems. However, the instrumental records on which these estimates are based are insufficiently long to determine whether such trends exceed preindustrial limits. In the California Current, a 576-year reconstruction of climate variables associated with winter upwelling indicates that variability increased over the latter 20th century to levels equaled only twice during the past 600 years. This modern trend in variance may be unique, because it appears to be driven by an unprecedented succession of extreme, downwelling-favorable, winter climate conditions that profoundly reduce productivity for marine predators of commercial and conservation interest. Copyright © 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  9. Morphological adaptation to climate in modern Homo sapiens crania: the importance of basicranial breadth.

    PubMed

    Nowaczewska, Wioletta; Dabrowski, Paweł; Kuźmiński, Łukasz

    2011-09-01

    The aim of this study is to investigate whether the variation in breadth of the cranial base among modern human populations that inhabit different regions of the world is linked with climatic adaptation. This work provides an examination of two hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that the correlation between basicranial breadth and ambient temperature is stronger than the correlation between temperature and other neurocranial variables, such as maximum cranial breadth, maximum neurocranial length, and the endocranial volume. The second hypothesis is that the correlation between the breadth of the cranial base and the ambient temperature is significant even when other neurocranial features used in this study (including the size of the neurocranium) are constant. For the sake of this research, the necessary neurocranial variables for fourteen human populations living in diverse environments were obtained from Howells' data (except for endocranial volume which was obtained by means of estimation). The ambient temperature (more precisely, the mean yearly temperature) of the environments inhabited by these populations was used as a major climatic factor. Data were analysed using Pearson correlation coefficients, linear regression and partial correlation analyses. The results supported the two hypotheses, thus suggesting that ambient temperature may contribute to the observed differences in the breadth of the cranial base in the studied modern humans.

  10. Pollen-based continental climate reconstructions at 6 and 21 ka: A global synthesis

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Bartlein, P.J.; Harrison, S.P.; Brewer, Sandra; Connor, S.; Davis, B.A.S.; Gajewski, K.; Guiot, J.; Harrison-Prentice, T. I.; Henderson, A.; Peyron, O.; Prentice, I.C.; Scholze, M.; Seppa, H.; Shuman, B.; Sugita, S.; Thompson, R.S.; Viau, A.E.; Williams, J.; Wu, H.

    2011-01-01

    Subfossil pollen and plant macrofossil data derived from 14C-dated sediment profiles can provide quantitative information on glacial and interglacial climates. The data allow climate variables related to growing-season warmth, winter cold, and plant-available moisture to be reconstructed. Continental-scale reconstructions have been made for the mid-Holocene (MH, around 6 ka) and Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, around 21 ka), allowing comparison with palaeoclimate simulations currently being carried out as part of the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The synthesis of the available MH and LGM climate reconstructions and their uncertainties, obtained using modern-analogue, regression and model-inversion techniques, is presented for four temperature variables and two moisture variables. Reconstructions of the same variables based on surface-pollen assemblages are shown to be accurate and unbiased. Reconstructed LGM and MH climate anomaly patterns are coherent, consistent between variables, and robust with respect to the choice of technique. They support a conceptual model of the controls of Late Quaternary climate change whereby the first-order effects of orbital variations and greenhouse forcing on the seasonal cycle of temperature are predictably modified by responses of the atmospheric circulation and surface energy balance. ?? 2010 The Author(s).

  11. Investigation of n-Alkane Distributions in Modern Plant Litter from Hawaii wetlands: a potential proxy for past vegetation and hydroclimate changes?

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Massa, C.; Beilman, D. W.; Nichols, J. E.; Elison Timm, O.

    2016-12-01

    Holocene peat deposits from the Hawaiian Islands provide a unique opportunity to resolve millennial to centennial-scale climate variability over the central Pacific region, where data remain scarce. Because both extratropical and tropical modes of climate variability have a strong influence on modern rainfall over the archipelago, hydroclimate proxies from peat would provide valuable information about past Pacific climate changes. The few terrestrial records studied, based on pollen or leaf wax biomarkers, showed evidence for substantial vegetation changes that have been linked to a drying trend over the Holocene. Leaf wax n-alkanes, as well as their stable isotopic compositions (δ13C and δD), are indeed increasingly used to reconstruct past hydroclimate conditions. The interpretation of n-alkanes as biomarkers requires however a thorough knowledge of their distribution in modern plants that contribute to sediments, but in Hawaii the modern vegetation is understudied compared to proxy applications. Here we report results from a preliminary investigation of n-alkanes distributions in dominant modern plant litter collected at a bog site at the summit of the Waianae mountains on the Island of Oahu. We compared n-alkane distributions among species and plant groups in order to test whether taxa or plant functional types (mosses, ferns, woody plants, and sedges) can be discriminated from their n-alkane profiles. Results showed that general plant groups were difficult to distinguish based on individual n-alkanes abundances, chain lengths, or ratios. At the species level, the sedge Machaerina augustifolia, was largely dominated by n-C29 ( 60%), suggesting some chain lengths could be useful as proxies for identifying the contribution of sedges to sedimentary records. Woody plant average chain length was highly variable but overall was not shorter (even slightly higher) than in other terrestrial plants, as it is often assumed. A sedimentary profile from this site shows variation and an overall decrease in n-alkane chain length over the Holocene, but patterns across common modern plants suggest that caution should be exercised when ascribing n-alkane distribution parameters to a specific group of tropical vegetation.

  12. Evidence for a possible modern and mid-Holocene solar influence on climate from Lake Titicaca, South America

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Theissen, K. M.; Dunbar, R. B.

    2005-12-01

    In tropical regions, there are few paleoclimate archives with the necessary resolution to investigate climate variability at interannual-to-decadal timescales prior to the onset of the instrumental record. Interannual variability associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is well documented in the instrumental record and the importance of the precessional forcing of millennial variability has been established in studies of tropical paleoclimate records. In contrast, decade-to-century variability is still poorly understood. Here, we examine interannual to decadal variability in the northern Altiplano of South America using digital image analysis of a floating interval of varved sediments of middle Holocene age (~6160-6310 yr BP) from Lake Titicaca. Multi-taper method (MTM) and wavelet frequency-domain analyses were performed on a time series generated from a gray-scaled digital image of the mm-thick laminations. Our results indicate significant power at a decadal periodicity (10-12 years) associated with the Schwabe cycle of solar activity. Frequency-domain analysis also indicates power at 2-2.5 year periodicities associated with ENSO. Similarly, spectral analysis of a 75 year instrumental record of Titicaca lake level shows significant power at both solar and ENSO periodicities. Although both of the examined records are short, our results imply that during both the mid-Holocene and modern times, solar and ENSO variability may have contributed to high frequency climate fluctuations over the northern Altiplano. We suspect that solar influence on large-scale atmospheric circulation features may account for the decadal variability in the mid-Holocene and present-day water balance of the Altiplano.

  13. Climate variability during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age based on ostracod faunas and shell geochemistry from Biscayne Bay, Florida: Chapter 14

    USGS Publications Warehouse

    Cronin, Thomas M.; Wingard, G. Lynn; Dwyer, Gary S.; Swart, Peter K.; Willard, Debra A.; Albietz, Jessica

    2012-01-01

    An 800-year-long environmental history of Biscayne Bay, Florida, is reconstructed from ostracod faunal and shell geochemical (oxygen, carbon isotopes, Mg/Ca ratios) studies of sediment cores from three mudbanks in the central and southern parts of the bay. Using calibrations derived from analyses of modern Biscayne and Florida Bay ostracods, palaeosalinity oscillations associated with changes in precipitation were identified. These oscillations reflect multidecadal- and centennial-scale climate variability associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation during the late Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Evidence suggests wetter regional climate during the MCA and drier conditions during the LIA. In addition, twentieth century anthropogenic modifications to Everglades hydrology influenced bay circulation and/or processes controlling carbon isotopic composition.

  14. Molecules in the mud: Combining ancient DNA and lipid biomarkers to reconstruct vegetation response to climate variability during the Last Interglacial and the Holocene on Baffin Island, Arctic Canada

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Crump, S. E.; Sepúlveda, J.; Bunce, M.; Miller, G. H.

    2017-12-01

    Modern ecological studies are revealing that the "greening" of the Arctic, resulting from a poleward shift in woody vegetation ranges, is already underway. The increasing abundance of shrubs in tundra ecosystems plays an important role in the global climate system through multiple positive feedbacks, yet uncertainty in future predictions of terrestrial vegetation means that climate models are likely not capturing these feedbacks accurately. Recently developed molecular techniques for reconstructing past vegetation and climate allow for a closer look at the paleo-record in order to improve our understanding of tundra community responses to climate variability; our current research focus is to apply these tools to both Last Interglacial and Holocene warm times. Here we present initial results from a small lake on southern Baffin Island spanning the last 7.2 ka. We reconstruct climate with both bulk geochemical and biomarker proxies, primarily using biogenic silica and branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) as temperature indicators. We assess shifts in plant community using multivariate analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) metabarcoding data. This combination of approaches reveals that the vegetation community has responded sensitively to early Holocene warmth, Neoglacial cooling, and possibly modern anthropogenic warming. To our knowledge, this represents the first combination of a quantitative, biomarker-based climate reconstruction with a sedaDNA-based paleoecological reconstruction, and offers a glimpse at the potential of these molecular techniques used in tandem.

  15. Pluvials, Droughts, the Mongol Empire, and Modern Mongolia

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Hessl, A. E.; Pederson, N.; Baatarbileg, N.; Anchukaitis, K. J.

    2013-12-01

    Understanding the connections between climate, ecosystems, and society during historical and modern climatic transitions requires annual resolution records with high fidelity climate signals. Many studies link the demise of complex societies with deteriorating climate conditions, but few have investigated the connection between climate, surplus energy, and the rise of empires. Inner Asia in the 13th century underwent a major political transformation requiring enormous energetic inputs that altered human history. The Mongol Empire, centered on the city of Karakorum, became the largest contiguous land empire in world history (Fig. 1 inset). Powered by domesticated grazing animals, the empire grew at the expense of sedentary agriculturalists across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Although some scholars and conventional wisdom agree that dry conditions spurred the Mongol conquests, little paleoenvironmental data at annual resolution are available to evaluate the role of climate in the development of the Mongol Empire. Here we present a 2600 year tree-ring reconstruction of warm-season, self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI), a measure of water balance, derived from 107 live and dead Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees growing on a Holocene lava flow in central Mongolia. Trees growing on the Khorgo lava flow today are stunted and widely spaced, occurring on microsites with little to no soil development. These trees are extremely water-stressed and their radial growth is well-correlated with both drought (scPDSI) and grassland productivity (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)). Our reconstruction, calibrated and validated on instrumental June-September scPDSI (1959-2009) accounts for 55.8% of the variability in the regional scPDSI when 73% of the annual rainfall occurs. Our scPDSI reconstruction places historic and modern social change in Mongolia in the context of the range of climatic variability during the Common Era. Our record, in combination with a gridded temperature reconstruction, shows that the climate during the conquests of Chinggis Khaan's (Ghengis Khan) 13th century Mongol Empire was warm and persistently wet. Tree-ring and meteorological data combined suggest that the early 21st century drought was the hottest drought in the last 1000 years, consistent with model projections of warming in Inner Asia. Future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar 'heat droughts', with potentially severe consequences for modern Mongolia.

  16. Paleoclimatic Reconstructions From Plant Macrofossils For The Last Glacial Maximum, Middle Holocene, And Latest Holocene In The American Southwest

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Thompson, R. S.; Anderson, K.; Pelltier, R.; Strickland, L. E.; Shafer, S. L.; Bartlein, P. J.

    2013-12-01

    Fossil plant remains preserved in a variety of geologic settings provide direct evidence of where individual species lived in the past, and there are long-established methods for paleoclimatic reconstructions based on comparisons between modern and past geographic ranges of plant species. In principle, these methods use relatively straightforward procedures that frequently result in what appear to be very precise estimates of past temperature and moisture conditions. The reconstructed estimates can be mapped for specific time slices for synoptic-scale reconstructions for data-model comparisons. Although paleobotanical data can provide apparently precise estimates of past climatic conditions, it is difficult to gauge the associated uncertainties. The estimates may be affected by the choice of modern calibration data, reconstruction methods employed, and whether the climatic variable under consideration is an important determinant of the distributions of the species being considered. For time-slice reconstructions, there are also issues involving the adequacy of the spatial coverage of the fossil data and the degree of variability through time. To examine some of these issues, we estimated annual precipitation and summer and winter temperatures for the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21000 × 1000 yr BP), Middle Holocene (MH, 6000 × 500 yr BP), and Latest Holocene (LH, the last 500 yrs), based on the application of four quantitative approaches to paleobotanical assemblages preserved in packrat middens in the American Southwest. Our results indicate that historic variability and difficulties in interpolating climatic values to fossil sites may impose ranges of uncertainties of more than × 1°C for temperature and × 50 mm for annual precipitation. Climatic estimates based on modern midden assemblages generally fall within these ranges, although there may be biases that differ regionally. Samples of similar age and location provide similar climatic estimates, and the four approaches usually result in anomalies of the same sign, but with differing amplitudes. There is considerable variability among the anomalies for samples within each time slice, and different time slices have different geographic coverages of samples. The reconstructed temperature anomalies are similar between the MH and LH time slices, and generally fall within the uncertainties related to the modern climatic data. LGM anomalies were significantly colder, and for many samples exceeded -5°C in both winter and summer. There are what appear to be significant MH annual precipitation anomalies to the south (dry after 6.2 ka)and to the northwest (wet before 6.2 ka), but it may be misleading to compare these, given the differences in age. Positive annual precipitation anomalies for the LGM are more than 100 mm in the northwest, and smaller in the northeast and south.

  17. Pronounced differences between observed and CMIP5-simulated multidecadal climate variability in the twentieth century

    NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

    Kravtsov, Sergey

    2017-06-01

    Identification and dynamical attribution of multidecadal climate undulations to either variations in external forcings or to internal sources is one of the most important topics of modern climate science, especially in conjunction with the issue of human-induced global warming. Here we utilize ensembles of twentieth century climate simulations to isolate the forced signal and residual internal variability in a network of observed and modeled climate indices. The observed internal variability so estimated exhibits a pronounced multidecadal mode with a distinctive spatiotemporal signature, which is altogether absent in model simulations. This single mode explains a major fraction of model-data differences over the entire climate index network considered; it may reflect either biases in the models' forced response or models' lack of requisite internal dynamics, or a combination of both.Plain Language SummaryGlobal and regional warming trends over the course of the twentieth century have been nonuniform, with decadal and longer periods of faster or slower warming, or even cooling. Here we show that state-of-the-art global models used to predict climate fail to adequately reproduce such multidecadal climate variations. In particular, the models underestimate the magnitude of the observed variability and misrepresent its spatial pattern. Therefore, our ability to interpret the observed climate change using these models is limited.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMPP21A1372D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMPP21A1372D"><span>A High-Resolution Record of Holocene Climate Variability from a Western Canadian Coastal Inlet</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Dallimore, A.; Thomson, R. E.; Enkin, R. J.; Kulikov, E. A.; Bertram, M. A.; Wright, C. A.; Southon, J. R.; Barrie, J. V.; Baker, J.; Pienitz, R.; Calvert, S. E.; Chang, A. S.; Pedersen, T. F.</p> <p>2004-12-01</p> <p>Conditions within the Pacific Ocean have a major effect on the climate of northwestern North America. High resolution records of present and past northeast Pacific climate are revealed in our multi-disciplinary study of annually laminated marine sediments from anoxic coastal inlets of British Columbia. Past climate conditions for the entire Holocene are recorded in the sediment record contained in a 40 meter, annually laminated marine sediment core taken in Effingham Inlet, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, from the French ship the Marion Dufresne, as part of the international IMAGES program. By combining our eight year continuous instrument record of modern coastal ocean dynamics and climate with high-resolution analysis of depositional processes, we have been able to develop proxy measurements of past climatic and oceanographic changes on annual to millennial time scales. Results indicate that regional climate has oscillated on a variety of time scales throughout the Holocene. At times, climatic change has been dramatically rapid. We are also developing digital methods for statistical time-series analyses of physical sediment properties through the Holocene in order to obtain a more objective quantitative approach for detecting cyclicity in our data. Results of the time series analysis of lamination thickness reveals statistically significant spectral peaks of climate scale variability at established decadal to century time scales. These in turn may be related to solar cycles and quasi-cyclical ocean processes such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. However, the annually laminated time series are periodically interrupted by massive mud intervals which are related to bottom currents and at times paleo-seismic events, illustrating the need for a full understanding of modern oceanographic and sedimentation processes, so an accurate proxy record of past climate can be established.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26369980','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26369980"><span>Distribution of Cenozoic plant relicts in China explained by drought in dry season.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Huang, Yongjiang; Jacques, Frédéric M B; Su, Tao; Ferguson, David K; Tang, Hui; Chen, Wenyun; Zhou, Zhekun</p> <p>2015-09-15</p> <p>Cenozoic plant relicts are those groups that were once widespread in the Northern Hemisphere but are now restricted to some small isolated areas as a result of drastic climatic changes. They are good proxies to study how plants respond to climatic changes since their modern climatic requirements are known. Herein we look at the modern distribution of 65 palaeoendemic genera in China and compare it with the Chinese climatic pattern, in order to find a link between the plant distribution and climate. Central China and Taiwan Island are shown to be diversity centres of Cenozoic relict genera, consistent with the fact that these two regions have a shorter dry season with comparatively humid autumn and spring in China. Species distribution models indicate that the precipitation parameters are the most important variables to explain the distribution of relict genera. The Cenozoic wide-scale distribution of relict plants in the Northern Hemisphere is therefore considered to be linked to the widespread humid climate at that time, and the subsequent contraction of their distributional ranges was probably caused by the drying trend along with global cooling.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4572930','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4572930"><span>Distribution of Cenozoic plant relicts in China explained by drought in dry season</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Huang, Yongjiang; Jacques, Frédéric M. B.; Su, Tao; Ferguson, David K.; Tang, Hui; Chen, Wenyun; Zhou, Zhekun</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Cenozoic plant relicts are those groups that were once widespread in the Northern Hemisphere but are now restricted to some small isolated areas as a result of drastic climatic changes. They are good proxies to study how plants respond to climatic changes since their modern climatic requirements are known. Herein we look at the modern distribution of 65 palaeoendemic genera in China and compare it with the Chinese climatic pattern, in order to find a link between the plant distribution and climate. Central China and Taiwan Island are shown to be diversity centres of Cenozoic relict genera, consistent with the fact that these two regions have a shorter dry season with comparatively humid autumn and spring in China. Species distribution models indicate that the precipitation parameters are the most important variables to explain the distribution of relict genera. The Cenozoic wide-scale distribution of relict plants in the Northern Hemisphere is therefore considered to be linked to the widespread humid climate at that time, and the subsequent contraction of their distributional ranges was probably caused by the drying trend along with global cooling. PMID:26369980</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>1</a></li> <li class="active"><span>2</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_3");'>3</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_2 --> <div id="page_3" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>1</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_2");'>2</a></li> <li class="active"><span>3</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="41"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18288621','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18288621"><span>The relative importance of body size and paleoclimatic change as explanatory variables influencing lineage diversification rate: an evolutionary analysis of bullhead catfishes (Siluriformes: Ictaluridae).</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Hardman, Michael; Hardman, Lotta M</p> <p>2008-02-01</p> <p>We applied Bayesian phylogenetics, divergence time estimation, diversification pattern analysis, and parsimony-based methods of ancestral state reconstruction to a combination of nucleotide sequences, maximum body sizes, fossils, and paleoclimate data to explore the influence of an extrinsic (climate change) and an intrinsic (maximum body size) factor on diversification rates in a North American clade of catfishes (Ictaluridae). We found diversification rate to have been significantly variable over time, with significant (or nearly significant) rate increases in the early history of Noturus. Though the latter coincided closely with a period of dramatic climate change at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, we did not detect evidence for a general association between climate change and diversification rate during the entire history of Ictaluridae. Within Ictaluridae, small body size was found to be a near significant predictor of species richness. Morphological stasis of several species appears to be a consequence of a homoplastic increase in body size. We estimated the maximum standard length of the ictalurid ancestor to be approximately 50 cm, comparable to Eocene ictalurids (Astephus) and similar to modern sizes of Ameiurus and their Asian sister-taxon Cranoglanis. During the late Paleocene and early Eocene, the ictalurid ancestor diversified into the lineages represented by the modern epigean genera. The majority of modern species originated in the Oligocene and Miocene, most likely according to a peripheral isolates model of speciation. We discuss the difficulties of detecting macroevolutionary patterns within a lineage history and encourage the scrutiny of the terminal Eocene climatic event as a direct promoter of diversification.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP51E..07M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP51E..07M"><span>The Nature of Antarctic Temperature Change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Markle, B. R.; Steig, E. J.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The Antarctic is an important component of global climate. While the Arctic has warmed significantly in the last century, the Antarctic as a whole has shown considerably less variability. There is, however, a pronounced spatial pattern to modern Antarctic temperature change. The high East Antarctic Ice Sheet shows little to no warming over recent decades while West Antarctica and the Peninsula shows some of the largest rates of warming on the globe. Examining past climate variability can help reveal the physical processes governing this spatial pattern of Antarctic temperature change. Modern Antarctic temperature variability is known from satellite and weather station observations. Understanding changes in the past, however, requires paleoclimate-proxies such as ice-core water-isotope records. Here we assess the spatial pattern of Antarctic temperature changes across a range of timescales, from modern decadal changes to millennial and orbital-scale variability. We reconstruct past changes in absolute temperatures from a suite of deep ice core records and an improved isotope-temperature reconstruction method. We use δ18O and deuterium excess records to reconstruct both evaporation source and condensation site temperatures. In contrast to previous studies we use a novel method that accounts for nonlinearities in the water-isotope distillation process. We quantify past temperature changes over the Southern Ocean and Antarctic Continent and the magnitude of polar amplification. We identify patterns of Antarctic temperature change that are common across a wide range of timescales and independent of the source of forcing. We examine the nature of these changes and their relationship to atmospheric thermodynamics.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70188513','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70188513"><span>Paleoclimates: Understanding climate change past and present</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Cronin, Thomas M.</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>The field of paleoclimatology relies on physical, chemical, and biological proxies of past climate changes that have been preserved in natural archives such as glacial ice, tree rings, sediments, corals, and speleothems. Paleoclimate archives obtained through field investigations, ocean sediment coring expeditions, ice sheet coring programs, and other projects allow scientists to reconstruct climate change over much of earth's history. When combined with computer model simulations, paleoclimatic reconstructions are used to test hypotheses about the causes of climatic change, such as greenhouse gases, solar variability, earth's orbital variations, and hydrological, oceanic, and tectonic processes. This book is a comprehensive, state-of-the art synthesis of paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, emphasizing topics that shed light on modern trends in the earth's climate. Thomas M. Cronin discusses recent discoveries about past periods of global warmth, changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, abrupt climate and sea-level change, natural temperature variability, and other topics directly relevant to controversies over the causes and impacts of climate change. This text is geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in geology, geography, biology, glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and climate modeling, fields that contribute to paleoclimatology. This volume can also serve as a reference for those requiring a general background on natural climate variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70120881','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70120881"><span>Pliocene environments</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Poore, R.Z.</p> <p>2007-01-01</p> <p>The Pliocene spans the interval of Earth history from ca. 5.3 to 1.8 million years ago (Ma). Although details are still debated there is much evidence from continental and oceanic locations indicating that conditions from 5.3 to about 3.0 Ma were often warmer than in modern times in mid- and high latitudes and that climate variability was subdued compared to the Pleistocene. Millennial-scale early Pliocene climate records are dominated by 19–21 thousand years ago (ka) oscillations. Starting at about 3.0 Ma, a long-term trend toward climate cooling and the ice ages of the Pleistocene accelerated. Significant build-up of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets began around 2.9 Ma and climate variability as measured by the oxygen isotope record in deep-sea carbonate microfossils increased. Distinct glacial–interglacial cycles developed in the late Pliocene between 2.9 and 2.7 Ma.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016NatCo...713502R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016NatCo...713502R"><span>Annually resolved North Atlantic marine climate over the last millennium</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Reynolds, D. J.; Scourse, J. D.; Halloran, P. R.; Nederbragt, A. J.; Wanamaker, A. D.; Butler, P. G.; Richardson, C. A.; Heinemeier, J.; Eiríksson, J.; Knudsen, K. L.; Hall, I. R.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Owing to the lack of absolutely dated oceanographic information before the modern instrumental period, there is currently significant debate as to the role played by North Atlantic Ocean dynamics in previous climate transitions (for example, Medieval Climate Anomaly-Little Ice Age, MCA-LIA). Here we present analyses of a millennial-length, annually resolved and absolutely dated marine δ18O archive. We interpret our record of oxygen isotope ratios from the shells of the long-lived marine bivalve Arctica islandica (δ18O-shell), from the North Icelandic shelf, in relation to seawater density variability and demonstrate that solar and volcanic forcing coupled with ocean circulation dynamics are key drivers of climate variability over the last millennium. During the pre-industrial period (AD 1000-1800) variability in the sub-polar North Atlantic leads changes in Northern Hemisphere surface air temperatures at multi-decadal timescales, indicating that North Atlantic Ocean dynamics played an active role in modulating the response of the atmosphere to solar and volcanic forcing.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SSRv..212..295M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SSRv..212..295M"><span>The Modern Near-Surface Martian Climate: A Review of In-situ Meteorological Data from Viking to Curiosity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Martínez, G. M.; Newman, C. N.; De Vicente-Retortillo, A.; Fischer, E.; Renno, N. O.; Richardson, M. I.; Fairén, A. G.; Genzer, M.; Guzewich, S. D.; Haberle, R. M.; Harri, A.-M.; Kemppinen, O.; Lemmon, M. T.; Smith, M. D.; de la Torre-Juárez, M.; Vasavada, A. R.</p> <p>2017-10-01</p> <p>We analyze the complete set of in-situ meteorological data obtained from the Viking landers in the 1970s to today's Curiosity rover to review our understanding of the modern near-surface climate of Mars, with focus on the dust, CO2 and H2O cycles and their impact on the radiative and thermodynamic conditions near the surface. In particular, we provide values of the highest confidence possible for atmospheric opacity, atmospheric pressure, near-surface air temperature, ground temperature, near-surface wind speed and direction, and near-surface air relative humidity and water vapor content. Then, we study the diurnal, seasonal and interannual variability of these quantities over a span of more than twenty Martian years. Finally, we propose measurements to improve our understanding of the Martian dust and H2O cycles, and discuss the potential for liquid water formation under Mars' present day conditions and its implications for future Mars missions. Understanding the modern Martian climate is important to determine if Mars could have the conditions to support life and to prepare for future human exploration.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP23D..03T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP23D..03T"><span>Evaluating interannual variability in speleothem records of North American monsoon rainfall</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Truebe, S. A.; Cole, J. E.; Ault, T. R.; Kimbrough, A.; Henderson, G. M.; Barmett, H.; Hlohowskyj, S.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>Speleothems can produce long, high resolution, absolutely-dated records of past climate. They are especially useful for past climate reconstruction in areas such as the southwestern United States, where traditional sources of past climate information (corals, lake or ocean sediments, ice cores) are absent. Here we present two records of Holocene rainfall variability from two Arizona caves less than 40km apart: Cave of the Bells (COB) and Fort Huachuca Cave (FHC), spanning 7000 and 4000 years respectively. Both records show a trend towards more negative oxygen isotope values into the modern era. Extensive monthly monitoring suggests that speleothem oxygen isotope composition is an average of the oxygen isotope composition of the summer North American monsoon (NAM) and winter frontal storms, with a bias towards winter likely due to lack of infiltration of intense monsoon rainfall. This bias is stronger in COB than in FHC. Winter rainfall has had an increasing influence at both sites from the mid-Holocene until the present; in other words, the NAM has been weakening over the past few thousand years, in step with changes in other monsoon systems and Northern Hemisphere insolation. Although the records are similar in overall trend, short-term variability is inconsistent. When providing information to water managers about future rainfall availability in the Southwest, having only millennial-scale information does not help much! To investigate the differences between the two records, we use a combination of approaches, including assessing age model uncertainty and modern climate heterogeneity, and monitoring cave-specific processes that may be overprinting the climate signal. We assess age model uncertainty using a statistical age-modeling program, which allows us to develop many physically plausible time series for the same age-depth data. With this age modeling tool, we critically assess whether particular isotope excursions correspond between speleothems and if they are temporally related to global climate events. However, even correlation and coherence analyses across the suites of time series for each speleothem do not elicit a common high-frequency climate story. We further investigate the discrepancy between cave records by assessing modern climate heterogeneity using historical observations. Climate in the arid Southwest is spatially heterogeneous, especially during the summer monsoon, contributing to the mismatch between these two climate records. Finally, after a decade of monitoring at COB, we recognize that storage and mixing in the epikarst above the cave affect what parts (if any) of the seasonal signal are recorded in a speleothem. In addition to new insights about North American monsoon behavior during the Holocene, the important lesson from these speleothem records is that in caves, because of underlying (overlying?) climate heterogeneity, replication of a common climate signal using oxygen isotopes may be an unattainable goal. The COB and FHC records may record very local climate at their respective locations, overprinted by water storage and mixing in the epikarst. Very local-scale reconstructions of past rainfall variability from speleothems can still be useful and important, if interpreted for what they are.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70184378','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70184378"><span>Holocene climate and climate variability of the northern Gulf of Mexico and adjacent northern Gulf Coast: A review</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Poore, Richard Z.</p> <p>2008-01-01</p> <p>Marine records from the northern Gulf of Mexico indicate that significant multidecadal- and century-scale variability was common during the Holocene. Mean annual sea-surface temperature (SST) during the last 1,400 years may have varied by 3°C, and excursions to cold SST coincide with reductions in solar output. Broad trends in Holocene terrestrial climate and environmental change along the eastern portion of the northern Gulf Coast are evident from existing pollen records, but the high-frequency details of climate variability are not well known. Continuous and well-dated records of climate change and climate variability in the western portion of the northern Gulf Coast are essentially lacking.Information on Holocene floods, droughts, and storm frequency along the northern Gulf Coast is limited. Records of floods may be preserved in continental shelf sediments, but establishing continuity and chronologies for sedimentary sequences on the shelf presents challenges due to sediment remobilization and redeposition during storms. Studies of past storm deposits in coastal lakes and marshes show promise for constructing records of past storm frequency. A recent summary of sea-level history of the northern Gulf Coast indicates sea level was higher than modern sea level several times during the last few thousand years.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AGUFMGC21A..01M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2001AGUFMGC21A..01M"><span>Nineteenth Century Long-Term Instrumental Records, Examples From the Southeastern United States</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Mock, C. J.</p> <p>2001-12-01</p> <p>Early instrumental records in the United States, defined as those operating before 1892 which is regarded the period prior to the modern climate record, provide a longer perspective of climatic variability at decadal and interannual timescales. Such reconstructions also provide a means of verification for other proxy data. This paper provides a American perspective of historical climatic research, emphasizing the urgent need to properly evaluate data quality and provide necessary corrections to make them compatible with the modern record. Different fixed observation times, different practices of weather instrument exposures, and statistical methods for calibration are the main issues in applying corrections and conducting proper climatic interpretations. I illustrate several examples on methodologies of this historical climatic research, focusing on the following in the Southeastern United States: daily reconstructed temperature time-series centered on Charleston SC and Natchez MS back to the late eighteenth century, and precipitation frequency reconstructions during the antebellum period for the Gulf Coast and coastal Southeast Atlantic states. Results indicate several prominent extremes unprecedented as compared to the modern record, such as the widespread warm winter of 1827-28, and the severe cold winters of 1856 and 1857. The reconstructions also yield important information concerning responses to past ENSO events, the PNA, NAO, and the PDO, particularly when compared with instrumental data from other regions. A high potential also exists for applying the climate reconstructions to assess historical climatic impacts on society in the Southeast, such as to understand climatic linkages to famous case studies of Yellow Fever epidemics and severe drought.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AdSpR..40.1173F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AdSpR..40.1173F"><span>Has solar variability caused climate change that affected human culture?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Feynman, Joan</p> <p></p> <p>If solar variability affects human culture it most likely does so by changing the climate in which the culture operates. Variations in the solar radiative input to the Earth's atmosphere have often been suggested as a cause of such climate change on time scales from decades to tens of millennia. In the last 20 years there has been enormous progress in our knowledge of the many fields of research that impinge on this problem; the history of the solar output, the effect of solar variability on the Earth's mean climate and its regional patterns, the history of the Earth's climate and the history of mankind and human culture. This new knowledge encourages revisiting the question asked in the title of this talk. Several important historical events have been reliably related to climate change including the Little Ice Age in northern Europe and the collapse of the Classical Mayan civilization in the 9th century AD. In the first section of this paper we discus these historical events and review the evidence that they were caused by changes in the solar output. Perhaps the most important event in the history of mankind was the development of agricultural societies. This began to occur almost 12,000 years ago when the climate changed from the Pleistocene to the modern climate of the Holocene. In the second section of the paper we will discuss the suggestion ( Feynman and Ruzmaikin, 2007) that climate variability was the reason agriculture developed when it did and not before.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/50387','TREESEARCH'); return false;" href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/50387"><span>Climatology and trend of wind power resources in China and its surrounding regions: a revisit using Climate Forecast System Reanalysis data</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/">Treesearch</a></p> <p>Lejiang Yu; Shiyuan Zhong; Xindi Bian; Warren E. Heilman</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>The mean climatology, seasonal and interannual variability and trend of wind speeds at the hub height (80 m) of modern wind turbines over China and its surrounding regions are revisited using 33-year (1979–2011) wind data from the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) that has many improvements including higher spatial resolution over previous global reanalysis...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28635270','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28635270"><span>Understanding the Effects of Genotype, Growing Year, and Breeding on Tunisian Durum Wheat Allergenicity. 2. The Celiac Disease Case.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Boukid, Fatma; Prandi, Barbara; Sforza, Stefano; Sayar, Rhouma; Seo, Yong Weon; Mejri, Mondher; Yacoubi, Ines</p> <p>2017-07-19</p> <p>The aim of this study was to compare immunogenic and toxic gluten peptides related to celiac disease (CD). 100 accessions of genotypes selected during the 20th century in Tunisia were in vitro digested and then analyzed by UPLC/ESI-MS technique using an isotopically labeled internal standard. The first MANOVA confirmed a high variability in the content of immunogenic and toxic peptides reflecting high genetic diversity in the germplasm released during the past century in Tunisia, consistently with PCA and clustering analysis results. Our finding showed also important variability in CD epitopes due to growing season's climate scenarios. Moreover, the second MANOVA revealed significant differences between abandoned and modern cultivars' CD-related peptide amounts. Although we could not conclude that there was an augment of allergens in newly selected durum wheat lines compared to abandoned ones, we demonstrated that modern genotype peptides were less sensitive to climate variation, which is a useful indicator for wheat breeders.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5922197','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5922197"><span>Climate, Birth Weight, and Agricultural Livelihoods in Kenya and Mali</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Grace, Kathryn; Nawrotzki, Raphael J.</p> <p>2018-01-01</p> <p>Objectives. To examine an association between climate variability and birth weight in Mali and Kenya in relation to the local agricultural specialization. Methods. We combined health and sociodemographic data from the Demographic Health Surveys for Kenya (2008 and 2014) and Mali (2006 and 2012) with detailed data on precipitation, temperature, and vegetation. We analyzed the association between climate variability and birth weight by using multilevel regression models for the most common agricultural specializations: food cropping, cash cropping, and pastoralism. Results. There are differences in sensitivity to climate among different agricultural communities. An additional 100 millimeters of rainfall during the 12-month period before birth was associated with a 47-gram (P = .001) and 89-gram (P = .10) increase in birth weight for food croppers in Kenya and Mali, respectively. Every additional hot month in food-cropping communities in Kenya was associated with a 71-gram decrease in birth weight (P = .030), likely because of food croppers’ limited use of modern agricultural techniques. Overall, cash croppers are least sensitive to climate variability in both countries. Conclusions. Effective climate change adaptation strategies are essential for protecting and improving health outcomes and should be tailored to local households’ livelihood strategies. PMID:29072943</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP11C2038H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP11C2038H"><span>The impact of pCO2 and climate on D/H and 13C/12C fractionation of higher-plant biomarkers: Implications for paleoclimate and paleoelevation reconstruction during global warm periods</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hren, M. T.; Tipple, B. J.; Pagani, M.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>Stable hydrogen isotope compositions (D/H) of plant biomarkers record the hydrogen isotopic composition of leaf water at the time of plant growth. However, the magnitude of the apparent hydrogen isotope fractionation between biomarkers and precipitation can vary due to soil- or leaf-water evaporation or differing water-use strategies. As a result, climate-induced changes in soil- or leaf-water evaporation rates and/or changes in plant assemblages during periods of global warming and high atmospheric CO2 could impact apparent carbon and hydrogen isotope fractionations. We measured hydrogen and carbon isotope ratios of long-carbon chain n-alkanes from modern and ~50 million year old fossil leaves preserved in paleo-Sierra Nevada riverine sediments to determine how climate and ecosystem differences during a period of extremely high pCO2 impact the magnitude and variability of D/H and 13C/12C ratios of leaf-waxes across a topographic gradient. δDalkanes (nC27 to nC31) of individual fossil and modern leaves decrease systematically across the topographic gradient and follow the change in the D/H of precipitation due to orographic lifting and continuous rainout. Using estimated values of Eocene δDprecip at the Pacific margin (-43 to -61‰), apparent fractionations (ɛalkane - precip) for Eocene angiosperm trees are similar to that seen for modern, humid environments (~ -106 to -124‰ ±10‰ 1σ), and more negative than observed in modern sun-exposed leaves in the Sierra Nevada (-96 to -102‰) or soils (-87 to -92‰). Single site variability in leaf-wax δD from individual fossil angiosperms can exceed 20‰, but is considerably smaller than observed for modern, mixed angiosperm/gymnosperm forests of the seasonally dry Sierra Nevada range. δ13Calkane values show little or no systematic variation across the range. However, carbon isotope discrimination in ancient and modern leaves is similar, suggesting strong climatic and weak pCO2 controls on D/H and 13C/12C fractionation. Site average δDalkane of multiple leaves closely mirrors bulk sediment δD values and suggests that the isotopic composition of bulk sediments provides a more robust record of local environmental and hydrologic conditions than analyses of biomarkers from individual leaves.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18..266A','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18..266A"><span>Understanding extreme rainfall events in Australia through historical data</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ashcroft, Linden; Karoly, David John</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>Historical climate data recovery is still an emerging field in the Australian region. The majority of Australia's instrumental climate analyses begin in 1900 for rainfall and 1910 for temperature, particularly those focussed on extreme event analysis. This data sparsity for the past in turn limits our understanding of long-term climate variability, constraining efforts to predict the impact of future climate change. To address this need for improved historical data in Australia, a new network of recovered climate observations has recently been developed, centred on the highly populated southeastern Australian region (Ashcroft et al., 2014a, 2014b). The dataset includes observations from more than 39 published and unpublished sources and extends from British settlement in 1788 to the formation of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in 1908. Many of these historical sources provide daily temperature and rainfall information, providing an opportunity to improve understanding of the multidecadal variability of Australia's extreme events. In this study we combine the historical data for three major Australian cities - Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide - with modern observations to examine extreme rainfall variability over the past 174 years (1839-2013). We first explore two case studies, combining instrumental and documentary evidence to support the occurrence of severe storms in Sydney in 1841 and 1844. These events appear to be at least as extreme as Sydney's modern 24-hour rainfall record. Next we use a suite of rainfall indices to assess the long-term variability of rainfall in southeastern Australia. In particular, we focus on the stationarity of the teleconnection between the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon and extreme rainfall events. Using ENSO reconstructions derived from both palaeoclimatic and documentary sources, we determine the historical relationship between extreme rainfall in southeastern Australia and ENSO, and examine whether or not this relationship has remained stable since the early to mid-19th century. Ashcroft, L., Gergis, J., Karoly, D.J., 2014a. A historical climate dataset for southeastern Australia, 1788-1859. Geosci. Data J. 1, 158-178. doi:10.1002/gdj3.19 Ashcroft, L., Karoly, D.J., Gergis, J., 2014b. Southeastern Australian climate variability 1860-2009: A multivariate analysis. Int. J. Climatol. 34, 1928-1944. doi:10.1002/joc.3812</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018QSRv..189...76F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018QSRv..189...76F"><span>Effects of late Holocene climate variability and anthropogenic stressors on the vegetation of the Maya highlands</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Franco-Gaviria, F.; Correa-Metrio, A.; Cordero-Oviedo, C.; López-Pérez, M.; Cárdenes-Sandí, G. M.; Romero, F. M.</p> <p>2018-06-01</p> <p>Climate variability and human activities have shaped the vegetation communities of the Maya region of southern Mexico and Central America on centennial to millennial timescales. Most research efforts in the region have focused on the lowlands, with relatively little known about the environmental history of the regional highlands. Here we present data from two sediment sequences collected from lakes in the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Our aim was to disentangle the relative contributions of climate and human activities in the development of regional vegetation during the late Holocene. The records reveal a long-term trend towards drier conditions with superimposed centennial-scale droughts. A declining moisture trend from 3400 to 1500 cal yr BP is consistent with previously reported southward displacement of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, whereas periodic droughts were probably a consequence of drivers such as El Niño. These conditions, together with dense human occupation, converted the vegetation from forest to more open systems. According to the paleoecological records, cultural abandonment of the area occurred ca. 1500 cal yr BP, favoring forest recovery that was somewhat limited by low moisture availability. About 600 cal yr BP, wetter conditions promoted the establishment of modern montane cloud forests, which consist of a diverse mixture of temperate and tropical elements. The vegetation types that occupied the study area during the last few millennia have remained within the envelope defined by the modern vegetation mosaic. This finding highlights the importance of microhabitats in the maintenance biodiversity through time, even under scenarios of high climate variability and anthropogenic pressure.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2820084','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2820084"><span>Testing the Hypothesis of Fire Use for Ecosystem Management by Neanderthal and Upper Palaeolithic Modern Human Populations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Daniau, Anne-Laure; d'Errico, Francesco; Sánchez Goñi, Maria Fernanda</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Background It has been proposed that a greater control and more extensive use of fire was one of the behavioral innovations that emerged in Africa among early Modern Humans, favouring their spread throughout the world and determining their eventual evolutionary success. We would expect, if extensive fire use for ecosystem management were a component of the modern human technical and cognitive package, as suggested for Australia, to find major disturbances in the natural biomass burning variability associated with the colonisation of Europe by Modern Humans. Methodology/Principal Findings Analyses of microcharcoal preserved in two deep-sea cores located off Iberia and France were used to reconstruct changes in biomass burning between 70 and 10 kyr cal BP. Results indicate that fire regime follows the Dansgaard-Oeschger climatic variability and its impacts on fuel load. No major disturbance in natural fire regime variability is observed at the time of the arrival of Modern Humans in Europe or during the remainder of the Upper Palaeolithic (40–10 kyr cal BP). Conclusions/Significance Results indicate that either Neanderthals and Modern humans did not influence fire regime or that, if they did, their respective influence was comparable at a regional scale, and not as pronounced as that observed in the biomass burning history of Southeast Asia. PMID:20161786</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP43D..02E','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP43D..02E"><span>Patterns of climate variability in the western Equatorial Pacific during the Common Era</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Esswein, K. L.; Rosenthal, Y.; Linsley, B. K.; Oppo, D.</p> <p>2011-12-01</p> <p>The distribution of sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity in the western Pacific warm pool (WPWP) has major implications for climate variability in the tropical Pacific and beyond. The spatial and temporal patterns of SST and salinity affect the complex relationships among the prevailing tropical climate systems primarily, the Australian-Asian Monsoon and El nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as well as inter-ocean surface circulation associated with the Indonesian throughflow (ITF). Reconstructing the variability of the WPWP surface hydrography during the most recent climate anomalies of the Common Era will provide insights into modern climate change in this region. Previous studies suggest SST cooling of ~1 °C during the Little Ice Age (LIA) 1550-1850 CE and close to modern SST during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) 950-1100 CE. Further, these studies suggest enhanced (decreased) precipitation over Indonesia during the LIA (MWP) consistent with reconstructions of migration patterns of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) as recorded in speleothem records in China. The available ocean records are, however, limited to the Makassar Strait. Here we present three new Mg/Ca-SST records from multi- and gravity cores in the northern Makassar, Bali Basin and Flores in the Indonesian Seas. These records allow us to validate previous results from the Makassar Strait and to constrain the geographic extent of past temperature and salinity changes within the WPWP. By using reconstructions of the stable oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of seawater derived from planktonic foraminiferal Mg/Ca and δ18O we further assess the complex interactions between the influence of the meridional systems (ITCZ) and the zonal effects of ENSO on the regional hydrology. Chronological control for both records is derived from the presence of ash layers of known historical eruptions. Exceptionally high sedimentation rates of 100 cm per 1000 years further allow a comparison between our new SST records with the instrumental record and provide a decadal scale resolution over the past two millennia. Our results from both the Bali Basin and Flores sea validate previous observations from the Makassar Strait indicating that modern SST in the WPWP are about 1 °C higher than during the LIA but do not exceed SSTs recorded during the MWP. These recent temperature trends in the WPWP are thus unlike the modern 'hockey-stick-like' warming trend observed mostly in Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstructions. Further our results support that the mode of SST change found in the Makassar Straits is indeed representative of the whole WPWP.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017GGG....18.3758G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017GGG....18.3758G"><span>Extreme Monsoon Rainfall Signatures Preserved in the Invasive Terrestrial Gastropod Lissachatina fulica</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ghosh, Prosenjit; Rangarajan, Ravi; Thirumalai, Kaustubh; Naggs, Fred</p> <p>2017-11-01</p> <p>Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall lasts for a period of 4 months with large variations recorded in terms of rainfall intensity during its period between June and September. Proxy reconstructions of past ISM rainfall variability are required due to the paucity of long instrumental records. However, reconstructing subseasonal rainfall is extremely difficult using conventional hydroclimate proxies due to inadequate sample resolution. Here, we demonstrate the utility of the stable oxygen isotope composition of gastropod shells in reconstructing past rainfall on subseasonal timescales. We present a comparative isotopic study on present day rainwater and stable isotope ratios of precipitate found in the incremental growth bands of giant African land snail Lissachatina fulica (Bowdich) from modern day (2009) and in the historical past (1918). Isotopic signatures present in the growth bands allowed for the identification of ISM rainfall variability in terms of its active and dry spells in the modern as well as past gastropod record. Our results demonstrate the utility of gastropod growth band stable isotope ratios in semiquantitative reconstructions of seasonal rainfall patterns. High resolution climate records extracted from gastropod growth band stable isotopes (museum and archived specimens) can expand the scope for understanding past subseasonal-to-seasonal climate variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4810817','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4810817"><span>The impact of Cenozoic cooling on assemblage diversity in planktonic foraminifera</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Pearson, Paul N.; Dunkley Jones, Tom; Farnsworth, Alexander; Lunt, Daniel J.; Markwick, Paul; Purvis, Andy</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The Cenozoic planktonic foraminifera (PF) (calcareous zooplankton) have arguably the most detailed fossil record of any group. The quality of this record allows models of environmental controls on macroecology, developed for Recent assemblages, to be tested on intervals with profoundly different climatic conditions. These analyses shed light on the role of long-term global cooling in establishing the modern latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG)—one of the most powerful generalizations in biogeography and macroecology. Here, we test the transferability of environment-diversity models developed for modern PF assemblages to the Eocene epoch (approx. 56–34 Ma), a time of pronounced global warmth. Environmental variables from global climate models are combined with Recent environment–diversity models to predict Eocene richness gradients, which are then compared with observed patterns. The results indicate the modern LDG—lower richness towards the poles—developed through the Eocene. Three possible causes are suggested for the mismatch between statistical model predictions and data in the Early Eocene: the environmental estimates are inaccurate, the statistical model misses a relevant variable, or the intercorrelations among facets of diversity—e.g. richness, evenness, functional diversity—have changed over geological time. By the Late Eocene, environment–diversity relationships were much more similar to those found today. PMID:26977064</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>1</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_2");'>2</a></li> <li class="active"><span>3</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_3 --> <div id="page_4" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_2");'>2</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_3");'>3</a></li> <li class="active"><span>4</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="61"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP54A..07C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP54A..07C"><span>Tropical Pacific climate during the Medieval Climate Anomaly: progress and pitfalls</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Cobb, K. M.; Westphal, N.; Charles, C.; Sayani, H. R.; Edwards, R. L.; Cheng, H.; Grothe, P. R.; Chen, T.; Hitt, N. T.; O'Connor, G.; Atwood, A. R.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>A vast trove of paleoclimate records indicates that the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; 900-1200AD) was characterized by relative warmth throughout the Northern Hemisphere and significant hydroclimate anomalies - particularly well-resolved over North America - that posed a challenge to human populations. The global-scale nature of the climate anomalies has driven speculation that the tropical Pacific, with its rich spectrum of natural variability and far-reaching impact, may have undergone a prolonged reorganization during the MCA. While some key records from across the tropical Pacific document significant changes in temperature and/or hydrology, a dynamically-consistent picture of the MCA tropical Pacific climate state has proven elusive. In particular, there are few if any robust paleoclimate constraints from the central Pacific, where even modest changes in ocean temperature translate into distinct patterns of global atmospheric teleconnections. Here, we present a new collection of fossil coral multi-proxy records from Christmas Island (2N, 157W) that provide robust constraints on both temperature and hydrological changes during the MCA. We employ both modern coral data, instrumental climate data, and climate model output in developing a framework for quantifying the uncertainties associated with the new fossil coral data. In doing so, we illustrate the clear benefits of modern environmental monitoring campaigns that inform the generation of paleoclimate pseudo-proxies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010EGUGA..1210659N','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010EGUGA..1210659N"><span>Quantitative estimates of Mid- to late Holocene Climate Variability in northeastern Siberia inferred from chironomids in lake sediments</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Nazarova, Larisa; Diekmann, Bernhard; Pestrjakova, Ludmila; Herzschuh, Ulrike; Subetto, Dmitry</p> <p>2010-05-01</p> <p>Yakutia (Russia, northeastern part of Eurasia) represents one of Earths most extreme climatic settings in the world with deep-reaching frozen ground and a semiarid continental climate with highest seasonal temperature contrasts in the northern hemisphere. The amplitude of temperature variations around the year sometimes exceeds 100oC. There are few examples of quantitative palaeoecological studies in Siberia and these data have to be tested by quantitative studies from other sites in this region, inferred from different proxies and using regional calibration datasets and temperature models that are still lacking. Chironomid midges (Insecta, Diptera, Chironomidae) have been widely used to reconstruct past climate variability in many areas of Western Europe and North America. A chironomid-mean July air temperature inference model has been developed, based on a modern calibration set of 200 lakes sampled along a transect from 110° to 159° E and 61° to73° N in northern Russia. The inference model was applied to sediment cores from 2 lakes in the Central Yakutia in order to reconstruct past July air temperatures. The lacustrine records span mid- to late Holocene. The downcore variability in the chironomid assemblages and the composition of organic matter give evidence of climate-driven and interrelated changes in biological productivity, lacustrine trophic states, and lake-level fluctuations. Three phases of the climate development in Central Yakutia can be derived from the geochemical composition of the lake cores and according to the inferred from chironomid assemblages mean July air ToC. Content of organic matters reached maximal values in the period between 7000-4500 yBP. Sedimentation rate is especially high, numerous molluscs shells are found in sediments. All this along with the reconstructed air temperature confirmed that Mid Holocene optimum in Central Yakutia took place in this period with the maximal temperatures up to 4oC above present day ToC. Strong faunistic changes take place after 4500 yBP. Temperature reconstruction has shown that around 4500 ka BP air temperature went down up to 2oC below modern temperature. These observations confirm end of Holocene climate optimum at this time. The lake status record reveals a long-term trend towards lake-level lowering in the course of climate deterioration after 4.2 cal. ka BP and reduced evaporation as well as progressive sediment infill. This long-term trend is overprinted by short-term fluctuations at centennial time scales with high lake levels and decreased biological productivity during cool climate spells with reduced evaporation, as also observed in modern thermokarst lakes of Central Yakutia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013QSRv...77...46S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013QSRv...77...46S"><span>Late Holocene climate variability from Lake Pupuke maar, Auckland, New Zealand</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Striewski, B.; Shulmeister, J.; Augustinus, P. C.; Soderholm, J.</p> <p>2013-10-01</p> <p>Spectral analyses of quasi-annual organo-diatomaceous laminae couplets in an Auckland maar lake indicate brief (sub-decadal scale) episodes with strong spectral power and long periods of weak to no spectral power between c. 1700 to c. 550 cal. yr BP. Laminae couplet thickness appears to be a function of changes in wind flow over the basin, with enhanced wind flow deepening the mixing zone and providing additional nutrients for laminae formation. Aeolian dust from Australia amplifies the wind signal. Spectral signals in the high power episodes are focused in <4 years and 6-8 years windows. These are consistent with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) periodicity. This climate system is known to play a major role in the modern Auckland climate whereby strongly negative (positive) ENSO are associated with enhanced (diminished) SW airflow over Auckland. ENSO events interact in the modern climate and the spectral results indicate that this is the case when spectral power is strong in the laminae. These results highlight strong but intermittent ENSO activity between 600 and 1400 cal. yr BP.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP43D..02F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP43D..02F"><span>Last interglacial temperature seasonality reconstructed from tropical Atlantic corals</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Felis, T.; Brocas, W.; Obert, J. C.; Gierz, P.; Lohmann, G.; Scholz, D.; Kölling, M.; Pfeiffer, M.; Scheffers, S. R.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Reconstructions of last interglacial ( 127-117 ka) climate offer insights into the natural response and variability of the climate system during a period partially analogous to future climate change scenarios. However, the seasonal temperature changes of the tropical ocean are not well known for the last interglacial period. Here we present well preserved fossil corals (Diploria strigosa) recovered from the southern Caribbean island of Bonaire. These corals have been precisely dated by the 230Th/U-method to between 130 and 118 ka ago. Annual banding of the coral skeleton enabled construction of time windows of monthly resolved Sr/Ca temperature proxy records. Our eight coral records of up to 37 years in length cover a total of 105 years within the last interglacial period. From these coral records, sea surface temperature (SST) seasonality in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean is reconstructed. We detect similar to modern SST seasonality of 2.9 °C during the early (130 ka) and the late last interglacial (120 - 118 ka). However, within the mid-last interglacial, a significantly higher than modern SST seasonality of 4.9 °C (at 126 ka) and 4.1 °C (at 124 ka) is observed. These findings are supported by climate model simulations (COSMOS) and are consistent with the evolving amplitude of orbitally induced changes in seasonality of insolation throughout the last interglacial, irrespective of wider climatic instabilities that characterised this period, e.g. at 118 ka ago. The climate model simulations suggest that the SST seasonality changes documented in our last interglacial coral Sr/Ca records are representative of larger regions within the tropical North Atlantic. These simulations also suggest that the reconstructed SST seasonality increase during the mid-last interglacial is caused primarily by summer warming. Furthermore, a 124 ka old coral documents evidence of decadal SST variability in the tropical North Atlantic during the last interglacial, akin to that observed in modern instrumental records. Our results indicate that the dense theca walls of brain coral skeletons (e.g., Diploria strigosa) can provide robust seasonally resolved proxy records of tropical SST and reliable 230Th/U-ages for the last interglacial period.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1380/downloads/Chapter10.pdf','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/1380/downloads/Chapter10.pdf"><span>The Borderlands and climate change: Chapter 10 in United States-Mexican Borderlands: Facing tomorrow's challenges through USGS science</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Fitzpatrick, Joan; Gray, Floyd; Dubiel, Russell; Langman, Jeff; Moring, J. Bruce; Norman, Laura M.; Page, William R.; Parcher, Jean W.</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>The prediction of global climate change in response to both natural forces and human activity is one of the defining issues of our times. The unprecedented observational capacity of modern earth-orbiting satellites coupled with the development of robust computational representations (models) of the Earth’s weather and climate systems afford us the opportunity to observe and investigate how these systems work now, how they have worked in the past, and how they will work in the future when forced in specific ways. In the most recent report on global climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC; Solomon and others, 2007), analyses using multiple climate models support recent observations that the Earth’s climate is changing in response to a combination of natural and human-induced causes. These changes will be significant in the United States–Mexican border region, where the process of climate change affects all of the Borderlands challenge themes discussed in the preceding chapters. The dual possibilities of both significantly-changed climate and increasing variability in climate make it challenging to take full measure of the potential effects because the Borderlands already experience a high degree of interannual variability and climatological extremes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26ES..118a2052Y','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26ES..118a2052Y"><span>Coral based-ENSO/IOD related climate variability in Indonesia: a review</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Yudawati Cahyarini, Sri; Henrizan, Marfasran</p> <p>2018-02-01</p> <p>Indonesia is located in the prominent site to study climate variability as it lies between Pacific and Indian Ocean. It has consequences to the regional climate in Indonesia that its climate variability is influenced by the climate events in the Pacific oceans (e.g. ENSO) and in the Indian ocean (e.g. IOD), and monsoon as well as Indonesian Throughflow (ITF). Northwestern monsoon causes rainfall in the region of Indonesia, while reversely Southwestern monsoon causes dry season around Indonesia. The ENSO warm phase called El Nino causes several droughts in Indonesian region, reversely the La Nina causes flooding in some regions in Indonesia. However, the impact of ENSO in Indonesia is different from one place to the others. Having better understanding on the climate phenomenon and its impact to the region requires long time series climate data. Paleoclimate study which provides climate data back into hundreds to thousands even to million years overcome this requirement. Coral Sr/Ca can provide information on past sea surface temperature (SST) and paired Sr/Ca and δ18O may be used to reconstruct variations in the precipitation balance (salinity) at monthly to annual interannual resolution. Several climate studies based on coral geochemical records in Indonesia show that coral Sr/Ca and δ18O from Indonesian records SST and salinity respectively. Coral Sr/Ca from inshore Seribu islands complex shows more air temperature rather than SST. Modern coral from Timor shows the impact of ENSO and IOD to the saliniy and SST is different at Timor sea. This result should be taken into account when interpreting Paleoclimate records over Indonesia. Timor coral also shows more pronounced low frequency SST variability compared to the SST reanalysis (model). The longer data of low frequency variability will improve the understanding of warming trend in this climatically important region.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002SPIE.4678..685K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002SPIE.4678..685K"><span>Modern nature and climate changes in Siberia: new methods and results of analysis of instrumented observations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kabanov, Mikhail V.</p> <p>2002-02-01</p> <p>Peculiarity of nature and climate changes in middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and in Siberia is that the temporal variability of meteorological quantities here has a wide range and their spatial variability has a complicated zone structure. Therefore, regional monitoring of modern nature and climate changes in Siberia is of scientific interest from the viewpoint of the global changes observed. Another Siberian peculiarity is associated with the fact that there are many unique objects that have global importance both as natural complexes (boreal forests, water- bog systems, Baikal lake, etc.) And as technogenic objects (oil and gas production, coal mining, metallurgy, transport, etc.). Therefore monitoring and modeling of regional nature and climate changes in Siberia have great practical importance, which is underestimated now, for industrial development of Siberia. Taking into account the above peculiarities and tendencies on investigation of global and regional environmental and climate changes, the multidisciplinary project on Climate and Ecological Monitoring of Siberia (CEMS) was accepted to the research and development program Sibir' since 1993. To realize this project, the Climate and Ecological Observatory was established in Tomsk at the Institute for Optical Monitoring (IOM) SB RAS. At the present time the stations (the basic and background ones) of this observatory are in a progress and theory and instruments for monitoring are being developed as well. In this paper we discuss some results obtained in the framework of CEMS project that were partially published in the monographs, in scientific journals, and will be published in the Proceedings of the 8th Joint International Symposium on Atmospheric and Ocean Optics and Atmosphere Physics. This review has a purpose not only to discuss the obtained regularities but also to formulate scientific and technical tasks for further investigations into the regional changes of technogenic, natural, and climate systems.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ClDy...23..439R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ClDy...23..439R"><span>Hydrologic-energy balance constraints on the Holocene lake-level history of lake Titicaca, South America</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rowe, H. D.; Dunbar, R. B.</p> <p>2004-09-01</p> <p>A basin-scale hydrologic-energy balance model that integrates modern climatological, hydrological, and hypsographic observations was developed for the modern Lake Titicaca watershed (northern Altiplano, South America) and operated under variable conditions to understand controls on post-glacial changes in lake level. The model simulates changes in five environmental variables (air temperature, cloud fraction, precipitation, relative humidity, and land surface albedo). Relatively small changes in three meteorological variables (mean annual precipitation, temperature, and/or cloud fraction) explain the large mid-Holocene lake-level decrease (˜85 m) inferred from seismic reflection profiling and supported by sediment-based paleoproxies from lake sediments. Climatic controls that shape the present-day Altiplano and the sediment-based record of Holocene lake-level change are combined to interpret model-derived lake-level simulations in terms of changes in the mean state of ENSO and its impact on moisture transport to the Altiplano.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP44B..03I','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP44B..03I"><span>In the hot seat : Insolation and ENSO controls on vegetation productivity in tropical Africa inferred from NDVI</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ivory, S.; Russell, J. L.; Cohen, A. S.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>Threats to tropical biodiversity with serious and costly implications for both ecosystems and human well-being in Africa have led the IPCC to classify this region as vulnerable to negative impacts from climate change. Yet little is known about how vegetation communities respond to altered patterns of rainfall and evaporation. Paleoclimate records within the tropics can help answer questions about how vegetation response to climate forcing changes over time. However, sparse spatial extent of records and uncertainty surrounding the climate-vegetation relationship complicate these insights. Understanding the climatic mechanisms involved in landscape change at all temporal scales creates the need for quantitative constraints of the modern relationship between climatic controls, hydrology, and vegetation. Though modern observational data can help elucidate this relationship, low resolution and complicated rainfall/vegetation associations make them less than ideal. Satellite data of vegetation productivity (NDVI) with continuous high-resolution spatial coverage provides a robust and elegant tool for identifying the link between global and regional controls and vegetation. We use regression analyses of variables either previously proposed or potentially important in regulating Afro-tropical vegetation (insolation, out-going long-wave radiation, geopotential height, Southern Oscillation Index, Indian Ocean Dipole, Indian Monsoon precipitation, sea-level pressure, surface wind, sea-surface temperature) on continuous, time-varying spatial fields of 8km NDVI for sub-Saharan Africa. These analyses show the importance of global atmospheric controls in producing regional intra-annual and inter-annual vegetation variability. Dipole patterns emerge primarily correlated with both the seasonal and inter-annual extent of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Inter-annual ITCZ variability drives patterns in African vegetation resulting from the effect of insolation anomalies and ENSO events on atmospheric circulation rather than sea surface temperatures or teleconnections to mid/high latitudes. Global controls on tropical atmospheric circulation regulate vegetation throughout sub-Saharan Africa on many time scales through alteration of dry season length and moisture convergence, rather than precipitation amount.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.B33A2077D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.B33A2077D"><span>Constraining Lipid Biomarker Paleoclimate Proxies in a Small Arctic Watershed</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Dion-Kirschner, H.; McFarlin, J. M.; Axford, Y.; Osburn, M. R.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Arctic amplification of climate change renders high-latitude environments unusually sensitive to changes in climatic conditions (Serreze and Barry, 2011). Lipid biomarkers, and their hydrogen and carbon isotopic compositions, can yield valuable paleoclimatic and paleoecological information. However, many variables affect the production and preservation of lipids and their constituent isotopes, including precipitation, plant growth conditions, biosynthesis mechanisms, and sediment depositional processes (Sachse et al., 2012). These variables are particularly poorly constrained for high-latitude environments, where trees are sparse or not present, and plants grow under continuous summer light and cool temperatures during a short growing season. Here we present a source-to-sink study of a single watershed from the Kangerlussuaq region of southwest Greenland. Our analytes from in and around `Little Sugarloaf Lake' (LSL) include terrestrial and aquatic plants, plankton, modern lake water, surface sediments, and a sediment core. This diverse sample set allows us to fulfill three goals: 1) We evaluate the production of lipids and isotopic signatures in the modern watershed in comparison to modern climate. Our data exhibit genus-level trends in leaf wax production and isotopic composition, and help clarify the difference between terrestrial and aquatic signals. 2) We evaluate the surface sediment of LSL to determine how lipid biomarkers from the watershed are incorporated into sediments. We constrain the relative contributions of terrestrial plants, aquatic plants, and other aquatic organisms to the sediment in this watershed. 3) We apply this modern source-to-sink calibration to the analysis of a 65 cm sediment core record. Our core is organic-rich, and relatively high deposition rates allow us to reconstruct paleoenvironmental changes with high resolution. Our work will help determine the veracity of these common paleoclimate proxies, specifically for research in southwest Greenland, and will enable an accurate, high-resolution watershed-level reconstruction of Holocene conditions. Serreze, M. and Barry, R. (2011). Global and Planetary Change, 77, 85-96. Sachse, D., et al. (2012). Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 40, 221-249.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41E..08T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41E..08T"><span>140-year subantarctic tree-ring temperature reconstruction reveals tropical forcing of increased Southern Ocean climate variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Turney, C. S.; Fogwill, C. J.; Palmer, J. G.; VanSebille, E.; Thomas, Z.; McGlone, M.; Richardson, S.; Wilmshurst, J.; Fenwick, P.; Zunz, V.; Goosse, H.; Wilson, K. J.; Carter, L.; Lipson, M.; Jones, R. T.; Harsch, M.; Clark, G.; Marzinelli, E.; Rogers, T.; Rainsley, E.; Ciasto, L.; Waterman, S.; Thomas, E. R.; Visbeck, M.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Occupying about 14 % of the world's surface, the Southern Ocean plays a fundamental role in ocean and atmosphere circulation, carbon cycling and Antarctic ice-sheet dynamics. Unfortunately, high interannual variability and a dearth of instrumental observations before the 1950s limits our understanding of how marine-atmosphere-ice domains interact on multi-decadal timescales and the impact of anthropogenic forcing. Here we integrate climate-sensitive tree growth with ocean and atmospheric observations on south-west Pacific subantarctic islands that lie at the boundary of polar and subtropical climates (52-54˚S). Our annually resolved temperature reconstruction captures regional change since the 1870s and demonstrates a significant increase in variability from the 1940s, a phenomenon predating the observational record, and coincident with major changes in mammalian and bird populations. Climate reanalysis and modelling show a parallel change in tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures that generate an atmospheric Rossby wave train which propagates across a large part of the Southern Hemisphere during the austral spring and summer. Our results suggest that modern observed high interannual variability was established across the mid-twentieth century, and that the influence of contemporary equatorial Pacific temperatures may now be a permanent feature across the mid- to high latitudes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3044/','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3044/"><span>Gulf of Mexico Climate-History Calibration Study</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Spear, Jessica W.; Poore, Richard Z.</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Reliable instrumental records of past climate are available for about the last 150 years only. To supplement the instrumental record, reconstructions of past climate are made from natural recorders such as trees, ice, corals, and microfossils preserved in sediments. These proxy records provide information on the rate and magnitude of past climate variability, factors that are critical to distinguishing between natural and human-induced climate change in the present. However, the value of proxy records is heavily dependent on calibration between the chemistry of the natural recorder and of the modern environmental conditions. The Gulf of Mexico Climate and Environmental History Project is currently undertaking a climate-history calibration study with material collected from an automated sediment trap. The primary focus of the calibration study is to provide a better calibration of low-latitude environmental conditions and shell chemistry of calcareous microfossils, such as planktic Foraminifera.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMPP32A..02Q','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMPP32A..02Q"><span>Select, High-Resolution Windows Into Sub-Centennial-Scale Climate Variability in the Western Pacific Warm Pool Between 7 and 12 ka</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Quinn, T. M.; Taylor, F. W.; Cheng, H.; Edwards, R. L.; Burr, G.; Chen, Y.</p> <p>2004-12-01</p> <p>Post-glacial, coral-based climate records from the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP), a region that serves as a major heat and moisture source to the ocean-atmosphere system, provide sub-annually resolved windows into climate variability on interannual to multi-decadal timescales from this climatologically significant region. Paleoclimate reconstructions based on fossil corals require that the skeletal geochemistry be unaffected by diagenesis and that secular changes in seawater chemistry be known. Global seawater \\delta18O variations can be constrained using knowledge of past variations in ice volume, whereas much less is known about global seawater Sr/Ca variations, if they occur in the post-glacial interval. Our paleoclimate reconstructions are based on monthly resolved \\delta18O and Sr/Ca records in fossil Porites corals from the Western Solomon Islands ( ˜8° S, ˜157° E; Tetepare and Rendova). Post-depositional alteration of our fossil coral samples is minimal based on mineralogic (XRD), petrographic (SEM) and geochemical criteria (preservation of modern marine initial \\delta234U values). Four of these fossil coral time series are of particular interest: 99RND (age, 7,992±42; ~45 years), 01T-B (age, 7,647±73; ~65 years), 01T-AQ (age, 10,208±44; ~30 years), and 99TET-B (age, 11,987±69; ~ 30 years). We apply a model that uses simultaneous variations in coral \\delta18O and Sr/Ca in combination with estimates of post-glacial changes in seawater chemistry to reconstruct mean climate state during the early Holocene and the Younger Dryas. Model results indicate that on average SSTs in the WPWP were within 1° C of modern and that surface waters were more saline than modern during each of the four time intervals during which our fossil corals grew.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP22A..04K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP22A..04K"><span>Northern tropical Atlantic climate since late Medieval times from Northern Caribbean coral geochemistry</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kilbourne, K. H.; Xu, Y.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Paleoclimate reconstructions of different global climate modes over the last 1000 years provide the basis for testing the relative roles of forced and unforced variability climate system, which can help us improve projections of future climate change. The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) has been characterized by a combination of persistent La Niña-like conditions, a positive North Atlantic Oscillation (+NAO), and increased Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The northern tropical Atlantic is sensitive to each of these climate patterns, but not all of them have the same regional fingerprint in the modern northern tropical Atlantic. The relative influence of different processes related to these climate patterns can help us better understand regional responses to climate change. The regional response of the northern tropical Atlantic is important because the tropical Atlantic Ocean is a large source of heat and moisture to the global climate system that can feedback onto global climate patterns. This study presents new coral Sr/Ca and δ18O data from the northern tropical Atlantic (Anegada, British Virgin Islands). Comparison of the sub-fossil corals that grew during the 13th and 14th Centuries with modern coral geochemical data from this site indicates relatively cooler mean conditions with a decrease in the oxygen isotopic composition of the water consistent with lower salinities. Similar average annual cycles between modern and sub-fossil Sr/Ca indicate no change in seasonal temperature range, but a difference in the relative phasing of the δ18O seasonal cycles indicates that the fresher mean conditions may be due to a more northerly position of the regional salinity front. This localized response is consistent with some, but not all of the expected regional responses to a La Niña-like state, a +NAO state, and increased AMOC. Understanding these differences can provide insight into the relative importance of advection versus surface fluxes for heat and salt balances at the study site. Ultimately the data support the existing framework for understanding climate during the MCA and demonstrate the importance of regional processes in understanding historic and future climate patterns.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ957014.pdf','ERIC'); return false;" href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ957014.pdf"><span>Comparison of Symptom Severity between Clients at a University Counseling Center and a Community Mental Health Agency</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/extended.jsp?_pageLabel=advanced">ERIC Educational Resources Information Center</a></p> <p>Gunn, Joshua E.; Grieve, Frederick G.; Greer, Richard M.; Thomas, Adrian</p> <p>2005-01-01</p> <p>University counseling centers have been in a constant state of transition since their inception. Many variables, including economics, the social and political climate on and off campus, staff interests, and changing consumer needs have driven the direction of the modern counseling center. Throughout the more than 70 years that university…</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009EGUGA..11.3617L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009EGUGA..11.3617L"><span>Modelling Climate/Global Change and Assessing Environmental Risks for Siberia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lykosov, V. N.; Kabanov, M. V.; Heimann, M.; Gordov, E. P.</p> <p>2009-04-01</p> <p>The state-of-the-art climate models are based on a combined atmosphere-ocean general circulation model. A central direction of their development is associated with an increasingly accurate description of all physical processes participating in climate formation. In modeling global climate, it is necessary to reconstruct seasonal and monthly mean values, seasonal variability (monsoon cycle, parameters of storm-tracks, etc.), climatic variability (its dominating modes, such as El Niño or Arctic Oscillation), etc. At the same time, it is quite urgent now to use modern mathematical models in studying regional climate and ecological peculiarities, in particular, that of Northern Eurasia. It is related with the fact that, according to modern ideas, natural environment in mid- and high latitudes of the Northern hemisphere is most sensitive to the observed global climate changes. One should consider such tasks of modeling regional climate as detailed reconstruction of its characteristics, investigation of the peculiarities of hydrological cycle, estimation of the possibility of extreme phenomena to occur, and investigation of the consequences of the regional climate changes for the environment and socio-economic relations as its basic tasks. Changes in nature and climate in Siberia are of special interest in view of the global change in the Earth system. The vast continental territory of Siberia is undoubtedly a ponderable natural territorial region of Eurasian continent, which is characterized by the various combinations of climate-forming factors. Forests, water, and wetland areas are situated on a significant part of Siberia. They play planetary important regulating role due to the processes of emission and accumulation of the main greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, etc.). Evidence of the enhanced rates of the warming observed in the region and the consequences of such warming for natural environment are undoubtedly important reason for integrated regional investigations in this region of the planet. Reported is an overview of some risk consequences of Climate/Global Change for Siberia environment as follows from results of current scientific activity in climate monitoring and modelling. At present, the challenge facing the weather and climate scientists is to improve the prediction of interactions between weather/climate and Earth system. Taking into account significantly increased computing capacity, a special attention in the report is paid to perspectives of the Earth system modelling.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMGC51B0420S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMGC51B0420S"><span>Using MERRA, AMIP II, CMIP5 Outputs to Assess Actual and Potential Building Climate Zone Change and Variability From the Last 30 Years Through 2100</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Stackhouse, P. W.; Westberg, D. J.; Hoell, J. M., Jr.; Chandler, W.; Zhang, T.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>In the US, residential and commercial building infrastructure combined consumes about 40% of total energy usage and emits about 39% of total CO2emission (DOE/EIA "Annual Energy Outlook 2013"). Thus, increasing the energy efficiency of buildings is paramount to reducing energy costs and emissions. Building codes, as used by local and state enforcement entities are typically tied to the dominant climate within an enforcement jurisdiction classified according to various climate zones. These climates zones are based upon a 30-year average of local surface observations and are developed by DOE and ASHRAE (formerly known as the American Society of Hearting, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers). A significant shortcoming of the methodology used in constructing such maps is the use of surface observations (located mainly near airports) that are unequally distributed and frequently have periods of missing data that need to be filled by various approximation schemes. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of using NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) atmospheric data assimilation to derive the ASHRAE climate zone maps and then using MERRA to define the last 30 years of variability in climate zones. These results show that there is a statistically significant increase in the area covered by warmer climate zones and some tendency for a reduction of area in colder climate zones that require longer time series to confirm. Using the uncertainties of the basic surface temperature and precipitation parameters from MERRA as determined by comparison to surface measurements, we first compare patterns and variability of ASHRAE climate zones from MERRA relative to present day climate model runs from AMIP simulations to establish baseline sensitivity. Based upon these results, we assess the variability of the ASHRAE climate zones according to CMIP runs through 2100 using an ensemble analysis that classifies model output changes by percentiles. Estimates of statistical significance are then compared to original model variability during the AMIP period. This work quantifies and tests for significance the changes seen in the various US regions that represent a potential contribution by NASA to the ongoing National Climate Assessment.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4605733','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4605733"><span>Climatic and Landscape Influences on Fire Regimes from 1984 to 2010 in the Western United States</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Liu, Zhihua; Wimberly, Michael C.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>An improved understanding of the relative influences of climatic and landscape controls on multiple fire regime components is needed to enhance our understanding of modern fire regimes and how they will respond to future environmental change. To address this need, we analyzed the spatio-temporal patterns of fire occurrence, size, and severity of large fires (> 405 ha) in the western United States from 1984–2010. We assessed the associations of these fire regime components with environmental variables, including short-term climate anomalies, vegetation type, topography, and human influences, using boosted regression tree analysis. Results showed that large fire occurrence, size, and severity each exhibited distinctive spatial and spatio-temporal patterns, which were controlled by different sets of climate and landscape factors. Antecedent climate anomalies had the strongest influences on fire occurrence, resulting in the highest spatial synchrony. In contrast, climatic variability had weaker influences on fire size and severity and vegetation types were the most important environmental determinants of these fire regime components. Topography had moderately strong effects on both fire occurrence and severity, and human influence variables were most strongly associated with fire size. These results suggest a potential for the emergence of novel fire regimes due to the responses of fire regime components to multiple drivers at different spatial and temporal scales. Next-generation approaches for projecting future fire regimes should incorporate indirect climate effects on vegetation type changes as well as other landscape effects on multiple components of fire regimes. PMID:26465959</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980QuRes..13..242P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980QuRes..13..242P"><span>Clinal variation of some mammals during the Holocene in Missouri</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Purdue, James R.</p> <p>1980-03-01</p> <p>Eastern cottontail ( Sylvilagus floridanus), fox squirrel ( Sciurus niger), and gray squirrel ( Sciurus carolinensis) were examined for clinal variation during the Holocene. Modern samples of all three species displayed strong east-west patterns along the western edge of the eastern deciduous forest: S. floridanus and S. niger decrease and S. carolinensis increases in size. Archeological samples of S. carolinensis from Rodgers Shelter (23BE125), Benton County, Missouri, and Graham Cave (23MT2), Montgomery County, Missouri, indicated an increase in size from early to middle Holocene. Sylvilagus floridanus from Rodgers Shelter decreased in size from early to middle Holocene and then increased during the late Holocene to modern proportions. A literature survey reveals that clinal variation is a common phenomenon among modern homeotherms. In introduced species, clinal variation has developed after relatively few generations, indicating rapid adaptations to environmental conditions; often winter climatic variables are implicated. Morphological variation in the study species during the Holocene is interpreted as a response to changing climates. Studies of morphological clines may lead to another valuable data source for reconstructing past ecologies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMPP41B1363W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMPP41B1363W"><span>1,500 Year Periodicity in Central Texas Moisture Source Variability Reconstructed from Speleothems</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Wong, C. I.; James, E. W.; Silver, M. M.; Banner, J. L.; Musgrove, M.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>Delineating the climate processes governing precipitation variability in drought-prone Texas is critical for predicting and mitigating climate change effects, and requires the reconstruction of past climate beyond the instrumental record. Presently, there are few high-resolution Holocene climate records for this region, which limits the assessment of precipitation variability during a relatively stable climatic interval that comprises the closest analogue to the modern climate state. To address this, we present speleothem growth rate and δ18O records from two central Texas caves that span the mid to late Holocene, and assess hypotheses about the climate processes that can account for similarity in the timing and periodicity of variability with other regional and global records. A key finding is the independent variation of speleothem growth rate and δ18O values, suggesting the decoupling of moisture amount and source. This decoupling likely occurs because i) the often direct relation between speleothem growth rate and moisture availability is complicated by changes in the overlying ecosystem that affect subsurface CO2 production, and ii) speleothem δ18O variations reflect changes in moisture source (i.e., proportion of Pacific- vs. Gulf of Mexico-derived moisture) that appear not to be linked to moisture amount. Furthermore, we document a 1,500-year periodicity in δ18O values that is consistent with variability in the percent of hematite-stained grains in North Atlantic sediments, North Pacific SSTs, and El Nino events preserved in an Ecuadorian lake. Previous modeling experiments and analysis of observational data delineate the coupled atmospheric-ocean processes that can account for the coincidence of such variability in climate archives across the northern hemisphere. Reduction of the thermohaline circulation results in North Atlantic cooling, which translates to cooler North Pacific SSTs. The resulting reduction of the meridional SST gradient in the Pacific weakens the air-sea coupling that modulates ENSO activity, resulting in faster growth of interannual anomalies and larger mature El Niño relative to La Niña events. The asymmetrically enhanced ENSO variability can account for a greater portion of Pacific-derived moisture reflected by speleothem δ18O values.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_2");'>2</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_3");'>3</a></li> <li class="active"><span>4</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_4 --> <div id="page_5" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_3");'>3</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li class="active"><span>5</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="81"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC32B..07J','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC32B..07J"><span>A preindustrial to present record of SST from Darwin Island, Galápagos: constraining Eastern Pacific decadal variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Jimenez, G.; Cole, J. E.; Vetter, L.; Thompson, D. M.; Tudhope, A. W.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Climate reconstructions from sub-seasonally resolved corals have greatly enhanced our understanding of climate variability related to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, few such records exist from the Eastern Pacific, which experiences the greatest ENSO-related variance in sea surface temperature (SST). Therefore, climate patterns and mechanisms in the region remain unclear, particularly on decadal to multidecadal timescales. Here, we present a new, bimonthly-resolved δ18O-SST reconstruction from a Darwin Island coral, in the northern Galápagos archipelago. Comparison with Sr/Ca data from the same coral demonstrates that δ18O values in the core dominantly track SST, as is expected in areas with low-magnitude sea surface salinity changes such as the Galápagos. Spanning 2015 to approximately 1800 CE, our record thus represents the longest sub-seasonally resolved SST reconstruction bridging the pre-industrial era to the present day in the Eastern Pacific. This time span and resolution is ideal for identifying climatic processes on a range of timescales: the presence of modern data allows us to calibrate the record using satellite datasets, while several decades of data preceding the onset of greenhouse warming enables comparison between natural and anthropogenic climate forcings. Together with other reconstructions from the region, we use the record to establish a baseline of (ENSO-related) Eastern Pacific interannual and decadal variability and assess evidence for climate emergence and trends. Preliminary evidence suggests increased decadal variability during the latter half of the twentieth century, as well as a secular warming trend of approximately 0.1°C/decade, in agreement with other Eastern Pacific coral records. Finally, we explore the applications of coral δ13C values in reconstructing regional upwelling. Our record contributes to constraining the pre- to post-industrial climate history of the Eastern Pacific and provides insight into natural versus forced climate variability in the region.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22513381','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22513381"><span>The environmental context for the origins of modern human diversity: a synthesis of regional variability in African climate 150,000-30,000 years ago.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Blome, Margaret Whiting; Cohen, Andrew S; Tryon, Christian A; Brooks, Alison S; Russell, Joellen</p> <p>2012-05-01</p> <p>We synthesize African paleoclimate from 150 to 30 ka (thousand years ago) using 85 diverse datasets at a regional scale, testing for coherence with North Atlantic glacial/interglacial phases and northern and southern hemisphere insolation cycles. Two major determinants of circum-African climate variability over this time period are supported by principal components analysis: North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) variations and local insolation maxima. North Atlantic SSTs correlated with the variability found in most circum-African SST records, whereas the variability of the majority of terrestrial temperature and precipitation records is explained by local insolation maxima, particularly at times when solar radiation was intense and highly variable (e.g., 150-75 ka). We demonstrate that climates varied with latitude, such that periods of relatively increased aridity or humidity were asynchronous across the northern, eastern, tropical and southern portions of Africa. Comparisons of the archaeological, fossil, or genetic records with generalized patterns of environmental change based solely on northern hemisphere glacial/interglacial cycles are therefore imprecise. We compare our refined climatic framework to a database of 64 radiometrically-dated paleoanthropological sites to test hypotheses of demographic response to climatic change among African hominin populations during the 150-30 ka interval. We argue that at a continental scale, population and climate changes were asynchronous and likely occurred under different regimes of climate forcing, creating alternating opportunities for migration into adjacent regions. Our results suggest little relation between large scale demographic and climate change in southern Africa during this time span, but strongly support the hypothesis of hominin occupation of the Sahara during discrete humid intervals ~135-115 ka and 105-75 ka. Hominin populations in equatorial and eastern Africa may have been buffered from the extremes of climate change by locally steep altitudinal and rainfall gradients and the complex and variable effects of increased aridity on human habitat suitability in the tropics. Our data are consistent with hominin migrations out of Africa through varying exit points from ~140-80 ka. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3846729','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3846729"><span>Millennial-Scale Temperature Change Velocity in the Continental Northern Neotropics</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Correa-Metrio, Alexander; Bush, Mark; Lozano-García, Socorro; Sosa-Nájera, Susana</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Climate has been inherently linked to global diversity patterns, and yet no empirical data are available to put modern climate change into a millennial-scale context. High tropical species diversity has been linked to slow rates of climate change during the Quaternary, an assumption that lacks an empirical foundation. Thus, there is the need for quantifying the velocity at which the bioclimatic space changed during the Quaternary in the tropics. Here we present rates of climate change for the late Pleistocene and Holocene from Mexico and Guatemala. An extensive modern pollen survey and fossil pollen data from two long sedimentary records (30,000 and 86,000 years for highlands and lowlands, respectively) were used to estimate past temperatures. Derived temperature profiles show a parallel long-term trend and a similar cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum in the Guatemalan lowlands and the Mexican highlands. Temperature estimates and digital elevation models were used to calculate the velocity of isotherm displacement (temperature change velocity) for the time period contained in each record. Our analyses showed that temperature change velocities in Mesoamerica during the late Quaternary were at least four times slower than values reported for the last 50 years, but also at least twice as fast as those obtained from recent models. Our data demonstrate that, given extremely high temperature change velocities, species survival must have relied on either microrefugial populations or persistence of suppressed individuals. Contrary to the usual expectation of stable climates being associated with high diversity, our results suggest that Quaternary tropical diversity was probably maintained by centennial-scale oscillatory climatic variability that forestalled competitive exclusion. As humans have simplified modern landscapes, thereby removing potential microrefugia, and climate change is occurring monotonically at a very high velocity, extinction risk for tropical species is higher than at any time in the last 86,000 years. PMID:24312614</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24312614','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24312614"><span>Millennial-scale temperature change velocity in the continental northern Neotropics.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Correa-Metrio, Alexander; Bush, Mark; Lozano-García, Socorro; Sosa-Nájera, Susana</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Climate has been inherently linked to global diversity patterns, and yet no empirical data are available to put modern climate change into a millennial-scale context. High tropical species diversity has been linked to slow rates of climate change during the Quaternary, an assumption that lacks an empirical foundation. Thus, there is the need for quantifying the velocity at which the bioclimatic space changed during the Quaternary in the tropics. Here we present rates of climate change for the late Pleistocene and Holocene from Mexico and Guatemala. An extensive modern pollen survey and fossil pollen data from two long sedimentary records (30,000 and 86,000 years for highlands and lowlands, respectively) were used to estimate past temperatures. Derived temperature profiles show a parallel long-term trend and a similar cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum in the Guatemalan lowlands and the Mexican highlands. Temperature estimates and digital elevation models were used to calculate the velocity of isotherm displacement (temperature change velocity) for the time period contained in each record. Our analyses showed that temperature change velocities in Mesoamerica during the late Quaternary were at least four times slower than values reported for the last 50 years, but also at least twice as fast as those obtained from recent models. Our data demonstrate that, given extremely high temperature change velocities, species survival must have relied on either microrefugial populations or persistence of suppressed individuals. Contrary to the usual expectation of stable climates being associated with high diversity, our results suggest that Quaternary tropical diversity was probably maintained by centennial-scale oscillatory climatic variability that forestalled competitive exclusion. As humans have simplified modern landscapes, thereby removing potential microrefugia, and climate change is occurring monotonically at a very high velocity, extinction risk for tropical species is higher than at any time in the last 86,000 years.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1910771O','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1910771O"><span>Climate variability over the Holocene in the Atacama Desert of Chile as reconstructed from tree ring isotope series</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Olson, Elizabeth; Dodd, Justin; Rivera, Mario</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>A high temporal resolution record of Holocene climate variations is reconstructed from δ18O and δ13C isotopes of Prosopis sp. tree rings. These deciduous tropical hardwoods live up to 200 years and are sensitive to local climate and environmental conditions in the modern period. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the location of the Bolivian high over South America control local climate and water availability in the region. Rainfall in the Andean highlands consistently recharges local groundwater to the lower altitude Pampa del Tamarugal (PdT) basin where the trees occur naturally. The PdT basin is one of the direst places on Earth, and receives on average less than 4 mm of rainfall annually. Sub decadal ENSO variability causes anomalous episodes of increased basin moisture than is recorded in the tree-ring isotope archive. A modern high-resolution tree ring series demonstrates seasonal sensitivity to increased soil and air moisture during the 2015/2016 El Niño event. Ancient trees are well preserved and radiocarbon dated to provide a floating record over the Holocene. Intervals of high-resolution tree-ring isotope data document the increase in ENSO frequency and intensity over the last 9.5 ky, as well as, the previously documented Mid-Holocene decrease in ENSO. Compared to modern (avg. δ18O = 31.97, σ = 1.63) the lowest variation is observed in the interval between 7.8 - 7.7 (avg. δ18O = 32.40, σ = 0.47), while the earlier period is also low at 9.5 - 8.8 kya (avg. δ18O = 31.80, σ = 1.0). Oxygen isotope values are highest over the ˜ 4.9 kya segment (avg. δ18O = 36.80, σ = 1.6). While the period between 2.5-2.4 kya (avg. δ18O = 36.60, σ = 1.9) and 1.9-1.8 kya (avg. δ18O = 34.75, σ = 2.9) show the greatest variation indicating dramatic shifts between wet and dry conditions which are attributed to ENSO events. These records are in agreement with other eastern Pacific paleoclimate records and provide some of the highest resolution data for Holocene ENSO variability in the Western Hemisphere. This study demonstrates the utility of desert tree-ring isotope series in expanding climate records to areas lacking other high-resolution paleoarchives.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70030129','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70030129"><span>1400 yr multiproxy record of climate variability from the northern Gulf of Mexico</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Richey, J.N.; Poore, R.Z.; Flower, B.P.; Quinn, T.M.</p> <p>2007-01-01</p> <p>A continuous decadal-scale resolution record of climate variability over the past 1400 yr in the northern Gulf of Mexico was constructed from a box core recovered in the Pigmy Basin, northern Gulf of Mexico. Proxies include paired analyses of Mg/Ca and δ18O in the white variety of the planktic foraminifer Globigerinoides ruber and relative abundance variations of G. sacculifer in the foraminifer assemblages. Two multi-decadal intervals of sustained high Mg/Ca indicate that Gulf of Mexico sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were as warm or warmer than near-modern conditions between 1000 and 1400 yr B.P. Foraminiferal Mg/Ca during the coolest interval of the Little Ice Age (ca. 250 yr B.P.) indicate that SST was 2–2.5 °C below modern SST. Four minima in the Mg/Ca record between 900 and 250 yr B.P. correspond with the Maunder, Spörer, Wolf, and Oort sunspot minima, suggesting a link between changes in solar insolation and SST variability in the Gulf of Mexico. An abrupt shift recorded in both δ18Ocalcite and relative abundance of G. sacculifer occurred ca. 600 yr B.P. The shift in the Pigmy Basin record corresponds with a shift in the sea-salt-sodium (ssNa) record from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 ice core, linking changes in high-latitude atmospheric circulation with the subtropical Atlantic Ocean.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP53A1983W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP53A1983W"><span>Modern limnology of two lakes in the Tibetan Plateau - evidence from in-situ monitoring</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Wang, M.; Li, X.; Lei, L.; He, Y.; Hou, J.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>The mechanisms of climate change in the Tibetan Plateau, known as the Third Pole, receive more and more attention due to its unique geographic location and the influence of multiple climate systems. Among the paleoclimate archives, widespread lakes provide abundant information on past climate changes and have been investigated for decades. Though many high-quality paleolimnological records have been reported in the Tibetan Plateau, little is known about the modern limnological processes in most Tibetan lakes as most lakes are difficult to access and not ready for long-term monitoring. We have installed a series of temperature data logger at different water levels in two Tibetan lakes, Bangong Co and Dagze Co in July 2012 to monitor hourly variability of temperature profile. Bangong Co (33.5°N, 79.8°E, 4245 m asl) is a freshwater lake (salinity ~0.5 g/L) in the westernmost Tibetan Plateau, receiving melt water from mountain glaciers in the basin. Dagze Co (31.9°N, 87.5°E, 4470 m asl) is saline lake (salinity ~15 g/L) in the central Tibetan Plateau, mostly fed by precipitation. In combination with the climate data in the nearby weather stations, we wish to understand the modern limnological processes in the two lakes and their potential effect on the lake biology, sedimentation, and sedimentary biomarkers. Based on the data collected for the first calendar year (Jul 2012 ~ Aug 2013), we anticipate to understand: 1) the influence of climate on the hydrological processes in high elevation lakes; 2) the difference in the metalimnion in meltwater-fed lake (Bangong Co) and precipitation-fed lake (Dagze Co) and their potential effect on the lake biology; 3) the difference in the spring turnover and fall turnover and the effect of meltwater and salinity.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP53C2391B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP53C2391B"><span>How Novel are 21st Century Climates? A Global Assessment of Future Climates and their Analogs Back Through the Eocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Burke, K. D.; Williams, J. W.; Jackson, S. T.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Climate change is a multivariate process, where changes in the environmental space of a location will likely drive biotic responses of the flora and fauna that inhabit the region. In the face of a rapidly changing climate it is important to understand what the future may hold for ecosystems. One method commonly applied to understand how dissimilar future climates will be relative to the modern period is no-analog analysis. This has been done for 21st century climates relative to the modern period, but has not been extended through the paleorecord. Using HadCM3, CCSM3 TraCE-21ka, PMIP3, PlioMIP2 and EoMIP climate simulations, we assess global and regional climatic novelty by identifying the closest analogs in these periods for both future (21st century) and modern climates. This baseline offers a full range climate space with significant overlap of modern and future projected climates, and allows us to assess both emergences and disappearances of analog climate conditions throughout the past. This extended baseline includes past glacial and interglacial climates, as well as past earth warm periods. Past earth warm periods such as the middle to late Pliocene and the early Eocene may be most similar to projections of future climate, so it is important to evaluate our understanding of these global climates. Here we calculate dissimilarity to quantify novelty and no-analog conditions using the Standardized Euclidian Distance, as well as the Mahalanobis distance. Our work shows that nearest climate analogs for the modern period, as well as future climates, existed and disappeared during past warm periods. These results suggest that though climate change may be regionally novel relative to the modern period for some locations, analogs do exist through the paleorecord which in some cases reduce novelty. Nevertheless, novelty remains high in some locations suggesting that some future climates may be unprecedented.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26589829','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26589829"><span>Contributions of cultivar shift, management practice and climate change to maize yield in North China Plain in 1981-2009.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Xiao, Dengpan; Tao, Fulu</p> <p>2016-07-01</p> <p>The impact of climate change on crop yield is compounded by cultivar shifts and agronomic management practices. To determine the relative contributions of climate change, cultivar shift, and management practice to changes in maize (Zea mays L.) yield in the past three decades, detailed field data for 1981-2009 from four representative experimental stations in North China Plain (NCP) were analyzed via model simulation. The four representative experimental stations are geographically and climatologically different, represent the typical cropping system in the study area, and have more complete weather/crop records for the period of 1981-2009. The results showed that while the shift from traditional to modern cultivar increased yield by 23.9-40.3 %, new fertilizer management increased yield by 3.3-8.6 %. However, the trends in climate variables for 1981-2009 reduced maize yield by 15-30 % in the study area. Among the main climate variables, solar radiation had the largest effect on maize yield, followed by temperature and then precipitation. While a significant decline in solar radiation in 1981-2009 (maybe due to air pollution) reduced yield by 12-24 %, a significant increase in temperature reduced yield by 3-9 %. In contrast, a non-significant increase in precipitation during the maize growth period increased yield by 0.9-3 % at three of the four investigated stations. However, a decline in precipitation reduced yield by 3 % in the remaining station. The study revealed that although the shift from traditional to modern cultivars and agronomic management practices contributed most to the increase in maize yield, the negative impact of climate change was large enough to offset 46-67 % of the trend in the observed yields in the past three decades in NCP. The reduction in solar radiation, especially in the most critical period of maize growth, limited the process of photosynthesis and thereby further reduced maize yield.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016IJBm...60.1111X','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016IJBm...60.1111X"><span>Contributions of cultivar shift, management practice and climate change to maize yield in North China Plain in 1981-2009</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Xiao, Dengpan; Tao, Fulu</p> <p>2016-07-01</p> <p>The impact of climate change on crop yield is compounded by cultivar shifts and agronomic management practices. To determine the relative contributions of climate change, cultivar shift, and management practice to changes in maize ( Zea mays L.) yield in the past three decades, detailed field data for 1981-2009 from four representative experimental stations in North China Plain (NCP) were analyzed via model simulation. The four representative experimental stations are geographically and climatologically different, represent the typical cropping system in the study area, and have more complete weather/crop records for the period of 1981-2009. The results showed that while the shift from traditional to modern cultivar increased yield by 23.9-40.3 %, new fertilizer management increased yield by 3.3-8.6 %. However, the trends in climate variables for 1981-2009 reduced maize yield by 15-30 % in the study area. Among the main climate variables, solar radiation had the largest effect on maize yield, followed by temperature and then precipitation. While a significant decline in solar radiation in 1981-2009 (maybe due to air pollution) reduced yield by 12-24 %, a significant increase in temperature reduced yield by 3-9 %. In contrast, a non-significant increase in precipitation during the maize growth period increased yield by 0.9-3 % at three of the four investigated stations. However, a decline in precipitation reduced yield by 3 % in the remaining station. The study revealed that although the shift from traditional to modern cultivars and agronomic management practices contributed most to the increase in maize yield, the negative impact of climate change was large enough to offset 46-67 % of the trend in the observed yields in the past three decades in NCP. The reduction in solar radiation, especially in the most critical period of maize growth, limited the process of photosynthesis and thereby further reduced maize yield.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP54A..02W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP54A..02W"><span>Generalized Dissimilarity Modeling of Late-Quaternary Variations in Pollen-Based Compositional Dissimilarity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Williams, J. W.; Blois, J.; Ferrier, S.; Manion, G.; Fitzpatrick, M.; Veloz, S.; He, F.; Liu, Z.; Otto-Bliesner, B. L.</p> <p>2011-12-01</p> <p>In Quaternary paleoecology and paleoclimatology, compositionally dissimilar fossil assemblages usually indicate dissimilar environments; this relationship underpins assemblage-level techniques for paleoenvironmental reconstruction such as mutual climatic ranges or the modern analog technique. However, there has been relatively little investigation into the form of the relationship between compositional dissimilarity and climatic dissimilarity. Here we apply generalized dissimilarity modeling (GDM; Ferrier et al. 2007) as a tool for modeling the expected non-linear relationships between compositional and climatic dissimilarity. We use the CCSM3.0 transient paleoclimatic simulations from the SynTrace working group (Liu et al. 2009) and a new generation of fossil pollen maps from eastern North America (Blois et al. 2011) to 1) assess the spatial relationships between compositional dissimilarity and climatic dissimilarity and 2) whether these spatial relationships change over time. We used a taxonomic list of 106 genus-level pollen types, six climatic variables (winter precipitation and mean temperature, summer precipitation and temperature, seasonality of precipitation, and seasonality of temperature) that were chosen to minimize collinearity, and a cross-referenced pollen and climate dataset mapped for time slices spaced 1000 years apart. When GDM was trained for one time slice, the correlation between predicted and observed spatial patterns of community dissimilarity for other times ranged between 0.3 and 0.73. The selection of climatic predictor variables changed over time, as did the form of the relationship between compositional turnover and climatic predictors. Summer temperature was the only variable selected for all time periods. These results thus suggest that the relationship between compositional dissimilarity in pollen assemblages (and, by implication, beta diversity in plant communities) and climatic dissimilarity can change over time, for reasons to be further studied.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70047758','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70047758"><span>Data-driven modeling of surface temperature anomaly and solar activity trends</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Friedel, Michael J.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>A novel two-step modeling scheme is used to reconstruct and analyze surface temperature and solar activity data at global, hemispheric, and regional scales. First, the self-organizing map (SOM) technique is used to extend annual modern climate data from the century to millennial scale. The SOM component planes are used to identify and quantify strength of nonlinear relations among modern surface temperature anomalies (<150 years), tropical and extratropical teleconnections, and Palmer Drought Severity Indices (0–2000 years). Cross-validation of global sea and land surface temperature anomalies verifies that the SOM is an unbiased estimator with less uncertainty than the magnitude of anomalies. Second, the quantile modeling of SOM reconstructions reveal trends and periods in surface temperature anomaly and solar activity whose timing agrees with published studies. Temporal features in surface temperature anomalies, such as the Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, and Modern Warming Period, appear at all spatial scales but whose magnitudes increase when moving from ocean to land, from global to regional scales, and from southern to northern regions. Some caveats that apply when interpreting these data are the high-frequency filtering of climate signals based on quantile model selection and increased uncertainty when paleoclimatic data are limited. Even so, all models find the rate and magnitude of Modern Warming Period anomalies to be greater than those during the Medieval Warm Period. Lastly, quantile trends among reconstructed equatorial Pacific temperature profiles support the recent assertion of two primary El Niño Southern Oscillation types. These results demonstrate the efficacy of this alternative modeling approach for reconstructing and interpreting scale-dependent climate variables.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27708155','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27708155"><span>Strong influence of palaeoclimate on the structure of modern African mammal communities.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Rowan, John; Kamilar, Jason M; Beaudrot, Lydia; Reed, Kaye E</p> <p>2016-10-12</p> <p>Ecological research often assumes that species are adapted to their current climatic environments. However, climate fluctuations over geologic timescales have influenced species dispersal and extinction, which in turn may affect community structure. Modern community structure is likely to be the product of both palaeoclimate and modern climate, with the relative degrees of influence of past and present climates unknown. Here, we assessed the influence of climate at different time periods on the phylogenetic and functional trait structure of 203 African mammal communities. We found that the climate of the mid-Holocene (approx. 6000 years ago) and Last Glacial Maximum (approx. 22 000 years ago) were frequently better predictors of community structure than modern climate for mammals overall, carnivorans and ungulates. Primate communities were more strongly influenced by modern climate than palaeoclimate. Overall, community structure of African mammals appears to be related to the ecological flexibility of the groups considered here and the regions of continental Africa that they occupy. Our results indicate that the future redistribution, expansion and contraction of particular biomes due to human activity, such as climate and land-use change, will differentially affect mammal groups that vary in their sensitivity to environmental change. © 2016 The Author(s).</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70035847','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70035847"><span>Response of the everglades ridge and slough landscape to climate variability and 20th-century water management</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Bernhardt, C.E.; Willard, D.A.</p> <p>2009-01-01</p> <p>The ridge and slough landscape of the Florida Everglades consists of a mosaic of linear sawgrass ridges separated by deeper-water sloughs with tree islands interspersed throughout the landscape. We used pollen assemblages from transects of sediment cores spanning sawgrass ridges, sloughs, and ridge-slough transition zones to determine the timing of ridge and slough formation and to evaluate the response of components of the ridge and slough landscape to climate variability and 20th-century water management. These pollen data indicate that sawgrass ridges and sloughs have been vegetationally distinct from one another since initiation of the Everglades wetland in mid-Holocene time. Although the position and community composition of sloughs have remained relatively stable throughout their history, modern sawgrass ridges formed on sites that originally were occupied by marshes. Ridge formation and maturation were initiated during intervals of drier climate (the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age) when the mean position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone shifted southward. During these drier intervals, marsh taxa were more common in sloughs, but they quickly receded when precipitation increased. Comparison with regional climate records suggests that slough vegetation is strongly influenced by North Atlantic Oscillation variability, even under 20th-century water management practices. ?? 2009 by the Ecological Society of America.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010QSRv...29.1590D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010QSRv...29.1590D"><span>Holocene climate variability revealed by oxygen isotope analysis of Sphagnum cellulose from Walton Moss, northern England</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Daley, T. J.; Barber, K. E.; Street-Perrott, F. A.; Loader, N. J.; Marshall, J. D.; Crowley, S. F.; Fisher, E. H.</p> <p>2010-07-01</p> <p>Stable isotope analyses of Sphagnum alpha-cellulose, precipitation and bog water from three sites across northwestern Europe (Raheenmore, Ireland, Walton Moss, northern England and Dosenmoor, northern Germany) over a total period of 26 months were used to investigate the nature of the climatic signal recorded by Sphagnum moss. The δ18O values of modern alpha-cellulose tracked precipitation more closely than bog water, with a mean isotopic fractionation factor αcellulose-precipitation of 1.0274 ± 0.001 (1 σ) (≈27‰). Sub-samples of isolated Sphagnum alpha-cellulose were subsequently analysed from core WLM22, Walton Moss, northern England yielding a Sphagnum-specific isotope record spanning the last 4300 years. The palaeo-record, calibrated using the modern data, provides evidence for large amplitude variations in the estimated oxygen isotope composition of precipitation during the mid- to late Holocene. Estimates of palaeotemperature change derived from statistical relationships between modern surface air temperatures and δ18O precipitation values for the British Isles give unrealistically large variation in comparison to proxies from other archives. We conclude that use of such relationships to calibrate mid-latitude palaeo-data must be undertaken with caution. The δ18O record from Sphagnum cellulose was highly correlated with a palaeoecologically-derived index of bog surface wetness (BSW), suggesting a common climatic driver.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP34A..03M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP34A..03M"><span>The Asian monsoon's role in atmospheric heat transport responses to orbital and millennial-scale climate change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>McGee, D.; Green, B.; Donohoe, A.; Marshall, J.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Recent studies have provided a framework for understanding the zonal-mean position of the tropical rain belt by documenting relationships between rain belt latitude and atmospheric heat transport across the equator (Donohoe et al., 2013). Modern seasonal and interannual variability in globally-averaged rain belt position (often referred to as 'ITCZ position') reflects the interhemispheric heat balance, with the rain belt's displacement toward the warmer hemisphere directly proportional to atmospheric heat transport into the cooler hemisphere. Model simulations suggest that rain belt shifts are likely to have obeyed the same relationship with interhemispheric heat transport in response to past changes in orbital parameters, ice sheets, and ocean circulation. This relationship implies that even small (±1 degree) shifts in the mean rain belt require large changes in hemispheric heat budgets, placing tight bounds on mean rain belt shifts in past climates. This work has primarily viewed tropical circulation in two dimensions, as a pair of zonal-mean Hadley cells on either side of the rain belt that are displaced north and south by perturbations in hemispheric energy budgets, causing the atmosphere to transport heat into the cooler hemisphere. Here we attempt to move beyond this zonal-mean perspective, motivated by arguments that the Asian monsoon system, rather than the zonal-mean circulation, plays the dominant role in annual-mean heat transport into the southern hemisphere in the modern climate (Heaviside and Czaja, 2012; Marshall et al., 2014). We explore a range of climate change experiments, including simulations of North Atlantic cooling and mid-Holocene climate, to test whether changes in interhemispheric atmospheric heat transport are primarily driven by the mean Hadley circulation, the Asian monsoon system, or other regional-scale atmospheric circulation changes. The scalings that this work identifies between Asian monsoon changes and atmospheric heat transport help to provide quantitative insights into Asian monsoon variability in past climates. References cited: Donohoe, A. et al., (2013) Journal of Climate 26, 3597-3618. Heaviside, C. and Czaja, A. (2012) Quart. J. Royal Met. Soc. 139, 2181-2189. Marshall, J. et al., (2014) Climate Dynamics 42, 1967-1979.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20160006535','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20160006535"><span>An Assessment of Actual and Potential Building Climate Zone Change and Variability From the Last 30 Years Through 2100 Using NASA's MERRA and CMIP5 Simulations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Stackhouse, Paul W., Jr.; Chandler, William S.; Hoell, James M.; Westberg, David; Zhang, Taiping</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Background: In the US, residential and commercial building infrastructure combined consumes about 40% of total energy usage and emits about 39% of total CO2 emission (DOE/EIA "Annual Energy Outlook 2013"). Building codes, as used by local and state enforcement entities are typically tied to the dominant climate within an enforcement jurisdiction classified according to various climate zones. These climate zones are based upon a 30-year average of local surface observations and are developed by DOE and ASHRAE. Establishing the current variability and potential changes to future building climate zones is very important for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and reducing energy costs and emissions in the future. Objectives: This paper demonstrates the usefulness of using NASA's Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) atmospheric data assimilation to derive the DOE/ASHRAE building climate zone maps and then using MERRA to define the last 30 years of variability in climate zones for the Continental US. An atmospheric assimilation is a global atmospheric model optimized to satellite, atmospheric and surface in situ measurements. Using MERRA as a baseline, we then evaluate the latest Climate Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) climate model Version 5 runs to assess potential variability in future climate zones under various assumptions. Methods: We derive DOE/ASHRAE building climate zones using surface and temperature data products from MERRA. We assess these zones using the uncertainties derived by comparison to surface measurements. Using statistical tests, we evaluate variability of the climate zones in time and assess areas in the continental US for statistically significant trends by region. CMIP 5 produced a data base of over two dozen detailed climate model runs under various greenhouse gas forcing assumptions. We evaluate the variation in building climate zones for 3 different decades using an ensemble and quartile statistics to provide an assessment of potential building climate zone changes relative to the uncertainties demonstrated using MERRA. Findings and Conclusions: These results show that there is a statistically significant increase in the area covered by warmer climate zones and a tendency for a reduction of area in colder climate zones in some limited regions. The CMIP analysis shows that models vary from relatively little building climate zone change for the least sensitive and conservation assumptions to a warming of at most 3 zones for certain areas, particularly the north central US by the end of the 21st century.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5224549','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5224549"><span>A Pilot Investigation of the Relationship between Climate Variability and Milk Compounds under the Bootstrap Technique</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Marami Milani, Mohammad Reza; Hense, Andreas; Rahmani, Elham; Ploeger, Angelika</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>This study analyzes the linear relationship between climate variables and milk components in Iran by applying bootstrapping to include and assess the uncertainty. The climate parameters, Temperature Humidity Index (THI) and Equivalent Temperature Index (ETI) are computed from the NASA-Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (NASA-MERRA) reanalysis (2002–2010). Milk data for fat, protein (measured on fresh matter bases), and milk yield are taken from 936,227 milk records for the same period, using cows fed by natural pasture from April to September. Confidence intervals for the regression model are calculated using the bootstrap technique. This method is applied to the original times series, generating statistically equivalent surrogate samples. As a result, despite the short time data and the related uncertainties, an interesting behavior of the relationships between milk compound and the climate parameters is visible. During spring only, a weak dependency of milk yield and climate variations is obvious, while fat and protein concentrations show reasonable correlations. In summer, milk yield shows a similar level of relationship with ETI, but not with temperature and THI. We suggest this methodology for studies in the field of the impacts of climate change and agriculture, also environment and food with short-term data. PMID:28231215</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUSM.C42A..01K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUSM.C42A..01K"><span>The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) in the IPY 2007-2009</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kennicutt, M. C.; Wilson, T. J.; Summerhayes, C.</p> <p>2005-05-01</p> <p>The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) initiates, develops, and coordinates international scientific research in the Antarctic region. SCAR is assuming a leadership position in the IPY primarily through its five major Scientific Research Programs; ACE, SALE, EBA, AGCS, and ICESTAR; which will be briefly described.Antarctic Climate Evolution (ACE) promotes the exchange of data and ideas between research groups focusing on the evolution of Antarctica's climate system and ice sheet. The program will: (1) quantitatively assess the climate and glacial history of Antarctica; (2) identify the processes which govern Antarctic change and feed back around the globe; (3) improve our ability to model past changes in Antarctica; and (4)document past change to predict future change in Antarctica. Subglacial Antarctic Lake Environments (SALE) promotes, facilitates, and champions cooperation and collaboration in the exploration and study of subglacial environments in Antarctica. SALE intends to understand the complex interplay of biological, geological, chemical, glaciological, and physical processes within subglacial lake environments through coordinated international research teams. Evolution and Biodiversity in the Antarctic (EBA) will use a suite of modern techniques and interdisciplinary approaches, to explore the evolutionary history of selected modern Antarctic biota, examine how modern biological diversity in the Antarctic influences the way present-day ecosystems function, and thereby predict how the biota may respond to future environmental change. Antarctica and the Global Climate System (AGCS) will investigate the nature of the atmospheric and oceanic linkages between the climate of the Antarctic and the rest of the Earth system, and the mechanisms involved therein. A combination of modern instrumented records of atmospheric and oceanic conditions, and the climate signals held within ice cores will be used to understand past and future climate variability and change in the Antarctic as a result of natural and anthropogenic forcings over the last 100,000 years. Interhemispheric Conjugacy Effects in Solar-Terrestrial and Aeronomy Research (ICESTAR) will study the interactions between and collective behavior of the many component parts of the Earth system, including the interaction between the natural environment and human society. Objectives include specification and prediction of the state of the system and assimilation and integration of data from disparate sources to understand the complex geospace environment.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP52A..07L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP52A..07L"><span>A Coral-based Reconstruction of Interannual Climate Variability at Vanuatu during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950-1250 CE)</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lawman, A. E.; Quinn, T. M.; Partin, J. W.; Taylor, F. W.; Thirumalai, K.; WU, C. C.; Shen, C. C.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA: 950-1250 CE) is identified as a period during the last 2 millennia with Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures similar to the present. However, our understanding of tropical climate variability during the MCA is poorly constrained due to a lack of proxy records. We investigate the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the leading mode of global interannual variability, during the MCA using geochemical records developed from well preserved fossilized corals from the tropical southwest Pacific (Tasmaloum, Vanuatu; 15° 37' S, 166° 54.5' E). We use paired coral Sr/Ca and δ18O measurements to reconstruct sea surface temperature (SST) and the δ18O of seawater (a proxy for salinity) variability associated with ENSO. We present Sr/Ca and δ18O data from a 1.68-m-long Porites lutea coral head collected from Tasmaloum, Vanuatu. An absolute U/Th date of 1127.1 ± 2.7 CE indicates that the selected coral lived during the MCA. Preliminary assessment of >65 years of monthly resolved Sr/Ca data yields a mean value of 8.937 ± 0.120 mmol/mol (2σ, n = 757), and an average seasonal cycle of 0.156 ± 0.009 mmol/mol or 2.7 ± 0.1°C based on modern Sr/Ca-SST calibrations. We find that the magnitude and variability of the SST seasonal cycle is comparable to gridded and in situ SST datasets for Vanuatu as well as a published, modern 165 year-long coral record from Sabine Bank, Vanuatu, located 90 km to the SW of Tasmaloum. Applying a 2-8 year band pass filter to the Sr/Ca time series, we identify 8 El Niño and 3 La Niña events based on Sr/Ca (SST) anomalies. Preliminary assessment of >45 years of paired δ18O measurements yields a mean value of -4.67 ± 0.43‰ (2σ, n = 373). We also identify ENSO activity in the 2-8 year band pass filtered data. We expect to develop a 120-year record of paired coral Sr/Ca and δ18O measurements when data acquisition is complete, which will be used to investigate the frequency and magnitude of ENSO events during the MCA.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_3");'>3</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li class="active"><span>5</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_5 --> <div id="page_6" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li class="active"><span>6</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="101"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4448876','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4448876"><span>Baleen boom and bust: a synthesis of mysticete phylogeny, diversity and disparity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Marx, Felix G.; Fordyce, R. Ewan</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>A new, fully dated total-evidence phylogeny of baleen whales (Mysticeti) shows that evolutionary phases correlate strongly with Caenozoic modernization of the oceans and climates, implying a major role for bottom-up physical drivers. The phylogeny of 90 modern and dated fossil species suggests three major phases in baleen whale history: an early adaptive radiation (36–30 Ma), a shift towards bulk filter-feeding (30–23 Ma) and a climate-driven diversity loss around 3 Ma. Evolutionary rates and disparity were high following the origin of mysticetes around 38 Ma, coincident with global cooling, abrupt Southern Ocean eutrophication and the development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Subsequently, evolutionary rates and disparity fell, becoming nearly constant after approximately 23 Ma as the ACC reached its full strength. By contrast, species diversity rose until 15 Ma and then remained stable, before dropping sharply with the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. This decline coincided with the final establishment of modern mysticete gigantism and may be linked to glacially driven variability in the distribution of shallow habitats or an increased need for long-distance migration related to iron-mediated changes in glacial marine productivity. PMID:26064636</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26064636','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26064636"><span>Baleen boom and bust: a synthesis of mysticete phylogeny, diversity and disparity.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Marx, Felix G; Fordyce, R Ewan</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>A new, fully dated total-evidence phylogeny of baleen whales (Mysticeti) shows that evolutionary phases correlate strongly with Caenozoic modernization of the oceans and climates, implying a major role for bottom-up physical drivers. The phylogeny of 90 modern and dated fossil species suggests three major phases in baleen whale history: an early adaptive radiation (36-30 Ma), a shift towards bulk filter-feeding (30-23 Ma) and a climate-driven diversity loss around 3 Ma. Evolutionary rates and disparity were high following the origin of mysticetes around 38 Ma, coincident with global cooling, abrupt Southern Ocean eutrophication and the development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). Subsequently, evolutionary rates and disparity fell, becoming nearly constant after approximately 23 Ma as the ACC reached its full strength. By contrast, species diversity rose until 15 Ma and then remained stable, before dropping sharply with the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation. This decline coincided with the final establishment of modern mysticete gigantism and may be linked to glacially driven variability in the distribution of shallow habitats or an increased need for long-distance migration related to iron-mediated changes in glacial marine productivity.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFM.B11H0132H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFM.B11H0132H"><span>Microbial Community Dynamics from Permafrost Across the Pleistocene-Holocene Boundary and Response to Abrupt Climate Change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hammad, A.; Mahony, M.; Froese, D. G.; Lanoil, B. D.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>Earth is currently undergoing rapid warming similar to that observed about 10,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene. We know a considerable amount about the adaptations and extinctions of mammals and plants at the Pleistocene/Holocene (P/H) boundary, but relatively little about changes at the microbial level. Due to permafrost soils' freezing anoxic conditions, they act as microbial diversity archives allowing us to determine how microbial communities adapted to the abrupt warming at the end of P. Since microbial community composition only helps differentiate viable and extant microorganisms in frozen permafrost, microbial activity in thawing permafrost must be investigated to provide a clear understanding of microbial response to climate change. Current increased temperatures will result in warming and potential thaw of permafrost and release of stored organic carbon, freeing it for microbial utilization; turning permafrost into a carbon source. Studying permafrost viable microbial communities' diversity and activity will provide a better understanding of how these microorganisms respond to soil edaphic variability due to climate change across the P/H boundary, providing insight into the changes that the soil community is currently undergoing in this modern era of rapid climate change. Modern soil, H and P permafrost cores were collected from Lucky Lady II site outside Dawson City, Yukon. 16S rRNA high throughput sequencing of permafrost DNA showed the same trends for total and viable community richness and diversity with both decreasing with permafrost depth and only the richness increasing in mid and early P. The modern, H and P soils had 50.9, 33.9, and 27.3% unique viable species and only 14% of the total number of viable species were shared by all soils. Gas flux measurements of thawed permafrost showed metabolic activity in modern and permafrost soils, aerobic CH­­4 consumption in modern, some H and P soils, and anaerobic CH­­4 production in one H sample. Soil chemistry analysis showed that older permafrost, P, had higher pH, lower total nitrogen, ammonium, and organic carbon than younger permafrost, H.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP13C1100C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP13C1100C"><span>Impacts of the spatial extent of pollen-climate calibration-set on the absolute values, range and trends of reconstructed Holocene precipitation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Cao, X.; Tian, F.; Telford, R.; Ni, J.; Xu, Q.; Chen, F.; Liu, X.; Stebich, M.; Zhao, Y.; Herzschuh, U.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Pollen-based quantitative reconstructions of past climate variables is a standard palaeoclimatic approach. Despite knowing that the spatial extent of the calibration-set affects the reconstruction result, guidance is lacking as to how to determine a suitable spatial extent of the pollen-climate calibration-set. In this study, past mean annual precipitation (Pann) during the Holocene (since 11.5 cal ka BP) is reconstructed repeatedly for pollen records from Qinghai Lake (36.7°N, 100.5°E; north-east Tibetan Plateau), Gonghai Lake (38.9°N, 112.2°E; north China) and Sihailongwan Lake (42.3°N, 126.6°E; north-east China) using calibration-sets of varying spatial extents extracted from the modern pollen dataset of China and Mongolia (2559 sampling sites and 168 pollen taxa in total). Results indicate that the spatial extent of the calibration-set has a strong impact on model performance, analogue quality and reconstruction diagnostics (absolute value, range, trend, optimum). Generally, these effects are stronger with the modern analogue technique (MAT) than with weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS). With respect to fossil spectra from northern China, the spatial extent of calibration-sets should be restricted to ca. 1000 km in radius because small-scale calibration-sets (<800 km radius) will likely fail to include enough spatial variation in the modern pollen assemblages to reflect the temporal range shifts during the Holocene, while too broad a scale calibration-set (>1500 km radius) will include taxa with very different pollen-climate relationships. Based on our results we conclude that the optimal calibration-set should 1) cover a reasonably large spatial extent with an even distribution of modern pollen samples; 2) possess good model performance as indicated by cross-validation, high analogue quality, and excellent fit with the target fossil pollen spectra; 3) possess high taxonomic resolution, and 4) obey the modern and past distribution ranges of taxa inferred from palaeo-genetic and macrofossil studies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150000368','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150000368"><span>Climate Analytics as a Service</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Schnase, John L.; Duffy, Daniel Q.; McInerney, Mark A.; Webster, W. Phillip; Lee, Tsengdar J.</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Climate science is a big data domain that is experiencing unprecedented growth. In our efforts to address the big data challenges of climate science, we are moving toward a notion of Climate Analytics-as-a-Service (CAaaS). CAaaS combines high-performance computing and data-proximal analytics with scalable data management, cloud computing virtualization, the notion of adaptive analytics, and a domain-harmonized API to improve the accessibility and usability of large collections of climate data. MERRA Analytic Services (MERRA/AS) provides an example of CAaaS. MERRA/AS enables MapReduce analytics over NASA's Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) data collection. The MERRA reanalysis integrates observational data with numerical models to produce a global temporally and spatially consistent synthesis of key climate variables. The effectiveness of MERRA/AS has been demonstrated in several applications. In our experience, CAaaS is providing the agility required to meet our customers' increasing and changing data management and data analysis needs.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMEP33A1906H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMEP33A1906H"><span>Assessing the Effects of Climate on Global Fluvial Discharge Variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hansford, M. R.; Plink-Bjorklund, P.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Plink-Bjorklund (2015) established the link between precipitation seasonality and river discharge variability in the monsoon domain and subtropical rivers (see also Leier et al, 2005; Fielding et al., 2009), resulting in distinct morphodynamic processes and a sedimentary record distinct from perennial precipitation zone in tropical rainforest zone and mid latitudes. This study further develops our understanding of discharge variability using a modern global river database created with data from the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC). The database consists of daily discharge for 595 river stations and examines them using a series of discharge variability indexes (DVI) on different temporal scales to examine how discharge variability occurs in river systems around the globe. These indexes examine discharge of individual days and monthly averages that allows for comparison of river systems against each other, regardless of size of the river. Comparing river discharge patterns in seven climate zones (arid, cold, humid subtropics, monsoonal, polar, rainforest, and temperate) based off the Koppen-Geiger climate classifications reveals a first order climatic control on discharge patterns and correspondingly sediment transport. Four groupings of discharge patterns emerge when coming climate zones and DVI: persistent, moderate, seasonal, and erratic. This dataset has incredible predictive power about the nature of discharge in fluvial systems around the world. These seasonal effects on surface water supply affects river morphodynamics and sedimentation on a wide timeframe, ranging from large single events to an inter-annual or even decadal timeframe. The resulting sedimentary deposits lead to differences in fluvial architecture on a range of depositional scales from sedimentary structures and bedforms to channel complex systems. These differences are important to accurately model for several reasons, ranging from stratigraphic and paleoenviromental reconstructions to more economic reasons, such as predicting reservoir presence, distribution, and connectivity in continental basins. The ultimate objective of this research is to develop differentiated fluvial facies and architecture based on the observed discharge patterns in the different climate zones.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMGC23G1195T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMGC23G1195T"><span>Surface Water and Energy Budgets for Sub-Saharan Africa in GFDL Coupled Climate Model</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Tian, D.; Wood, E. F.; Vecchi, G. A.; Jia, L.; Pan, M.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>This study compare surface water and energy budget variables from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) FLOR models with the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), Princeton University Global Meteorological Forcing Dataset (PGF), and PGF-driven Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model outputs, as well as available observations over the sub-Saharan Africa. The comparison was made for four configurations of the FLOR models that included FLOR phase 1 (FLOR-p1) and phase 2 (FLOR-p2) and two phases of flux adjusted versions (FLOR-FA-p1 and FLOR-FA-p2). Compared to p1, simulated atmospheric states in p2 were nudged to the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reanalysis. The seasonal cycle and annual mean of major surface water (precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff, and change of storage) and energy variables (sensible heat, ground heat, latent heat, net solar radiation, net longwave radiation, and skin temperature) over a 34-yr period during 1981-2014 were compared in different regions in sub-Saharan Africa (West Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa). In addition to evaluating the means in three sub-regions, empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) analyses were conducted to compare both spatial and temporal characteristics of water and energy budget variables from four versions of GFDL FLOR, NCEP CFSR, PGF, and VIC outputs. This presentation will show how well each coupled climate model represented land surface physics and reproduced spatiotemporal characteristics of surface water and energy budget variables. We discuss what caused differences in surface water and energy budgets in land surface components of coupled climate model, climate reanalysis, and reanalysis driven land surface model. The comparisons will reveal whether flux adjustment and nudging would improve depiction of the surface water and energy budgets in coupled climate models.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP11D1056K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP11D1056K"><span>Formation of Antarctic Intermediate Water during the Plio-Pleistocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Karas, C.; Goldstein, S. L.; deMenocal, P. B.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) plays a fundamental role in modern climate change. It is an important sink for anthropogenic CO2, it represents an important source water in several (sub)tropical upwelling regions and it is the coldwater route from the Southern Hemisphere to the North Atlantic Ocean replacing North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). During the last 4 million years, which marks the transition from the warm Pliocene climate towards icehouse conditions, the formation of this watermass is still largely unknown. We here present a multi-proxy approach using neodymium isotopes (ɛNd) on Fe-Mn encrusted foraminifera and coupled benthic Mg/Ca and stable isotopes from South Atlantic Site 516, within AAIW, to reconstruct its variability. Our data show that the modern formation of AAIW started about 3 million years ago, indicated by a distinct drop of ɛNd by 1.5, a cooling and freshening of benthic TMg/Ca by 8°C and a drop in benthic d13C values towards modern times. We interpret these changes as a reduced inflow of Pacific waters into the South Atlantic and the onset of modern deep vertical mixing at the source regions of AAIW near the polar front. These processes had significant effects on the CO2 storage of the ocean that supported global cooling and the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere Glaciation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23170221','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23170221"><span>A Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based analysis of modern South African rodent distributions, habitat use, and environmental tolerances.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Campbell, Timothy L; Lewis, Patrick J; Thies, Monte L; Williams, Justin K</p> <p>2012-11-01</p> <p>GOALS OF THIS STUDY WERE TO: (1) develop distributional maps of modern rodent genera throughout the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland by georeferencing museum specimens; (2) assess habitat preferences for genera by cross-referencing locality position with South African vegetation; and (3) identify mean annual precipitation and temperature range where the genera are located. Conterminous South Africa including the countries of Lesotho and Swaziland Digital databases of rodent museum specimens housed in the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, South Africa (DM), and the Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, United States (NMNH), were acquired and then sorted into a subset of specimens with associated coordinate data. The coordinate data were then used to develop distributional maps for the rodent genera present within the study area. Percent habitat occupation and descriptive statistics for six climatic variables were then determined for each genus by cross-referencing locality positions with vegetation and climatic maps. This report presents a series of maps illustrating the distribution of 35 rodent genera based on 19,471 geo-referenced specimens obtained from two major collections. Inferred habitat use by taxon is provided for both locality and specimen percent occurrence at three hierarchical habitat levels: biome, bioregion, and vegetation unit. Descriptive statistics for six climatic variables are also provided for each genus based on locality and specimen percent incidence. As rodent faunas are commonly used in paleoenvironmental reconstructions, an accurate assessment of rodent environmental tolerance ranges is necessary before confidence can be placed in an actualistic model. While the data presented here represent only a subset of the modern geographic distributions for many of the taxa examined, a wide range of environmental regimes are observed, suggesting that more research is necessary in order to accurately reconstruct an environmental signature when these taxa are found in the fossil record.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014CliPa..10..405C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014CliPa..10..405C"><span>Persistent millennial-scale link between Greenland climate and northern Pacific Oxygen Minimum Zone under interglacial conditions</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Cartapanis, O.; Tachikawa, K.; Romero, O. E.; Bard, E.</p> <p>2014-02-01</p> <p>The intensity and/or extent of the northeastern Pacific Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) varied in-phase with the Northern Hemisphere high latitude climate on millennial timescales during the last glacial period, indicating the occurrence of atmospheric and oceanic connections under glacial conditions. While millennial variability was reported for both the Greenland and the northern Atlantic Ocean during the last interglacial period, the climatic connections with the northeastern Pacific OMZ has not yet been observed under warm interglacial conditions. Here we present a new geochemical dataset, spanning the past 120 ka, for major components (terrigenous fraction, marine organic matter, biogenic opal, and carbonates) generated by X-ray fluorescence scanning alongside with biological productivity and redox sensitive trace element content (Mo, Ni, Cd) of sediment core MD02-2508 at 23° N, retrieved from the northern limit of the modern OMZ. Based on elemental ratios Si / Ti (proxy for opal), Cd / Al and Ni / Al, we suggest that biological productivity was high during the last interglacial (MIS5). Highly resolved opal reconstruction presents millennial variability corresponding to all the Dansgaard-Oeschger interstadial events over the last interglacial, while the Mo / Al ratio indicates reduced oxygenation during these events. Extremely high opal content during warm interstadials suggests high diatom productivity. Despite the different climatic and oceanic background between glacial and interglacial periods, rapid variability in the northeastern Pacific OMZ seems to be tightly related to Northern Hemisphere high latitude climate via atmospheric and possibly oceanic processes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160004215&hterms=sea&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D50%26Ntt%3Dsea','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160004215&hterms=sea&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D50%26Ntt%3Dsea"><span>How Will Sea Ice Loss Affect the Greenland Ice Sheet? On the Puzzling Features of Greenland Ice-Core Isotopic Composition</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Pausata, Francesco S. R.; Legrande, Allegra N.; Roberts, William H. G.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The modern cryosphere, Earth's frozen water regime, is in fast transition. Greenland ice cores show how fast theses changes can be, presenting evidence of up to 15 C warming events over timescales of less than a decade. These events, called Dansgaard/Oeschger (D/O) events, are believed to be associated with rapid changes in Arctic sea ice, although the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. The modern demise of Arctic sea ice may, in turn, instigate abrupt changes on the Greenland Ice Sheet. The Arctic Sea Ice and Greenland Ice Sheet Sensitivity (Ice2Ice Chttps://ice2ice.b.uib.noD) initiative, sponsored by the European Research Council, seeks to quantify these past rapid changes to improve our understanding of what the future may hold for the Arctic. Twenty scientists gathered in Copenhagen as part of this initiative to discuss the most recent observational, technological, and model developments toward quantifying the mechanisms behind past climate changes in Greenland. Much of the discussion focused on the causes behind the changes in stable water isotopes recorded in ice cores. The participants discussed sources of variability for stable water isotopes and framed ways that new studies could improve understanding of modern climate. The participants also discussed how climate models could provide insights into the relative roles of local and nonlocal processes in affecting stable water isotopes within the Greenland Ice Sheet. Presentations of modeling results showed how a change in the source or seasonality of precipitation could occur not only between glacial and modern climates but also between abrupt events. Recent fieldwork campaigns illustrate an important role of stable isotopes in atmospheric vapor and diffusion in the final stable isotope signal in ice. Further, indications from recent fieldwork campaigns illustrate an important role of stable isotopes in atmospheric vapor and diffusion in the final stable isotope signal in ice. This feature complicates the quantitative interpretation of ice core signals but also makes the stable ice isotope signal a more robust regional indicator of climate, speakers noted. Meeting participants agreed that to further our understanding of these relationships, we need more process-focused field and laboratory campaigns.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70035675','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70035675"><span>Sensitivity of Pliocene ice sheets to orbital forcing</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Dolan, A.M.; Haywood, A.M.; Hill, D.J.; Dowsett, H.J.; Hunter, S.J.; Lunt, D.J.; Pickering, S.J.</p> <p>2011-01-01</p> <p>The stability of the Earth's major ice sheets is a critical uncertainty in predictions of future climate and sea level change. One method of investigating the behaviour of the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets in a warmer-than-modern climate is to look back at past warm periods of Earth history, for example the Pliocene. This paper presents climate and ice sheet modelling results for the mid-Pliocene warm period (mPWP; 3.3 to 3.0 million years ago), which has been identified as a key interval for understanding warmer-than-modern climates (Jansen et al., 2007). Using boundary conditions supplied by the United States Geological Survey PRISM Group (Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping), the Hadley Centre coupled ocean–atmosphere climate model (HadCM3) and the British Antarctic Survey Ice Sheet Model (BASISM), we show large reductions in the Greenland and East Antarctic Ice Sheets (GrIS and EAIS) compared to modern in standard mPWP experiments. We also present the first results illustrating the variability of the ice sheets due to realistic orbital forcing during the mid-Pliocene. While GrIS volumes are lower than modern under even the most extreme (cold) mid-Pliocene orbit (losing at least 35% of its ice mass), the EAIS can both grow and shrink, losing up to 20% or gaining up to 10% of its present-day volume. The changes in ice sheet volume incurred by altering orbital forcing alone means that global sea level can vary by more than 25 m during the mid-Pliocene. However, we have also shown that the response of the ice sheets to mPWP orbital hemispheric forcing can be in anti-phase, whereby the greatest reductions in EAIS volume are concurrent with the smallest reductions of the GrIS. If this anti-phase relationship is in operation throughout the mPWP, then the total eustatic sea level response would be dampened compared to the ice sheet fluctuations that are theoretically possible. This suggests that maximum eustatic sea level rise does not correspond to orbital maxima, but occurs at times where the anti-phasing of Northern and Southern Hemisphere ice sheet retreat is minimised.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018GeoRL..45.3164G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018GeoRL..45.3164G"><span>Ice Core Records of West Greenland Melt and Climate Forcing</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Graeter, K. A.; Osterberg, E. C.; Ferris, D. G.; Hawley, R. L.; Marshall, H. P.; Lewis, G.; Meehan, T.; McCarthy, F.; Overly, T.; Birkel, S. D.</p> <p>2018-04-01</p> <p>Remote sensing observations and climate models indicate that the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) has been losing mass since the late 1990s, mostly due to enhanced surface melting from rising summer temperatures. However, in situ observational records of GrIS melt rates over recent decades are rare. Here we develop a record of frozen meltwater in the west GrIS percolation zone preserved in seven firn cores. Quantifying ice layer distribution as a melt feature percentage (MFP), we find significant increases in MFP in the southernmost five cores over the past 50 years to unprecedented modern levels (since 1550 CE). Annual to decadal changes in summer temperatures and MFP are closely tied to changes in Greenland summer blocking activity and North Atlantic sea surface temperatures since 1870. However, summer warming of 1.2°C since 1870-1900, in addition to warming attributable to recent sea surface temperature and blocking variability, is a critical driver of high modern MFP levels.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20170007519&hterms=Situ&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D20%26Ntt%3DIn%2BSitu','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20170007519&hterms=Situ&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D20%26Ntt%3DIn%2BSitu"><span>The Modern Near-Surface Martian Climate: A Review of In-Situ Meteorological Data from Viking to Curiosity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Martinez, G. M.; Newman, C. N.; De Vicente-Retortillo, A.; Fischer, E.; Renno, N. O.; Richardson, M. I.; Fairén, A. G.; Genzer, M.; Guzewich, S. D.; Haberle, R. M.; <a style="text-decoration: none; " href="javascript:void(0); " onClick="displayelement('author_20170007519'); toggleEditAbsImage('author_20170007519_show'); toggleEditAbsImage('author_20170007519_hide'); "> <img style="display:inline; width:12px; height:12px; " src="images/arrow-up.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" alt="hide" id="author_20170007519_show"> <img style="width:12px; height:12px; display:none; " src="images/arrow-down.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" alt="hide" id="author_20170007519_hide"></p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>We analyze the complete set of in-situ meteorological data obtained from the Viking landers in the 1970s to todays Curiosity rover to review our understanding of the modern near-surface climate of Mars, with focus on the dust, CO2 and H2O cycles and their impact on the radiative and thermodynamic conditions near the surface. In particular, we provide values of the highest confidence possible for atmospheric opacity, atmospheric pressure, near-surface air temperature, ground temperature, near-surface wind speed and direction, and near-surface air relative humidity and water vapor content. Then, we study the diurnal, seasonal and interannual variability of these quantities over a span of more than twenty Martian years. Finally, we propose measurements to improve our understanding of the Martian dust and H2O cycles, and discuss the potential for liquid water formation under Mars present day conditions and its implications for future Mars missions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP14A..05O','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP14A..05O"><span>Spatial and temporal variation in tree-ring α-cellulose oxygen and hydrogen isotope values as a record of water availability in the Atacama Desert</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Olson, E. J.; Dodd, J. P.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Previous studies have documented that tree ring oxygen and hydrogen isotopes primarily reflect source water; however, biosynthetic fractionation processes modify this signal and can have a varied response to environmental conditions. The degree to which source water contributes to δ2H and δ18O values of plant α-cellulose is species-specific and modern calibration studies are necessary. Here we present a calibration data set of P. tamarugo α-cellulose δ2H and δ18O values from the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile. P. tamarugo trees are endemic to the region and have adapted to the extremely arid environment where average annual precipitation is < 5mm/yr. This modern isotope chronology has been constructed from living P. tamarugo trees (n=12) from the Pampa del Tamarugal Basin in the northern Atacama. Generally, the tree-ring α-cellulose δ18O values are poorly correlated with meteorological data from coastal stations (i.e. Iquique); however, there is good agreement between regional groundwater depth and α-cellulose δ18O values. Most notably, average α-cellulose δ18O values increase by >2 ‰ over the past 20 years associated with a ~1.1 m lowering of the local groundwater table throughout the area. The correlation between a-cellulose isotope values and hydrologic conditions in modern times provides a baseline for interpretation of tree-ring isotope chronologies from the past 9.5 kya. A high-resolution Holocene (1.8-9.1 kya) age record of Prosopis sp. tree ring α-cellulose δ18O values provides a proxy for climatic and hydrologic conditions. During the early Holocene δ18O values range from 31 to 35‰ (2σ=0.58‰), while during the late Holocene values are much more variable (27.4 to 41‰; 2σ=2.64‰). Anthropogenic demand on local water sources is the most significant environmental factor affecting the variation in modern α-cellulose δ18O values; however, climate induced changes in regional water availability are the dominant driver of variability in the paleo-record. Increased variability in α-cellulose δ18O values in the late Holocene most likely indicates a reduction in annual recharge and an increase in episodic flood events driven by ENSO and other modes of atmospheric variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PEPS....4....5B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PEPS....4....5B"><span>A 2700-year record of ENSO and PDO variability from the Californian margin based on coccolithophore assemblages and calcification</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Beaufort, Luc; Grelaud, Michaël</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) account for a large part of modern climate variability. Over the last decades, understanding of these modes of climate variability has increased but prediction in the context of global warming has proven difficult because of the lack of pertinent and reproducible paleodata. Here, we infer the dynamics of these oscillations from fossil assemblage and calcification state of coccolithophore in the Californian margin because El Niño has a strong impact on phytoplankton ecology and PDO on the upwelling intensity and hence on the ocean chemistry. Intense Californian upwelling brings water rich in CO2 and poor in carbonate ions and coccolithophores secrete lower calcified coccoliths. Seasonally laminated sediments of the Santa Barbara Basin are used to document ENSO variability and PDO index for the last 2700 years at a temporal resolution of 3 years. The records present the same characteristics as other PDO or ENSO records from the same area spanning the last centuries. We are therefore confident on the value produced here for the last 2.7 millennia. The records show important centennial variability that is equivalent to solar cycles.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21778392','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21778392"><span>Projecting coral reef futures under global warming and ocean acidification.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Pandolfi, John M; Connolly, Sean R; Marshall, Dustin J; Cohen, Anne L</p> <p>2011-07-22</p> <p>Many physiological responses in present-day coral reefs to climate change are interpreted as consistent with the imminent disappearance of modern reefs globally because of annual mass bleaching events, carbonate dissolution, and insufficient time for substantial evolutionary responses. Emerging evidence for variability in the coral calcification response to acidification, geographical variation in bleaching susceptibility and recovery, responses to past climate change, and potential rates of adaptation to rapid warming supports an alternative scenario in which reef degradation occurs with greater temporal and spatial heterogeneity than current projections suggest. Reducing uncertainty in projecting coral reef futures requires improved understanding of past responses to rapid climate change; physiological responses to interacting factors, such as temperature, acidification, and nutrients; and the costs and constraints imposed by acclimation and adaptation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26472274','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26472274"><span>Climatic variability, plasticity, and dispersal: A case study from Lake Tana, Ethiopia.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Grove, Matt; Lamb, Henry; Roberts, Helen; Davies, Sarah; Marshall, Mike; Bates, Richard; Huws, Dei</p> <p>2015-10-01</p> <p>The numerous dispersal events that have occurred during the prehistory of hominin lineages are the subject of longstanding and increasingly active debate in evolutionary anthropology. As well as research into the dating and geographic extent of such dispersals, there is an increasing focus on the factors that may have been responsible for dispersal. The growing body of detailed regional palaeoclimatic data is invaluable in demonstrating the often close relationship between changes in prehistoric environments and the movements of hominin populations. The scenarios constructed from such data are often overly simplistic, however, concentrating on the dynamics of cyclical contraction and expansion during severe and ameliorated conditions respectively. This contribution proposes a two-stage hypothesis of hominin dispersal in which populations (1) accumulate high levels of climatic tolerance during highly variable climatic phases, and (2) express such heightened tolerance via dispersal in subsequent low-variability phases. Likely dispersal phases are thus proposed to occur during stable climatic phases that immediately follow phases of high climatic variability. Employing high resolution palaeoclimatic data from Lake Tana, Ethiopia, the hypothesis is examined in relation to the early dispersal of Homo sapiens out of East Africa and into the Levant. A dispersal phase is identified in the Lake Tana record between c. 112,550 and c. 96,975 years ago, a date bracket that accords well with the dating evidence for H. sapiens occupation at the sites of Qafzeh and Skhul. Results are discussed in relation to the complex pattern of H. sapiens dispersal out of East Africa, with particular attention paid to the implications of recent genetic chronologies for the origin of non-African modern humans. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70027374','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70027374"><span>Multiproxy evidence of Holocene climate variability from estuarine sediments, eastern North America</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Cronin, T. M.; Thunell, R.; Dwyer, G.S.; Saenger, C.; Mann, M.E.; Vann, C.; Seal, R.R.</p> <p>2005-01-01</p> <p>We reconstructed paleoclimate patterns from oxygen and carbon isotope records from the fossil estuarine benthic foraminifera Elphidium and Mg/ Ca ratios from the ostracode Loxoconcha from sediment cores from Chesapeake Bay to examine the Holocene evolution of North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)-type climate variability. Precipitation-driven river discharge and regional temperature variability are the primary influences on Chesapeake Bay salinity and water temperature, respectively. We first calibrated modern ??18 Owater to salinity and applied this relationship to calculate trends in paleosalinity from the ??18 Oforam, correcting for changes in water temperature estimated from ostracode Mg /Ca ratios. The results indicate a much drier early Holocene in which mean paleosalinity was ???28 ppt in the northern bay, falling ???25% to ???20 ppt during the late Holocene. Early Holocene Mg/Ca-derived temperatures varied in a relatively narrow range of 13?? to 16??C with a mean temperature of 14.2??C and excursions above 16??C; the late Holocene was on average cooler (mean temperature of 12.8??C). In addition to the large contrast between early and late Holocene regional climate conditions, multidecadal (20-40 years) salinity and temperature variability is an inherent part of the region's climate during both the early and late Holocene, including the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. These patterns are similar to those observed during the twentieth century caused by NAO-related processes. Comparison of the midlatitude Chesapeake Bay salinity record with tropical climate records of Intertropical Convergence Zone fluctuations inferred from the Cariaco Basin titanium record suggests an anticorrelation between precipitation in the two regions at both millennial and centennial timescales. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70157068','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70157068"><span>Modelling the enigmatic Late Pliocene Glacial Event - Marine Isotope Stage M2</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Dolan, Aisling M.; Haywood, Alan M.; Hunter, Stephen J.; Tindall, Julia C.; Dowsett, Harry J.; Hill, Daniel J.; Pickering, Steven J.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>The Pliocene Epoch (5.2 to 2.58 Ma) has often been targeted to investigate the nature of warm climates. However, climate records for the Pliocene exhibit significant variability and show intervals that apparently experienced a cooler than modern climate. Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) M2 (~ 3.3 Ma) is a globally recognisable cooling event that disturbs an otherwise relatively (compared to present-day) warm background climate state. It remains unclear whether this event corresponds to significant ice sheet build-up in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Estimates of sea level for this interval vary, and range from modern values to estimates of 65 m sea level fall with respect to present day. Here we implement plausible M2 ice sheet configurations into a coupled atmosphere–ocean climate model to test the hypothesis that larger-than-modern ice sheet configurations may have existed at M2. Climate model results are compared with proxy climate data available for M2 to assess the plausibility of each ice sheet configuration. Whilst the outcomes of our data/model comparisons are not in all cases straight forward to interpret, there is little indication that results from model simulations in which significant ice masses have been prescribed in the Northern Hemisphere are incompatible with proxy data from the North Atlantic, Northeast Arctic Russia, North Africa and the Southern Ocean. Therefore, our model results do not preclude the possibility of the existence of larger ice masses during M2 in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere. Specifically they are not able to discount the possibility of significant ice masses in the Northern Hemisphere during the M2 event, consistent with a global sea-level fall of between 40 m and 60 m. This study highlights the general need for more focused and coordinated data generation in the future to improve the coverage and consistency in proxy records for M2, which will allow these and future M2 sensitivity tests to be interrogated further.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_4");'>4</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li class="active"><span>6</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_6 --> <div id="page_7" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li class="active"><span>7</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="121"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMGC11E1066I','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMGC11E1066I"><span>Climate change and early human land-use in a biodiversity hotspot, the Afromontane region</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ivory, S.; Russell, J. M.; Sax, D. F.; Early, R.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>African ecosystems are at great risk due to climate and land-use change. Paleo-records illustrate that changes in precipitation and temperature have led to dramatic alterations of African vegetation distribution over the Quaternary; however, despite the fact that the link between mankind and the environment has a longer history in the African tropics than anywhere else on earth, very little is known about pre-colonial land-use. Disentangling the influence of each is particularly critical in areas of exceptional biodiversity and endemism, such as the Afromontane forest region. This region is generally considered to be highly sensitive to temperature and thus at risk to future climate change. However, new evidence suggests that some high elevation species may have occupied warmer areas in the past and thus are not strongly limited by temperature and may be at greater risk from intensifying land-use. First, we use species distribution models constructed from modern and paleo-distributions of high elevation forests in order to evaluate differences in the climatic space occupied today compared to the past. We find that although modern Afromontane species ranges occupy very narrow climate conditions, and in particular that most species occur only in cold areas, in the past most species have tolerated warmer conditions. This suggests that many montane tree species are not currently limited by warm temperatures, and that the region has already seen significant reduction in the climate space occupied, possibly from Holocene land-use. Second, to evaluate human impacts on montane populations, we examine paleoecological records from lakes throughout sub-Saharan Africa that capture ecological processes at difference time scales to reconstruct Afromontane forest range changes. Over long time scales, we observe phases of forest expansion in the lowlands associated with climate variability alone where composition varies little from phase to phase but include both modern low and high altitude taxa. We then examine changes in biodiversity and species composition within the Afromontane region related to evidence different types of historical land-use, suggesting significant alteration of montane forest range and lowland forest composition.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3540050','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3540050"><span>Variability within the 10-Year Pollen Rain of a Seasonal Neotropical Forest and Its Implications for Paleoenvironmental and Phenological Research</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Haselhorst, Derek S.; Moreno, J. Enrique; Punyasena, Surangi W.</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Tropical paleoecologists use a combination of mud-water interface and modern pollen rain samples (local samples of airborne pollen) to interpret compositional changes within fossil pollen records. Taxonomic similarities between the composition of modern assemblages and fossil samples are the basis of reconstructing paleoclimates and paleoenvironments. Surface sediment samples reflect a time-averaged accumulation of pollen spanning several years or more. Due to experimental constraints, modern pollen rain samples are generally collected over shorter timeframes (1–3 years) and are therefore less likely to capture the full range of natural variability in pollen rain composition and abundance. This potentially biases paleoenvironmental interpretations based on modern pollen rain transfer functions. To determine the degree to which short-term environmental change affects the composition of the aerial pollen flux of Neotropical forests, we sampled ten years of the seasonal pollen rain from Barro Colorado Island, Panama and compared it to climatic and environmental data over the same ten-year span. We establish that the pollen rain effectively captured the strong seasonality and stratification of pollen flow within the forest canopy and that individual taxa had variable sensitivity to seasonal and annual changes in environmental conditions, manifested as changes in pollen productivity. We conclude that modern pollen rain samples capture the reproductive response of moist tropical plants to short-term environmental change, but that consequently, pollen rain-based calibrations need to include longer sampling periods (≥7 years) to reflect the full range of natural variability in the pollen output of a forest and simulate the time-averaging present in sediment samples. Our results also demonstrate that over the long-term, pollen traps placed in the forest understory are representative samples of the pollen output of both canopy and understory vegetation. Aerial pollen traps, therefore, also represent an underutilized means of monitoring the pollen productivity and reproductive behavior of moist tropical forests. PMID:23320089</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23320089','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23320089"><span>Variability within the 10-year pollen rain of a seasonal neotropical forest and its implications for paleoenvironmental and phenological research.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Haselhorst, Derek S; Moreno, J Enrique; Punyasena, Surangi W</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Tropical paleoecologists use a combination of mud-water interface and modern pollen rain samples (local samples of airborne pollen) to interpret compositional changes within fossil pollen records. Taxonomic similarities between the composition of modern assemblages and fossil samples are the basis of reconstructing paleoclimates and paleoenvironments. Surface sediment samples reflect a time-averaged accumulation of pollen spanning several years or more. Due to experimental constraints, modern pollen rain samples are generally collected over shorter timeframes (1-3 years) and are therefore less likely to capture the full range of natural variability in pollen rain composition and abundance. This potentially biases paleoenvironmental interpretations based on modern pollen rain transfer functions. To determine the degree to which short-term environmental change affects the composition of the aerial pollen flux of Neotropical forests, we sampled ten years of the seasonal pollen rain from Barro Colorado Island, Panama and compared it to climatic and environmental data over the same ten-year span. We establish that the pollen rain effectively captured the strong seasonality and stratification of pollen flow within the forest canopy and that individual taxa had variable sensitivity to seasonal and annual changes in environmental conditions, manifested as changes in pollen productivity. We conclude that modern pollen rain samples capture the reproductive response of moist tropical plants to short-term environmental change, but that consequently, pollen rain-based calibrations need to include longer sampling periods (≥7 years) to reflect the full range of natural variability in the pollen output of a forest and simulate the time-averaging present in sediment samples. Our results also demonstrate that over the long-term, pollen traps placed in the forest understory are representative samples of the pollen output of both canopy and understory vegetation. Aerial pollen traps, therefore, also represent an underutilized means of monitoring the pollen productivity and reproductive behavior of moist tropical forests.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4151733','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4151733"><span>Drought stress variability in ancient Near Eastern agricultural systems evidenced by δ13C in barley grain</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Riehl, Simone; Pustovoytov, Konstantin E.; Weippert, Heike; Klett, Stefan; Hole, Frank</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>The collapse and resilience of political systems in the ancient Near East and their relationship with agricultural development have been of wide interest in archaeology and anthropology. Despite attempts to link the archaeological evidence to local paleoclimate data, the precise role of environmental conditions in ancient agricultural production remains poorly understood. Recently, stable isotope analysis has been used for reconstructing site-specific ancient growing conditions for crop species in semiarid and arid landscapes. To open the discussion of the role of regional diversity in past agricultural production as a factor in societal development, we present 1.037 new stable carbon isotope measurements from 33 archaeological sites and modern fields in the geographic area of the Fertile Crescent, spanning the Aceramic Neolithic [10,000 calibrated years (cal) B.C.] to the later Iron Age (500 cal B.C.), alongside modern data from 13 locations. Our data show that drought stress was an issue in many agricultural settlements in the ancient Near East, particularly in correlation with the major Holocene climatic fluctuations, but its regional impact was diverse and influenced by geographic factors. Although cereals growing in the coastal areas of the northern Levant were relatively unaffected by Holocene climatic fluctuations, farmers of regions further inland had to apply irrigation to cope with increased water stress. However, inland agricultural strategies showed a high degree of variability. Our findings suggest that regional differences in climatic effects led to diversified strategies in ancient subsistence and economy even within spatially limited cultural units. PMID:25114225</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..17.4627V','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..17.4627V"><span>Quantitative summer and winter temperature reconstructions from pollen and chironomid data in the Baltic-Belarus area</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Veski, Siim; Seppä, Heikki; Stančikaitė, Migle; Zernitskaya, Valentina; Reitalu, Triin; Gryguc, Gražyna; Heinsalu, Atko; Stivrins, Normunds; Amon, Leeli; Vassiljev, Jüri; Heiri, Oliver</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>Quantitative reconstructions based on fossil pollen and chironomids are widely used and useful for long-term climate variability estimations. The Lateglacial and early Holocene period (15-8 ka BP) in the Baltic-Belarus (BB) area between 60°-51° N was characterized by sudden shifts in climate due to various climate forcings affecting the climate of the northern hemisphere and North Atlantic, including the proximity of receding ice sheets. Climate variations in BB during the LG were eminent as the southern part of the region was ice free during the Last Glacial Maximum over 19 ka BP, whereas northern Estonia became ice free no sooner than 13 ka BP. New pollen based reconstructions of summer (May-to-August) and winter (December-to-February) temperatures between 15-8 ka BP along a S-N transect in the BB area display trends in temporal and spatial changes in climate variability. These results are completed by two chironomid-based July mean temperature reconstructions (Heiri et al. 2014). The magnitude of change compared with modern temperatures was more prominent in the northern part of BB area than in the southern part. The 4 °C winter and 2 °C summer warming at the start of GI-1 was delayed in the BB area and Lateglacial maximum temperatures were reached at ca 13.6 ka BP, being 4 °C colder than the modern mean. The Younger Dryas cooling in the area was 5 °C colder than present as inferred by all proxies (Veski et al. in press). In addition, our analyses show an early Holocene divergence in winter temperature trends with modern values reaching 1 ka earlier (10 ka BP) in southern BB compared to the northern part of the region (9 ka BP). Heiri, O., Brooks, S.J., Renssen, H., Bedford, A., Hazekamp, M., Ilyashuk, B., Jeffers, E.S., Lang, B., Kirilova, E., Kuiper, S., Millet, L., Samartin, S., Toth, M., Verbruggen, F., Watson, J.E., van Asch, N., Lammertsma, E., Amon, L., Birks, H.H., Birks, J.B., Mortensen, M.F., Hoek, W.Z., Magyari, E., Muñoz Sobrino, C., Seppä, H., Tinner, W., Tonkov, S., Veski, S., Lotter, A.F., 2014. Validation of climate model-inferred regional temperature change for late-glacial Europe. Nature Communications 5:4914, doi: 10.1038/ncomms5914 Veski, S., Seppä, H., Stančikaitė, M., Zernitskaya, V., Reitalu, T., Gryguc, G., Heinsalu, A., Stivrins, N., Amon, L., Vassiljev, J., Heiri, O. (in press). Quantitative summer and winter temperature reconstructions from pollen and chironomid data between 15 and 8 ka BP in the Baltic-Belarus area. Quaternary International. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.10.059</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1813139K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1813139K"><span>From Past to future: the Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project's contribution to CMIP6</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kageyama, Masa; Braconnot, Pascale; Harrison, Sandy; Haywood, Alan; Jungclaus, Johann; Otto-Bliesner, Bette; Abe-Ouchi, Ayako</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>Since the 1990s, PMIP has developed with the following objectives: 1/to evaluate the ability of climate models used for climate prediction in simulating well-documented past climates outside the range of present and recent climate variability; 2/to understand the mechanisms of these climate changes, in particular the role of the different climate feedbacks. To achieve these goals, PMIP has actively fostered paleo-data syntheses, multi-model analyses, including analyses of relationships between model results from past and future simulations, and model-data comparisons. For CMIP6, PMIP will focus on five past periods: - the Last Millennium (850 CE - present), to analyse natural climate variability on multidecadal or longer time-scales - the mid-Holocene, 6000 years ago, to compare model runs with paleodata for a period of warmer climate in the Northern Hemisphere, with an enhanced hydrological cycle - the Last Glacial Maximum, 21000 years ago, to evaluate the ability of climate models to represent a cold climate extreme and examine whether paleoinformation about this period can help and constrain climate sensitivity - the Last InterGlacial (~127,000 year ago), which provides a benchmark for a period of high sea-level stand - the mid-Pliocene warm period (~3.2 million years ago), which allows for the evaluation of the model's long-term response to a CO2 level analogous to the modern one. This poster will present the rationale of these "PMIP4-CMIP6" experiments. Participants are invited to come and discuss about the experimental set-up and the model output to be distributed via CMIP6. For more information and discussion of the PMIP4-CMIP6 experimental design, please visit: https://wiki.lsce.ipsl.fr/pmip3/doku.php/pmip3:cmip6:design:index</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MS%26E..245f2026G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MS%26E..245f2026G"><span>Correlations between Climate Change and the Modern European Construction</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Gumińska, Anna</p> <p>2017-10-01</p> <p>The aim of the study was to analyze the links between climate change and the way modern cities are structured and responded to climate change. How do these changes affect building materials and technologies, or does climate change affect the type of technology and materials used? The most important results are the effects of analysing selected examples of a modern European building, the use of materials and technology, the adaptation of buildings to the changing climate. Selected examples of contemporary architecture from Germany, Italy and Denmark, Norway and Sweden. There are also examples in photographic documentation. The most important criteria affecting the objects are elements that shape the changing climate, as well as existing legal and technical requirements. The main conclusion was that modern urban space is adapted to the changing climate. Unprecedented climatic phenomena in this area: intense and sudden rain, snow, floods, strong winds, abundant sunshine, high temperature changes, greenhouse effect of the city - “island heat”, atmospheric pollution. Building materials and technologies contribute to the optimal conservation of natural resources, buildings are shaped in such a way as to ensure safety, resilience and environmental protection. However, there is still a need for continuous monitoring of climate change, criteria affecting the design and construction of urban and central facilities. Key words: energy efficiency, renewable energy, climate change, contemporary architecture.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70159431','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70159431"><span>Holocene variability in the intensity of wind-gap upwelling in the tropical eastern Pacific</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Toth, Lauren T.; Aronson, Richard B.; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R. Lawrence</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Wind-driven upwelling in Pacific Panamá is a significant source of oceanographic variability in the tropical eastern Pacific. This upwelling system provides a critical teleconnection between the Atlantic and tropical Pacific that may impact climate variability on a global scale. Despite its importance to oceanographic circulation, ecology, and climate, little is known about the long-term stability of the Panamanian upwelling system or its interaction with climatic forcing on millennial time scales. Using a combination of radiocarbon and U-series dating of fossil corals collected in cores from five sites across Pacific Panamá, we reconstructed the local radiocarbon reservoir correction, ΔR, from ~6750 cal B.P. to present. Because the ΔR of shallow-water environments is elevated by upwelling, our data set represents a millennial-scale record of spatial and temporal variability of the Panamanian upwelling system. The general oceanographic gradient from relatively strong upwelling in the Gulf of Panamá to weak-to-absent upwelling in the Gulf of Chiriquí was present throughout our record; however, the intensity of upwelling in the Gulf of Panamá varied significantly through time. Our reconstructions suggest that upwelling in the Gulf of Panamá is weak at present; however, the middle Holocene was characterized by periods of enhanced upwelling, with the most intense upwelling occurring just after of a regional shutdown in the development of reefs at ~4100 cal B.P. Comparisons with regional climate proxies suggest that, whereas the Intertropical Convergence Zone is the primary control on modern upwelling in Pacific Panamá, the El Niño–Southern Oscillation drove the millennial-scale variability of upwelling during the Holocene.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUOSPC54A2239S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUOSPC54A2239S"><span>Coral-based estimates of tropical Pacific climate during the Little Ice Age: Intercolony variability and the need for replication</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sayani, H. R.; Cobb, K. M.; Khare, A.; Stone, C.; Grothe, P. R.; Chen, T.; Lu, Y.; Cheng, H.; Edwards, R. L.</p> <p>2016-02-01</p> <p>Massive surface corals offer continuous, high-resolution records of tropical climate variability, but reconstructing climate beyond the last century requires combining records from many different coral colonies [e.g. Cobb et al., 2003]. When combining coral records to build a reconstruction, however, one must grapple with the fact that corals growing on the same reef can yield Sr/Ca and δ18O records with significantly different mean values. These intercolony offsets equate to uncertainties of 1-3˚C when converted to SST [e.g. Felis et al., 2003; DeLong et al., 2011], significantly larger than the magnitude of decadal- to centennial-scale tropical climate variability during the last millennium [Emile-Geay et al., 2013]. Using a large suite of modern coral cores from Palmyra Atoll (6°N, 162°W), we quantify intercolony variability in Sr/Ca and δ18O records with respect to Sr/Ca-SST slopes and mean offsets. We document intercolony Sr/Ca offsets of ±0.09mmol/mol (1σ) or 1˚C, and δ18O offsets of ±0.04‰ or 0.2˚C. Sr/Ca-SST calibrations from six cores differ by ±5%, yielding temperatures ranging 26˚C to 29˚C when applied to a given coral Sr/Ca value. While individual corals are associated with large uncertainties, a composite of six modern cores offers a much reduced error bar of ±0.6˚C (1s). Applying these lessons to paired Sr/Ca and δ18O records from 3 Palmyra fossil corals from the 17th century, we find that central tropical Pacific (CTP) SST during the Little Ice Age (LIA) was 1.7±0.9˚C cooler than the 20th century. Seawater δ18O estimates derived from these fossil corals suggest drier conditions at Palmyra, consistent with lake sediment records from the Line Islands [Sachs et al., 2009]. References:Cobb, K. M., et al. (2003) Nature. 10.1038/nature01779DeLong, K. L., et al. (2011) Palaeogeo Palaeoclim Palaeoeco. 10.1016/J.Palaeo.2011.05.005Emile-Geay, J., et al. (2013) Journal of Climate. 10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00511.1Felis, T., et al. (2003) Coral Reefs. 10.1007/s00338-003-0324-3Sachs, J. P., et al. (2009) Nature Geoscience. 10.1038/ngeo554</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP51A1926X','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP51A1926X"><span>Evaluation of Sr/Ca-based paleoclimate reconstructions in modern and Medieval Diploria strigosa corals in the northeastern Caribbean</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Xu, Y.; Pearson, S. P.; Kilbourne, K.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>Tropical sea surface temperature (SST) has been implicated as a driver of climate changes during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, 950-1300 A.D.) but little data exists from the tropical oceans during this time period. We collected three modern and seven sub-fossil Diploria strigosa coral colonies from an overwash deposit on Anegada, British Virgin Islands (18.73 °N, 63.33 °W) in order to reconstruct climate in the northeastern Caribbean and Tropical North Atlantic during the MCA. The first step in our reconstruction was to verify the climate signal from this species at this site. We sub-sampled the modern corals along thecal walls with an average sampling resolution of 11-13 samples per year. Sr/Ca ratios measured in the sub-samples were calibrated to temperature using three different calibration techniques (ordinary least squares, reduced major axis, and weighted least squares (WLS)) on the monthly data that includes the seasonal cycles and on the monthly anomaly data. WLS regression accounts for unequal errors in the x and y terms, so we consider it the most robust technique. The WLS regression slope between gridded SST and coral Sr/Ca is similar to the previous two calibrations of this species. Mean Sr/Ca for each of the three modern corals is 8.993 × 0.004 mmol/mol, 9.127 × 0.003 mmol/mol, and 8.960 × 0.007 mmol/mol. These straddle the mean Diploria strigosa Sr/Ca found by Giry et al., (2010), 9.080 mmol/mol, at a site with nearly the same mean SST as Anegada (27.4 °C vs. 27.5 °C). The climatological seasonal cycles for SST derived from the modern corals are statistically indistinguishable from the seasonal cycles in the instrumental SST data. The coral-based seasonal cycles have ranges of 2.70 × 0.31 °C, 2.65 × 0.08 °C and 2.71 × 0.53 °C. These results indicate that this calibration can be applied to our sub-fossil coral data. We applied the WLS calibration to monthly-resolution Sr/Ca data from multiple sub-fossil corals dating to the medieval period with initial U-series dates near the top of the cores ranging from 1277 × 5 A.D. to 1327 × 5 A.D. Initial Sr/Ca results from the first sub-fossil coral have a seasonal range of 2.65 × 0.27 °C when converted to temperature units with our modern calibration, indicating no significant change from modern times. However, the mean Sr/Ca for this coral is very high (9.388 mmol/mol) compared to the modern corals. We explore the potential causes for this discrepancy in our study. Because reconstructing the mean SST during the Medieval Climate Anomaly may be difficult without temporal overlap with modern corals, our focus is on interannual variability. The coral Sr/Ca based monthly SST anomalies for both modern and sub-fossil corals have larger interannual variances than the instrumental record. One explanation for this is that the SSTs derived from sub-fossil corals are local data for which one expects larger variances than the instrumental data averaged over a 2 x 2 ° grid. This species shows great promise for future paleoclimate reconstructions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.C41C1232H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.C41C1232H"><span>Reconciliation of Antarctic marine and terrestrial geologic records: climate and ice-sheet variability in the mid-Miocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Halberstadt, A. R. W.; DeConto, R.; Gasson, E.; Kowalewski, D. E.; Levy, R. H.; Naish, T.; Chorley, H.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum ( 17-15 Ma) serves as a possible analog for future Antarctic conditions, as atmospheric CO2 concentrations were similar to those projected for the next few decades. During the subsequent mid-Miocene Climatic Transition, the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) developed from a more variable ice sheet to a continental, marine-terminating ice sheet resembling the modern configuration. Near-shore marine records from the Ross Sea (ANDRILL-2A; Levy et al., 2016) imply highly dynamic AIS behavior in the mid-Miocene. Reconstructed environmental conditions during this time period range from full glaciation of the area to a warm interglacial environment. Multiple AIS expansions during the mid-Miocene are interpreted from geophysical evidence including seismic surveys correlated to drill core data (Chow & Bart, 2003). These marine records are seemingly at odds with sedimentary and geomorphic studies in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDVs) that suggest the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was mostly invariable since the mid-Miocene (Sugden & Denton, 2004). Well-preserved landforms, observed by Marchant et al. (2013) and others, lack any indication of surface modification from glacial advance or wet cryoturbation, suggesting that hyper-arid cold-desert conditions have persisted in the MDVs since the mid-Miocene. This long-term landform stability in the MDVs implying a stable ice sheet is seemingly inconsistent with the highly dynamic AIS behavior reconstructed by Levy et al. (2016). Here, we use a Regional Climate Model (cf. Gasson et al., 2016) with a range of greenhouse gas concentrations, orbital configurations, ice sheet and shelf geometries, and sea surface conditions to reconcile the apparent dichotomy between marine and terrestrial records. Preliminary results reveal lapse-rate-corrected temperatures in the MDVs that generally remained below freezing in the austral summer, even under the warmest Miocene simulations (840 ppmv atmospheric CO2, `warm' austral summer orbit, and an ice sheet 53% of its modern volume). Model results will be compared with emerging terrestrial data from the Friis Hills in the MDVs, to test the hypothesis that climate in the MDVs remained relatively cold and insensitive to a highly variable West Antarctic Ice Sheet and marine conditions in the proximal Ross Sea.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51B..02W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51B..02W"><span>Reconstructing the history of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation using high-resolution Mg/Ca paleothermometry from a Cariaco Basin core</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Wurtzel, J. B.; Black, D. E.; Rahman, S.; Thunell, R.; Peterson, L. C.; Tappa, E.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>Instrumental and proxy-reconstructions show the existence of an approximately 70-year periodicity in Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST), known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). The AMO is correlated with circum-tropical Atlantic climate phenomena such as Sahel and Nordeste rainfall, and Atlantic hurricane patterns. Though it has been suggested that the AMO is controlled by thermohaline circulation, much debate exists as to whether the SST fluctuations are a result of anthropogenic forcing or a natural climate mode, or even if the AMO is a true oscillation at all. Our ability to address this issue has been limited by instrumental SST records that rarely extend back more than 50-100 years and proxy reconstructions that are mostly terrestrial-based. Additionally, the modern instrumental variability likely contains an anthropogenic component that is not easily distinguished from the natural background of the system. From a marine sediment core taken in the Cariaco Basin, we have developed a high-resolution SST reconstruction for the past ca. 1500 years using Mg/Ca paleothermometry on seasonally-representative foraminifera, with the most recent data calibrated to the instrumental record. Previous studies have shown Cariaco Basin Mg/Ca-SSTs to be well-correlated to the Caribbean Sea and much of the western tropical Atlantic, which allows us to create a record that can be used to determine pre-anthropogenic rates and ranges of SST variability and observe how they change over time. Averaging the seasonal temperatures derived from the two foraminiferal species over the instrumental period yields a strong correlation to the AMO index from A. D. 1880 through 1970 (r = 0.44, p<0.0001). Wavelet analysis of the proxy average annual SST data indicates that modern AMO variability is not a consistent feature through time, and may be a function of warm-period climate.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.H42C..04M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.H42C..04M"><span>The impacts of climatologically-driven megadrought, past and future, on semi-arid watersheds and the water resource system they support in central Arizona, USA.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Murphy, K. W.; Ellis, A. W.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The sustainability of water resource systems in the western United States has previously been brought into question by drought concerns and how it will be influenced by future climate change. Although decadal droughts are observed in instrumental records, the data are typically too short and the droughts too few to render the range of hydroclimatic variability that might impact modern water resource systems in the future. Natural modes of variability are not well represented in climate models, which limits the applicability of their downscaled projections in a region of interest since drought risk would be understated. Paleoclimate data have provided evidence of megadroughts from centuries ago whose hydrologic manifestations of climate variability could readily reoccur again in the future. These can be applied to research into watershed hydrologic response and resource system resilience - past, present, and future. A 645-year tree ring reconstruction of stream flow for the Salt and Verde River watersheds in central Arizona has revealed several drought periods, some more severe than seen in the 129-year instrumental record, including a late 16th century megadrought which affected large portions of the United States. This research study translated the tree ring record into net basin water supply which drives a reservoir operations simulation model to assess how the resource system performs under such severe drought. Regional climate change scenarios were developed from the observation that watershed climate sensitivity has been twice the global warming response. These were applied to the watersheds' temperature sensitivities and precipitation elasticities (reported at AGU2014) to obtain detailed renditions of hydrologic response should megadrought reoccur in a future climate. This provided one of the first rigorous projections of surface water supply under future climate change that amplifies the impact of megadrought arising from modes of climate variability often seen in the western United States. The implications to a large reservoir system serving 40% of water demand in the metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona area is reported which enables decision making for future adaptation planning.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008ESRv...91...77Z','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008ESRv...91...77Z"><span>Past occurrences of hypoxia in the Baltic Sea and the role of climate variability, environmental change and human impact</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Zillén, Lovisa; Conley, Daniel J.; Andrén, Thomas; Andrén, Elinor; Björck, Svante</p> <p>2008-12-01</p> <p>The hypoxic zone in the Baltic Sea has increased in area about four times since 1960 and widespread oxygen deficiency has severely reduced macro benthic communities below the halocline in the Baltic Proper and the Gulf of Finland, which in turn has affected food chain dynamics, fish habitats and fisheries in the entire Baltic Sea. The cause of increased hypoxia is believed to be enhanced eutrophication through increased anthropogenic input of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus. However, the spatial variability of hypoxia on long time-scales is poorly known: and so are the driving mechanisms. We review the occurrence of hypoxia in modern time (last c. 50 years), modern historical time (AD 1950-1800) and during the more distant past (the last c. 10 000 years) and explore the role of climate variability, environmental change and human impact. We present a compilation of proxy records of hypoxia (laminated sediments) based on long sediment cores from the Baltic Sea. The cumulated results show that the deeper depressions of the Baltic Sea have experienced intermittent hypoxia during most of the Holocene and that regular laminations started to form c. 8500-7800 cal. yr BP ago, in association with the formation of a permanent halocline at the transition between the Early Littorina Sea and the Littorina Sea s. str. Laminated sediments were deposited during three main periods (i.e. between c. 8000-4000, 2000-800 cal. yr BP and subsequent to AD 1800) which overlap the Holocene Thermal Maximum (c. 9000-5000 cal. yr BP), the Medieval Warm Period (c. AD 750-1200) and the modern historical period (AD 1800 to present) and coincide with intervals of high surface salinity (at least during the Littorina s. str.) and high total organic carbon content. This study implies that there may be a correlation between climate variability in the past and the state of the marine environment, where milder and dryer periods with less freshwater run-off correspond to increased salinities and higher accumulation of organic carbon resulting in amplified hypoxia and enlarged distribution of laminated sediments. We suggest that hydrology changes in the drainage area on long time-scales have, as well as the inflow of saltier North Sea waters, controlled the deep oxic conditions in the Baltic Sea and that such changes have followed the general Holocene climate development in Northwest Europe. Increased hypoxia during the Medieval Warm Period also correlates with large-scale changes in land use that occurred in much of the Baltic Sea watershed during the early-medieval expansion. We suggest that hypoxia during this period in the Baltic Sea was not only caused by climate, but increased human impact was most likely an additional trigger. Large areas of the Baltic Sea have experienced intermittent hypoxic from at least AD 1900 with laminated sediments present in the Gotland Basin in the Baltic Proper since then and up to present time. This period coincides with the industrial revolution in Northwestern Europe which started around AD 1850, when population grew, cutting of drainage ditches intensified, and agricultural and forest industry expanded extensively.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003EAEJA.....9175S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003EAEJA.....9175S"><span>Is modern climate variability reflected in compund specific hydrogen isotope ratios of sedimentary biomarkers?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sachse, D.; Radke, J.; Gleixner, G.</p> <p>2003-04-01</p> <p>Compound specific hydrogen isotope ratios are emerging as a new palaeoclimatic and palaeohydrological proxy. First reconstructions of palaeoclimate using D/H ratios from n-alkanes are available (Andersen et al. 2001, Sauer et al. 2001, Sachse et al. 2003). However, a systematic approach comparing recent sedimentary biomarkers with climate data is still lacking. We are establishing an ecosystem study of small, ground water fed lakes with known limnology. Nearly all lakes are close to a long-term climate-monitoring site (CARBOEUROPE flux tower site, IAEA precipitation monitoring) delivering ecophysiological and climatic data as temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration etc. Water, primary biomass, plant, soil and sediment were sampled from lakes and the surrounding ecosystem along a climatic and isotopic gradient in meteoric waters from northern Finland (deltaD: -130 permil vs. VSMOW) to southern Italy (deltaD: -30 permil vs. VSMOW, IAEA 2001). Biomarkers were extracted from the samples to test if climatic variability is reflected in their D/H ratios. First results of the factors influencing the hydrogen isotope composition of sedimentary biomarkers and their use as palaeoclimatic and palaeohydrological proxy will be presented. Andersen N, Paul HA, Bernasconi SM, McKenzie JA, Behrens A, Schaeffer P, Albrecht P (2001) Large and rapid climate variability during the Messinian salinity crisis: Evidence from deuterium concentrations of individual biomarkers. Geology 29:799-802 IAEA (2001) GNIP Maps and Animations. International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna. Accessible at http://isohis.iaea.org Sachse D, Radke J, Gaupp R, Schwark L, Lüniger G, Gleixner G (2003) Reconstruction of palaeohydrological conditions in a lagoon during the 2nd Zechstein cycle through simultaneous use of deltaD values of individual n-alkanes and delta18O and delta13C values of carbonates. International Journal of Earth Sciences, submitted Sauer PE, Eglington TI, Hayes JM, Schimmelman A, Sessions AL (2001) Compound-specific D/H ratios of lipid biomarkers from sediments as a proxy for environmental and climatic conditions. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 65:213-222</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP33B1325R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP33B1325R"><span>Calibrating a Method for Reconstructing ENSO Variance in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Using Mg/Ca in Individual Planktic Foraminifera</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rongstad, B.; Marchitto, T. M., Jr.; Koutavas, A.; Mekik, F.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is Earth's dominant mode of interannual climate variability, and is responsible for widespread climatic, ecological and societal impacts, such as reduced upwelling and fishery collapse in the eastern equatorial Pacific during El Niño events. While corals offer high resolution records of paleo-ENSO, continuous and gap-free records for the tropical Pacific are rare. Individual foraminifera analyses provide an opportunity to create continuous down-core records of ENSO through the construction and comparison of species-specific sea surface temperature (SST) distributions at different time periods; however, there has been little focus on calibrating this technique to modern ENSO conditions. Here, we present data from a core-top calibration of individual Mg/Ca measurements in planktic foraminifera in the eastern tropical Pacific, using surface dweller G. ruber and thermocline dweller N. dutertrei. We convert the individual Mg/Ca measurements to inferred temperature distributions for each species, and then compare the distributions to modern day temperature characteristics including vertical structure, annual mean, seasonality, and interannual variability. ENSO variance is theoretically inferred from the tails of the distributions: El Niño events affect the warm tail and La Niña events affect the cool tail. Finally, we discuss the utility of individual measurements of Mg/Ca in planktic foraminifera to reconstruct ENSO in down-core sections.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5078669','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5078669"><span>Temperature Range Shifts for Three European Tree Species over the Last 10,000 Years</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Cheddadi, Rachid; Araújo, Miguel B.; Maiorano, Luigi; Edwards, Mary; Guisan, Antoine; Carré, Matthieu; Chevalier, Manuel; Pearman, Peter B.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>We quantified the degree to which the relationship between the geographic distribution of three major European tree species, Abies alba, Fagus sylvatica and Picea abies and January temperature (Tjan) has remained stable over the past 10,000 years. We used an extended data-set of fossil pollen records over Europe to reconstruct spatial variation in Tjan values for each 1000-year time slice between 10,000 and 3000 years BP (before present). We evaluated the relationships between the occurrences of the three species at each time slice and the spatially interpolated Tjan values, and compared these to their modern temperature ranges. Our results reveal that F. sylvatica and P. abies experienced Tjan ranges during the Holocene that differ from those of the present, while A. alba occurred over a Tjan range that is comparable to its modern one. Our data suggest the need for re-evaluation of the assumption of stable climate tolerances at a scale of several thousand years. The temperature range instability in our observed data independently validates similar results based exclusively on modeled Holocene temperatures. Our study complements previous studies that used modeled data by identifying variation in frequencies of occurrence of populations within the limits of suitable climate. However, substantial changes that were observed in the realized thermal niches over the Holocene tend to suggest that predicting future species distributions should not solely be based on modern realized niches, and needs to account for the past variation in the climate variables that drive species ranges. PMID:27826308</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015QuRes..84..133D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015QuRes..84..133D"><span>Assessing the paleoenvironmental potential of Pliocene to Holocene tufa deposits along the Ghaap Plateau escarpment (South Africa) using stable isotopes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Doran, Taylor Louise; Herries, Andy I. R.; Hopley, Philip J.; Sombroek, Hank; Hellstrom, John; Hodge, Ed; Kuhn, Brian F.</p> <p>2015-07-01</p> <p>The tufa deposits of the Ghaap Plateau escarpment provide a rich, yet minimally explored, geological archive of climate and environmental history coincident with hominin evolution in South Africa. This study examines the sedimentary and geochemical records of ancient and modern tufas from Buxton-Norlim Limeworks, Groot Kloof, and Gorrokop, to assess the potential of these sediments for providing reliable chronologies of high-resolution, paleoenvironmental information. Chronometric dating demonstrates that tufa formation has occurred from at least the terminal Pliocene through to the modern day. The stable isotope records show a trend toward higher, more variable δ18O and δ13C values with decreasing age from the end of the Pliocene onwards. The long-term increase in δ18O values corresponds to increasingly arid conditions, while increasing δ13C values reflect the changing proportion of C3/C4 vegetation in the local environment. Analysis of the Thabaseek Tufa, in particular, provides valuable evidence for reconstructing the depositional and chronological context of the enigmatic Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus). Collectively, the results of the present study demonstrate the potential of these deposits for developing high-precision records of climate change and, ultimately, for understanding the causal processes relating climate and hominin evolution.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20020033732','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20020033732"><span>Variability of Clouds Over a Solar Cycle</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Yung, Yuk L.</p> <p>2002-01-01</p> <p>One of the most controversial aspects of climate studies is the debate over the natural and anthropogenic causes of climate change. Historical data strongly suggest that the Little Ice Age (from 1550 to 1850 AD when the mean temperature was colder by about 1 C) was most likely caused by variability of the sun and not greenhouse molecules (e.g., CO2). However, the known variability in solar irradiance and modulation of cosmic rays provides too little energy, by many orders of magnitude, to lead to climate changes in the troposphere. The conjecture is that there is a 'trigger mechanism'. This idea may now be subjected to a quantitative test using recent global datasets. Using the best available modern cloud data from International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), Svensmark and Friis-Christensen found a correlation of a large variation (3-4%) in global cloud cover with the solar cycle. The work has been extended by Svensmark and Marsh and Svensmark. The implied forcing on climate is an order of magnitude greater than any previous claims. Are clouds the long sought trigger mechanism? This discovery is potentially so important that it should be corroborated by an independent database, and, furthermore, it must be shown that alternative explanations (i.e., El Nino) can be ruled out. We used the ISCCP data in conjunction with the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) data to carry out in in depth study of the cloud trigger mechanism.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018QuInt.479...48B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018QuInt.479...48B"><span>Strong sea forcing and warmer winter during solar minima ˜2765 yr B.P. recorded in the growth bands of Crassostrea sp . from the confluence of river Ganges, Eastern India</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Banerjee, Yogaraj; Ghosh, Prosenjit; Bhushan, Ravi; Rahul, P.</p> <p>2018-06-01</p> <p>Long term variation of solar activity plays a key role in controlling climatic oscillations during glacial-interglacial cycles. The records of such climatic shifts can be retrieved from sedimentary archives in overbank deposits found in the estuary regions of major rivers in the tropics which are fed by glaciers. In this study we have shown the effect of solar variability on regional climate by altering the river discharge and incursion of warm water pool into the region adjoining Bay of Bengal during seasonal dry period. The incremental growth bands present in the modern day Meretrix sp and Late Holocene Crassostrea sp. were examined for reconstruction of temperature and water composition at the head bay region of the river Ganges. The conventional C14 techniques on fossil oyster yielded age of 2765 ± 130 yr B.P., which coincides with a solar minima. Analysis of clumped isotope thermometry on the growth bands provided temperature estimates for the growth of shells. The temperature estimates for the modern shell, suggesting range of values showed a range between 13° and 42°C, close to the observed temperatures recorded in the climatological data while the fossil shell had a range of values between 22° and 38°C. The δ18O measured in the aragonite together with the estimated temperature were used to deduce the water composition during growth at equilibrium condition. The water δ18O varied between -4.78‰ and 1.2‰ for the modern sample, close to the observed values of water measured near this locality, while the range in water composition inferred for the paleo samples was from -2.37‰ to 0.82‰, suggesting a stronger influence of sea water throughout the year. The results are consistent with the argument of infiltration of water from neighbouring warm water pool into the estuary. A similar approach can be extended to evaluate the effects of climate variability due to differential action of river discharge into the sea at seasonal time scales based on available mollusc shells in the sedimentary successions from the region.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_5");'>5</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li class="active"><span>7</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_7 --> <div id="page_8" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li class="active"><span>8</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="141"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016QSRv..154....1N','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016QSRv..154....1N"><span>African hydroclimatic variability during the last 2000 years</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Nash, David J.; De Cort, Gijs; Chase, Brian M.; Verschuren, Dirk; Nicholson, Sharon E.; Shanahan, Timothy M.; Asrat, Asfawossen; Lézine, Anne-Marie; Grab, Stefan W.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The African continent is characterised by a wide range of hydroclimate regimes, ranging from humid equatorial West Africa to the arid deserts in the northern and southern subtropics. The livelihoods of much of its population are also vulnerable to future climate change, mainly through variability in rainfall affecting water resource availability. A growing number of data sources indicate that such hydroclimatic variability is an intrinsic component of Africa's natural environment. This paper, co-authored by members of the PAGES Africa 2k Working Group, presents an extensive assessment and discussion of proxy, historical and instrumental evidence for hydroclimatic variability across the African continent, spanning the last two millennia. While the African palaeoenvironmental record is characterised by spatially disjunctive datasets, with often less-than-optimal temporal resolution and chronological control, the available evidence allows the assessment of prominent spatial patterns of palaeomoisture variability through time. In this study, we focus sequentially on data for six major time windows: the first millennium CE, the Medieval Climate Anomaly (900-1250 CE), the Little Ice Age (1250-1750 CE), the end of the LIA (1750-1850 CE), the Early Modern Period (1850-1950), and the period of recent warming (1950 onwards). This results in a continent-wide synthesis of regional moisture-balance trends through history, allowing consideration of possible driving mechanisms, and suggestions for future research.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012EGUGA..1413219L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012EGUGA..1413219L"><span>Do GCM's predict the climate.... Or the low frequency weather?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lovejoy, S.; Schertzer, D.; Varon, D.</p> <p>2012-04-01</p> <p>Over twenty-five years ago, a three-regime scaling model was proposed describing the statistical variability of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from weather scales out to ≈ 100 kyrs. Using modern in situ data reanalyses, monthly surface series (at 5ox5o), 8 "multiproxy" (yearly) series of the Northern hemisphere from 1500 - 1980, and GRIP and Vostok paleotemperatures at 5.2 and ≈ 100 year resolutions (over the past 91-420 kyrs), we refine the model and show how it can be understood with the help of new developments in nonlinear dynamics, especially multifractals and cascades. In a scaling range, mean fluctuations in state variables such as temperature ΔT vary in power law manners ≈ Δt**H the where Δt is the duration. At small (weather) scales the fluctuation exponents are generally H>0; they grow with scale (Δt). At longer scales Δt >τw (≈ 10 days) H changes sign, the fluctuations decrease with scale; this is the low variability, "low frequency weather" regime. In this regime, the spectrum is a relatively flat "plateau", it's variability is low, stable, corresponding to our usual idea of "long term weather statistics". Finally for longer times, Δt>τc ≈ 10 - 100 years, once again H>0, so that the variability increases with scale: the true climate regime. These scaling regimes allow us to objectively define the weather as fluctuations over periods <τw, to define "climate states" as fluctuations at scale τc and then "climate change" as the fluctuations at longer periods (Δt>τc). We show that the intermediate low frequency weather regime is the result of the weather regime undergoing a "dimensional transition": at temporal scales longer than the typical lifetime of planetary structures (τw), the spatial degrees of freedom are rapidly quenched so that only the temporal degrees of freedom are important. This low frequency weather regime has statistical properties well reproduced not only by stochastic cascade models of weather, but also by control runs (i.e. without climate forcing) of GCM based climate forecasting systems including those of the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (Paris) and the Earth Forecasting System (Hamburg). In order for these systems to go beyond simply predicting low frequency weather i.e. in order for them to predict the climate, they need appropriate climate forcings and/ or new internal mechanisms of variability. Using statistical scaling techniques we examine the scale dependence of fluctuations from forced and unforced GCM outputs, including from the ECHO-G and EFS simulations in the Millenium climate reconstruction project and compare this with data, multiproxies and paleo data. Our general conclusion is that the models systematically underestimate the multidecadal, multicentennial scale variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.B11N..05P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.B11N..05P"><span>Who is in the Driver's Seat? Millennial-Scale Records of Wildfire in the Western USA Reveal a Complex Interplay of Climate, Fire, and Vegetation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Pierce, J. L.; Meyer, G. A.; Bigio, E.; Nelson, N.; Poulos, M. J.; Jenkins, S.; Riley, K. E.; Weppner, K.; Svenson, L.; Fitch, E. P.; Frechette, J.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>A new synthesis of 10 study areas and >480 14C dates of Holocene fire and erosional response are recorded in alluvial fan sediments of the interior western US. Chronologies are from high elevation mixed conifer forests in the N. Rockies, ponderosa and Douglas-fir forests in the N. Rockies and SW, and low elevation sagebrush steppe and piñon-juniper woodlands near the Snake River Plain. Results are as follows: 1) Late Holocene arrivals of ponderosa, lodgepole and piñon pine at Northern Rockies sites correspond with increased fire severity, linking vegetation and fire regime changes. 2) Deposit types vary with environment; sheetfloods are more common in sparsely vegetated sites and in drier Holocene periods with open forests, whereas dense forests and infrequent severe fires often produce debris flows. 3) Climate variability drives ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir forests in both the SW and N. Rockies to burn 'at both ends of the spectrum', where frequent low-severity fires are typical, but higher-severity fires burn during severe droughts following fuel buildup over wet decades. 4) Fires in dry sage steppe are generally fuel-limited, but burn during prolonged wet and variable climates; grazing, land-use, and invasive species, particularly influence modern fires. 5) At moist high-elevation lodgepole and mixed conifer sites in Yellowstone and central Idaho, episodic large debris flows indicate high severity burns, often during severe multidecadal droughts. 6) Regionally coherent peaks exist ca. 200, 500, 900, 1700 and 2600 cal yr BP, but fire activity is not generally synchronous among sites. Differences in climate among sites likely account for some asynchroneity. 7) Recent severe fires have burned in 8 of 10 sites described; erosional response appears particularly anomalous in the SW, where impacts of fire suppression and land use are greatest. Widespread and severe modern fires may herald the arrival of a no-analog era of fire in the western US.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4804158','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4804158"><span>Survey of Expert Opinion on Intelligence: Causes of International Differences in Cognitive Ability Tests</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Rindermann, Heiner; Becker, David; Coyle, Thomas R.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>Following Snyderman and Rothman (1987, 1988), we surveyed expert opinions on the current state of intelligence research. This report examines expert opinions on causes of international differences in student assessment and psychometric IQ test results. Experts were surveyed about the importance of culture, genes, education (quantity and quality), wealth, health, geography, climate, politics, modernization, sampling error, test knowledge, discrimination, test bias, and migration. The importance of these factors was evaluated for diverse countries, regions, and groups including Finland, East Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Europe, the Arabian-Muslim world, Latin America, Israel, Jews in the West, Roma (gypsies), and Muslim immigrants. Education was rated by N = 71 experts as the most important cause of international ability differences. Genes were rated as the second most relevant factor but also had the highest variability in ratings. Culture, health, wealth, modernization, and politics were the next most important factors, whereas other factors such as geography, climate, test bias, and sampling error were less important. The paper concludes with a discussion of limitations of the survey (e.g., response rates and validity of expert opinions). PMID:27047425</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP51A1930S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP51A1930S"><span>A comparison of high-resolution pollen-inferred climate data from central Minnesota, USA, to 19th century US military fort climate data and tree-ring inferred climate reconstructions</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>St Jacques, J.; Cumming, B. F.; Sauchyn, D.; Vanstone, J. R.; Dickenson, J.; Smol, J. P.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>A vital component of paleoclimatology is the validation of paleoclimatological reconstructions. Unfortunately, there is scant instrumental data prior to the 20th century available for this. Hence, typically, we can only do long-term validation using other proxy-inferred climate reconstructions. Minnesota, USA, with its long military fort climate records beginning in 1820 and early dense network of climate stations, offers a rare opportunity for proxy validation. We compare a high-resolution (4-year), millennium-scale, pollen-inferred paleoclimate record derived from varved Lake Mina in central Minnesota to early military fort records and dendroclimatological records. When inferring a paleoclimate record from a pollen record, we rely upon the pollen-climate relationship being constant in time. However, massive human impacts have significantly altered vegetation; and the relationship between modern instrumental climate data and the modern pollen rain becomes altered from what it was in the past. In the Midwest, selective logging, fire suppression, deforestation and agriculture have strongly influenced the modern pollen rain since Euro-American settlement in the mid-1800s. We assess the signal distortion introduced by using the conventional method of modern post-settlement pollen and climate calibration sets to infer climate at Lake Mina from pre-settlement pollen data. Our first February and May temperature reconstructions are based on a pollen dataset contemporaneous with early settlement to which corresponding climate data from the earliest instrumental records has been added to produce a 'pre-settlement' calibration set. The second February and May temperature reconstructions are based on a conventional 'modern' pollen-climate dataset from core-top pollen samples and modern climate normals. The temperature reconstructions are then compared to the earliest instrumental records from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and it is shown that the reconstructions based on the pre-settlement calibration set give much more credible reconstructions. We then compare the temperature reconstructions based upon the two calibration sets for AD 1116-2002. Significant signal flattening and bias exist when using the conventional modern pollen-climate calibration set rather than the pre-settlement pollen-climate calibration set, resulting in an overestimation of Little Ice Age monthly mean temperatures of 0.5-1.5 oC. Therefore, regional warming from anthropogenic global warming is significantly underestimated when using the conventional method of building pollen-climate calibration sets. We also compare the Lake Mina pollen-inferred effective moisture record to early 19th century climate data and to a four-century tree-ring inferred moisture reconstruction based upon sites in Minnesota and the Dakotas. This comparison shows that regional tree-ring reconstructions are biased towards dry conditions and record wet periods poorly relative to high-resolution pollen reconstructions, giving a false impression of regional aridity. It also suggests that varve chronologies should be based upon cross-dating to ensure a more accurate chronology.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP23D..03D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP23D..03D"><span>A 80-Year Long Coral-Based Temperature Reconstruction for the Last Interglacial from Northern Hispaniola</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>DeLong, K. L.; Ouellette, G., Jr.; Goodkin, N.; Martin, E. R.; Rosendahl, D. H.; Taylor, F. W.; WU, C. C.; Shen, C. C.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The Last Interglacial (LIG; 117-128 ka), when sea level was 6 m higher than today, can serve as an analog for future climate scenarios, yet minimal paleoclimatic information exists with seasonal to decadal resolution. The island of Hispaniola is a particularly desirable site for producing sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions, as it displays significant correlations with SST and precipitation anomalies for much of the tropical and North Atlantic Ocean, and Hispaniola is located in the northern sector of the Atlantic Warm Pool (AWP), a primary moisture source for precipitation in the Americas. Here we present an early LIG (128,626 ±438 (2σ) years) monthly-resolved coral Sr/Ca-SST reconstruction from a well-preserved Siderastrea siderea subfossil coral spanning 80 years from the northern coast of Hispaniola (19.913ºN, 70.925ºW). We compare our LIG SST reconstruction with coral Sr/Ca-SST from three modern coral microatolls of the same species, the longest spanning 80 years, recovered near Port-au Prince, Haiti (18.479070°N, 72.668659°W) after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, as well as a 125 ka LIG model simulation spanning 300 years. We find similar mean SST for the LIG (27.4ºC) and modern corals (27.9ºC) that is consistent with MIS 5e reconstructions in the tropical oceans (27.3-29.6ºC); however, these reconstructions are warmer than the LIG model mean SST for our study site (25.6ºC). Seasonal variability is similar (1.5ºC LIG, 1.0-1.7ºC modern) consistent with the findings of LIG coral reconstructions using the tropical Atlantic coral Diploria strigosa and with climate model simulations suggesting orbital insolation changes driving LIG seasonality. However, our LIG coral contains decadal variability (1.7-3.1ºC) not evident in the shorter LIG coral reconstructions or modern SST records and coral reconstructions yet are present in the LIG model simulation for our study site. This decadal variability may reflect variations in the northern extent of the AWP on decadal time scales, which may vary trade wind strength, westward moisture transport to the Americas, and precipitation in the Atlantic.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4908390','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4908390"><span>Climate-driven C4 plant distributions in China: divergence in C4 taxa</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Wang, Renzhong; Ma, Linna</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>There have been debates on the driving factors of C4 plant expansion, such as PCO2 decline in the late Micocene and warmer climate and precipitation at large-scale modern ecosystems. These disputes are mainly due to the lack of direct evidence and extensive data analysis. Here we use mass flora data to explore the driving factors of C4 distribution and divergent patterns for different C4 taxa at continental scale in China. The results display that it is mean annual climate variables driving C4 distribution at present-day vegetation. Mean annual temperature is the critical restriction of total C4 plants and the precipitation gradients seem to have much less impact. Grass and sedge C4 plants are largely restricted to mean annual temperature and precipitation respectively, while Chenopod C4 plants are strongly restricted by aridity in China. Separate regression analysis can succeed to detect divergences of climate distribution patterns of C4 taxa at global scale. PMID:27302686</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP43F..08H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP43F..08H"><span>2000 Years of Drought Variability in Inner Asia from Tree Rings</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hessl, A. E.; Pederson, N.; Anchukaitis, K. J.; Leland, C.; Byambasuren, O.; Nachin, B.; Andreu-Hayles, L.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Understanding connections between climate, ecosystems, and society during historical and modern climatic transitions requires annual resolution records with high fidelity climate signals. In semi-arid regions, high temperatures are projected to increase the frequency, duration, and severity of droughts in coming decades. Between 1996-2014, Mongolia experienced an extended drought that coincided with a transition away from pastoralism as thousands of families lost their herds and migrated to informal urban settlements. Because Mongolia's climate is highly variable, it is difficult to place recent climatic extremes and associated social and ecological change in context without long records of climatic variability. Here we ask: how extreme was the 21st century drought in the last 2000 years? We present two 2000 year long tree-ring reconstructions of warm-season drought, derived from live and dead Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees from two lava flows in central Mongolia. Trees growing on the lava today are stunted and widely spaced, occurring on microsites with little to no soil development. These trees are water-stressed and their radial growth is correlated with both soil water availability (scPDSI) and grassland productivity (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)). To contextualize the severity of recent droughts and to explore potential forcing factors, we compare recent drought persistence to the distribution of events in the past and perform long control runs of GFDL climate model. Our reconstructions, calibrated and validated on instrumental June-August scPDSI (1959-2009) account for >55% of the variability in the regional scPDSI when >70% of the annual rainfall occurs. Our tree-ring data combined with existing reconstructions of temperature, meteorological data, and model results suggest that the early 21st century drought was the hottest and one of the most persistent droughts in the last 2000 years. These dry conditions were occurred with reductions in NPP of grasslands and loss of lake area. Our results are consistent with model projections of warming in Inner Asia but suggest that future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar "heat droughts", with potentially severe ecological and social consequences for Mongolia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMPP51D..04F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMPP51D..04F"><span>Seasonality in the Western Mediterranean During the Last Glacial From Paired Oxygen Isotopes and Mg/Ca in Limpet Shells</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ferguson, J. E.; Henderson, G. M.; Fa, D.; Finlayson, C.</p> <p>2008-12-01</p> <p>Molluscs have shown great potential to act as seasonal-resolution archives of sea-surface temperatures (SST) at mid to high latitudes, outside the range of tropical surface corals. Seasonal resolution climate records from higher latitudes are important to allow investigation of the role of seasonality in controlling mean climate on diverse timescales, and of the evolution of climate systems such as the North Atlantic Oscillation. Long sequences of intertidal mollusc shells are difficult to find due to sea level fluctuations over glacial- interglacial periods. This study makes use of Patella shells collected by Neanderthals and humans and transported inland to caves on Gibraltar over at least the last 120 kyrs. Some 30 fossil Patella shells were selected from several hundred excavated from Gorham's and Vanguard Caves at Gibraltar. Oxygen isotope analysis of micromilled samples of modern Patella shells from the Gibraltar coastline demonstrate that the shells accurately record absolute SSTs and capture more than 80% of the full seasonal range. Analysis of fossil Patella shells, dated using 14C, provides records of the change in absolute SST and seasonality during the last glacial. Paired Mg/Ca ratios of micromilled samples in modern Patella shells follow a consistent positive relationship with SST providing an independent paleothermometer, analogous with coral Sr/Ca. Applying this Mg/Ca-SST relationship to fossil Patella shells allows the independent reconstruction of the absolute values and range of SSTs and the reconstruction of seawater δ18O for the western Mediterranean. Results show a cooling of glacial summer SSTs from 36 kyr BP to the LGM with maximum cooling of glacial summer SSTs of 7.5 °C relative to modern. In contrast, winter SSTs show greater variability on millennial timescales with a maximum cooling of up to 10 °C. SST seasonality is therefore extended due to greater winter cooling but SST seasonality is highly variable as a result of large fluctuation in the extent of winter cooling. These results contrast with GCM model estimates of SST values and seasonality during the glacial.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.B14C..06K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.B14C..06K"><span>Century-scale Changes in Environmental Synchrony and Variability and their Effects on Populations of Birds and Reproduction of Trees</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Koenig, W.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The ecological impacts of modern global climate change are detectable in a wide variety of phenomena ranging from shifts in species ranges to changes in community composition and human disease dynamics. Thus far, however, little attention has been given to temporal changes in environmental spatial synchrony-the coincident change in abundance or value across the landscape-or environmental variability, despite the importance of these factors as drivers of population rescue and extinction and reproductive dynamics of both animal and plant populations. We quantified spatial synchrony of widespread North American wintering birds species using Audubon Christmas Bird Counts over the past 50 years and seed set variability (mast fruiting) among trees over the past century and found that both spatial synchrony of the birds and seed set variability have significantly increased over these time periods. The first of these results was mirrored by significant increases in spatial synchrony of mean maximum air temperature across North America, primarily during the summer, while the second is consistent with the hypothesis that climate change is resulting in greater seed set variability. These findings suggest the potential for temporal changes in envioronmental synchrony and variability to be affecting a wide range of ecological phenomena by influencing the probability of population rescue and extinction and by affecting ecosystem processes that rely on the resource pulses provided by mast fruiting plants.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMNG51A1652L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMNG51A1652L"><span>Do GCM's Predict the Climate.... Or the Low Frequency Weather?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lovejoy, S.; Varon, D.; Schertzer, D. J.</p> <p>2011-12-01</p> <p>Over twenty-five years ago, a three-regime scaling model was proposed describing the statistical variability of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from weather scales out to ≈ 100 kyrs. Using modern in situ data reanalyses, monthly surface series (at 5ox5o), 8 "multiproxy" (yearly) series of the Northern hemisphere from 1500- 1980, and GRIP and Vostok paleotemperatures at 5.2 and ≈ 100 year resolutions (over the past 91-420 kyrs), we refine the model and show how it can be understood with the help of new developments in nonlinear dynamics, especially multifractals and cascades. In a scaling range, mean fluctuations in state variables such as temperature ΔT ≈ ΔtH the where Δt is the duration. At small (weather) scales the fluctuation exponents are generally H>0; they grow with scale. At longer scales Δt >τw (≈ 10 days) they change sign, the fluctuations decrease with scale; this is the low variability, "low frequency weather" regime the spectrum is a relatively flat "plateau", it's variability is that of the usual idea of "long term weather statistics". Finally for longer times, Δt>τc ≈ 10 - 100 years, again H>0, the variability again increases with scale. This is the true climate regime. These scaling regimes allow us to objectively define the weather as fluctuations over periods <τw, "climate states", as fluctuations at scale τc and "climate change" as the fluctuations at longer periods >τc). We show that the intermediate regime is the result of the weather regime undergoing a "dimensional transition": at temporal scales longer than the typical lifetime of planetary structures (τw), the spatial degrees of freedom are rapidly quenched, only the temporal degrees of freedom are important. This low frequency weather regime has statistical properties well reproduced not only by weather cascade models, but also by control runs (i.e. without climate forcing) of GCM's (including IPSL and ECHAM GCM's). In order for GCM's to go beyond simply predicting this low frequency weather so as to predict the climate, they need appropriate climate forcings and/ or new internal mechanisms of variability. We examine this using wavelet analyses of forced and unforced GCM outputs, including the ECHO-G simulation used in the Millenium project. For example, we find that climate scenarios with large CO2 increases do give rise to a climate regime but that Hc>1 i.e. much larger than that of natural variability which for temperatures has Hc≈0.4. In comparison, the (largely volcanic) forcing of the ECHO-G Millenium simulation is fairly realistic (Hc≈0.4), although it is not clear that this mechanism can explain the even lower frequency variability found in the paleotemperature series, nor is it clear that this is compatible with low frequency solar or orbital forcings.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFM.A21G0182F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFM.A21G0182F"><span>Comparison of Grid Nudging and Spectral Nudging Techniques for Dynamical Climate Downscaling within the WRF Model</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Fan, X.; Chen, L.; Ma, Z.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>Climate downscaling has been an active research and application area in the past several decades focusing on regional climate studies. Dynamical downscaling, in addition to statistical methods, has been widely used in downscaling as the advanced modern numerical weather and regional climate models emerge. The utilization of numerical models enables that a full set of climate variables are generated in the process of downscaling, which are dynamically consistent due to the constraints of physical laws. While we are generating high resolution regional climate, the large scale climate patterns should be retained. To serve this purpose, nudging techniques, including grid analysis nudging and spectral nudging, have been used in different models. There are studies demonstrating the benefit and advantages of each nudging technique; however, the results are sensitive to many factors such as nudging coefficients and the amount of information to nudge to, and thus the conclusions are controversy. While in a companion work of developing approaches for quantitative assessment of the downscaled climate, in this study, the two nudging techniques are under extensive experiments in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. Using the same model provides fair comparability. Applying the quantitative assessments provides objectiveness of comparison. Three types of downscaling experiments were performed for one month of choice. The first type is serving as a base whereas the large scale information is communicated through lateral boundary conditions only; the second is using the grid analysis nudging; and the third is using spectral nudging. Emphases are given to the experiments of different nudging coefficients and nudging to different variables in the grid analysis nudging; while in spectral nudging, we focus on testing the nudging coefficients, different wave numbers on different model levels to nudge.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMPP33B0928H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMPP33B0928H"><span>Deglacial History of the Ecuadorian Andes and Implication for Climate Variations: Preliminary Results</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hall, M.; Rinterknecht, V. R.; Schaefer, J. M.; Seager, R.; Greene, A.</p> <p>2004-12-01</p> <p>Paleoclimate reconstructions are essential for evaluating the future evolution of natural climate variability and for determining climate sensitivity to external forcing. Reconstructing climate conditions from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the Holocene represents a unique opportunity to understand climate variability from full glacial conditions to modern warm conditions. The primary goal of our project, is to verify if the changes in temperature and precipitation driving the glacier event in the tropics during the well-documented Little Ice Age (LIA), may also account for the glaciations related to the LGM and the late glacial period. This inter-disciplinary project brings together specialists in glacial geology, surface exposure dating, and climate modeling. Our first trip to Ecuador took us to the Papallacta Valley at the rim of the Potrerillos Plateau. We developed detailed maps of the snowline lowering in the valley and took samples in well-exposed sections for radiocarbon dating. We used our maps and the age constraints on the deglacial history of the Papallacta Valley to estimate the possible combinations of changes in climate parameters related to reconstructed snowline variations. This local study represents the first step in a broader project that will cover most of the Ecuadorian Andes. We will also provide direct dating (3He, 10Be, and 36Cl) of the moraine sequences deposited during the retreat of the glaciers during the late Pleistocene. By the time of the project completion we want to evaluate the nature of the driving forces underlying the LGM and the late glacial event in view of the relatively well understood mechanisms behind the termination of the LIA, and we want to compare the produced data to mid- and high- latitude areas in order to evaluate the regional footprint of dimension and timing of glacier response to climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP34A..07B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP34A..07B"><span>Characterising Late-Holocene glacier variability in the southern tropical Andes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bromley, G.; Winckler, G.; Hall, B. L.; Schaefer, J. M.</p> <p>2011-12-01</p> <p>Accurate resolution of both the timing and magnitude of Late-Holocene climate events, such as the Little Ice Age, is vital in order to test different hypotheses for the causes and propagation of such climate variability. However, in contrast to higher latitudes, well-dated records from the tropics are relatively rare and the overall climatic structure of the last millennium remains unresolved. Much of this uncertainty stems from difficulties associated with radiocarbon dating in these dry, often high-altitude environments, a situation that now is being addressed through the application and refinement of cosmogenic surface-exposure methods. We present detailed Late-Holocene moraine records, resolved with radiocarbon and surface-exposure dating, from sites across the Andes of southern Peru. Specifically, we describe glacial records from both the arid Western Cordillera, where glaciation is limited by moisture availability, and the humid Eastern Cordillera, where ablation is controlled primarily by air temperature. In both locations, the most recent advance is marked by two to three unweathered terminal moraines located several hundred metres beyond the modern ice margins. Our chronology indicates that, while the advance occurred broadly in step with the classic 'Little Ice Age', the maximum glacial extent in southern Peru was achieved relatively early on and that the 18th and 19th centuries were dominated by glacier retreat. In a broader temporal context, our data also confirm that, in contrast to northern temperate latitudes, the event in southern Peru was the most recent significant interruption in a progressive Holocene retreat. The consistency in glacier response between the different climate zones suggests (i) that this pattern of Late-Holocene climate variability was of at least regional extent and (ii) that temperature fluctuations were the primary driving mechanism.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMGC53A..08E','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMGC53A..08E"><span>A High-Resolution Biogenic Silica Record From Lake Titicaca, Peru-Bolivia: South American Millennial-Scale Climate Variability From 18-60 Kya</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ekdahl, E. J.; Fritz, S. C.; Stevens, L. R.; Baker, P. A.; Seltzer, G. O.</p> <p>2004-12-01</p> <p>Sediments recovered from a deep basin in Lake Titicaca, Peru-Boliva, were analyzed for biogenic silica (BSi) content by extraction of freeze dried sediments in 1% sodium carbonate. Sediments were dated using an age model developed from multiple 14C dates on bulk sediments. The BSi record shows distinct fluctuations in concentration and accumulation rate from 18 to 60 kya. Multi-taper method spectral analysis reveals a significant millennial-scale component to these fluctuations centered at 1370 years. High BSi accumulation rates correlate with enhanced benthic diatom preservation, suggesting that the BSi record is related to variations in lake water level. Modern-day Lake Titicaca lake level and precipitation are strongly related to northern equatorial Atlantic sea surface temperatures, with cooler SSTs related to wetter conditions. Subsequently, the spectral behavior of the GRIP ice core δ 18O record was investigated in order to estimate coherency and linkages between North Atlantic and tropical South American climate. GRIP data exhibit a significant 1370-year spectral peak which comprises approximately 26% of the total variability in the record. Despite a high degree of coherency between millennial-scale periodicities in Lake Titicaca BSi and GRIP δ 18O records, the Lake Titicaca silica record does not show longer term cooling cycles characteristic of D-O cycles found in the GRIP record. Rather, the Lake Titicaca record is highly periodic and more similar in nature to several Antarctic climate proxy records. These results suggest that while South American tropical climate varies in phase with North Atlantic climate, additional forcing mechanisms are manifest in the region which may include tropical Pacific and Southern Ocean variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP22A..06J','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP22A..06J"><span>Foraminifera Models to Interrogate Ostensible Proxy-Model Discrepancies During Late Pliocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Jacobs, P.; Dowsett, H. J.; de Mutsert, K.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Planktic foraminifera faunal assemblages have been used in the reconstruction of past oceanic states (e.g. the Last Glacial Maximum, the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period). However these reconstruction efforts have typically relied on inverse modeling using transfer functions or the modern analog technique, which by design seek to translate foraminifera into one or two target oceanic variables, primarily sea surface temperature (SST). These reconstructed SST data have then been used to test the performance of climate models, and discrepancies have been attributed to shortcomings in climate model processes and/or boundary conditions. More recently forward proxy models or proxy system models have been used to leverage the multivariate nature of proxy relationships to their environment, and to "bring models into proxy space". Here we construct ecological models of key planktic foraminifera taxa, calibrated and validated with World Ocean Atlas (WO13) oceanographic data. Multiple modeling methods (e.g. multilayer perceptron neural networks, Mahalanobis distance, logistic regression, and maximum entropy) are investigated to ensure robust results. The resulting models are then driven by a Late Pliocene climate model simulation with biogeochemical as well as temperature variables. Similarities and differences with previous model-proxy comparisons (e.g. PlioMIP) are discussed.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23893567','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23893567"><span>The Eocene climate of China, the early elevation of the Tibetan Plateau and the onset of the Asian Monsoon.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Wang, Qing; Spicer, Robert A; Yang, Jian; Wang, Yu-Fei; Li, Cheng-Sen</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>Eocene palynological samples from 37 widely distributed sites across China were analysed using co-existence approach to determine trends in space and time for seven palaeoclimate variables: Mean annual temperature, mean annual precipitation, mean temperature of the warmest month, mean temperature of the coldest month, mean annual range of temperature, mean maximum monthly precipitation and mean minimum monthly precipitation. Present day distributions and observed climates within China of the nearest living relatives of the fossil forms were used to find the range of a given variable in which a maximum number of taxa can coexist. Isotherm and isohyet maps for the early, middle and late Eocene were constructed. These illustrate regional changing patterns in thermal and precipitational gradients that may be interpreted as the beginnings of the modern Asian Monsoon system, and suggest that the uplift of parts of the Tibetan Plateau appear to have taken place by the middle to late Eocene. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160000376&hterms=centennials&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D30%26Ntt%3Dcentennials','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160000376&hterms=centennials&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D30%26Ntt%3Dcentennials"><span>Volcanic Eruptions and Climate</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>LeGrande, Allegra N.; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Volcanic eruptions represent some of the most climatically important and societally disruptive short-term events in human history. Large eruptions inject ash, dust, sulfurous gases (e.g. SO2, H2S), halogens (e.g. Hcl and Hbr), and water vapor into the Earth's atmosphere. Sulfurous emissions principally interact with the climate by converting into sulfate aerosols that reduce incoming solar radiation, warming the stratosphere and altering ozone creation, reducing global mean surface temperature, and suppressing the hydrological cycle. In this issue, we focus on the history, processes, and consequences of these large eruptions that inject enough material into the stratosphere to significantly affect the climate system. In terms of the changes wrought on the energy balance of the Earth System, these transient events can temporarily have a radiative forcing magnitude larger than the range of solar, greenhouse gas, and land use variability over the last millennium. In simulations as well as modern and paleoclimate observations, volcanic eruptions cause large inter-annual to decadal-scale changes in climate. Active debates persist concerning their role in longer-term (multi-decadal to centennial) modification of the Earth System, however.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70037387','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70037387"><span>Depositional environments and cyclo- and chronostratigraphy of uppermost Carboniferous-Lower Triassic -lacustrine deposits, southern Bogda Mountains, NW China - A terrestrfluvialial paleoclimatic record of mid-latitude NE Pangea</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Yang, W.; Feng, Q.; Liu, Yajing; Tabor, N.; Miggins, D.; Crowley, J.L.; Lin, J.; Thomas, S.</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Two uppermost Carboniferous–Lower Triassic fluvial–lacustrine sections in the Tarlong–Taodonggou half-graben, southern Bogda Mountains, NW China, comprise a 1834 m-thick, relatively complete sedimentary and paleoclimatic record of the east coast of mid-latitude NE Pangea. Depositional environmental interpretations identified three orders (high, intermediate, and low) of sedimentary cycles. High-order cycles (HCs) have five basic types, including fluvial cycles recording repetitive changes of erosion and deposition and lacustrine cycles recording repetitive environmental changes associated with lake expansion and contraction. HCs are grouped into intermediate-order cycles (ICs) on the basis of systematic changes of thickness, type, and component lithofacies of HCs. Nine low-order cycles (LCs) are demarcated by graben-wide surfaces across which significant long-term environmental changes occurred. A preliminary cyclostratigraphic framework provides a foundation for future studies of terrestrial climate, tectonics, and paleontology in mid-latitude NE Pangea.Climate variabilities at the intra-HC, HC, IC, and LC scales were interpreted from sedimentary and paleosol evidence. Four prominent climatic shifts are present: 1) from the humid–subhumid to highly-variable subhumid–semiarid conditions at the beginning of Sakamarian; 2) from highly-variable subhumid–semiarid to humid–subhumid conditions across the Artinskian-Capitanian unconformity; 3) from humid–subhumid to highly-variable subhumid–semiarid conditions at early Induan; and 4) from the highly-variable subhumid–semiarid to humid–subhumid conditions across the Olenekian-Anisian unconformity. The stable humid–subhumid condition from Lopingian to early Induan implies that paleoclimate change may not have been the cause of the end-Permian terrestrial mass extinction. A close documentation of the pace and timing of the extinction and exploration of other causes are needed. In addition, the semiarid–subhumid conditions from Sakamarian to Artinskian–Kungurian (?) and from middle Induan to end of Olenekian are in conflict with modern mid-latitude east coast meso- and macrothermal humid climate. Extreme continentality, regional orographic effect, and/or abnormal circulation of Paleo-Tethys maybe are possible causes. Our work serves as a rare data point at mid-latitude NE Pangea for climate modeling to seek explanations on the origin(s) of climate variability in NE Pangea from latest Carboniferous to Early Triassic.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007PhDT.......142M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007PhDT.......142M"><span>Fire history and fire-climate relationships in upper elevation forests of the southwestern United States</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Margolis, Ellis Quinn</p> <p></p> <p>Fire history and fire-climate relationships of upper elevation forests of the southwestern United States are imperative for informing management decisions in the face of increased crown fire occurrence and climate change. I used dendroecological techniques to reconstruct fires and stand-replacing fire patch size in the Madrean Sky Islands and Mogollon Plateau. Reconstructed patch size (1685-1904) was compared with contemporary patch size (1996-2004). Reconstructed fires at three sites had stand-replacing patches totaling > 500 ha. No historical stand-replacing fire patches were evident in the mixed conifer/aspen forests of the Sky Islands. Maximum stand-replacing fire patch size of modern fires (1129 ha) was greater than that reconstructed from aspen (286 ha) and spruce-fir (521 ha). Undated spruce-fir patches may be evidence of larger (>2000ha) stand-replacing fire patches. To provide climatological context for fire history I used correlation and regionalization analyses to document spatial and temporal variability in climate regions, and El-Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) teleconnections using 273 tree-ring chronologies (1732-1979). Four regions were determined by common variability in annual ring width. The component score time series replicate spatial variability in 20th century droughts (e.g., 1950's) and pluvials (e.g., 1910's). Two regions were significantly correlated with instrumental SOI and AMO, and three with PDO. Sub-regions within the southwestern U.S. varied geographically between the instrumental (1900-1979) and the pre-instrumental periods (1732-1899). Mapped correlations between ENSO, PDO and AMO, and tree-ring indices illustrate detailed sub-regional variability in the teleconnections. I analyzed climate teleconnections, and fire-climate relationships of historical upper elevation fires from 16 sites in 8 mountain ranges. I tested for links between Palmer Drought Severity Index and tree-ring reconstructed ENSO, PDO and AMO phases (1905-1978 and 1700-1904). Upper elevation fires (115 fires, 84 fire years, 1623-1904) were compared with climate indices. ENSO, PDO, and AMO affected regional PDSI, but AMO and PDO teleconnections changed between periods. Fire occurrence was significantly related to inter-annual variability in PDSI, precipitation, ENSO, and phase combinations of ENSO and PDO, but not AMO (1700-1904). Reduced upper elevation fire (1785-1840) was coincident with a cool AMO phase.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_6");'>6</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li class="active"><span>8</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_8 --> <div id="page_9" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li class="active"><span>9</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="161"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP43D..07L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP43D..07L"><span>Coral-inferred Variability of Upstream Kuroshio Current from 1953-2004 AD</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Li, X.; Yi, L.; Shen, C. C.; Hsin, Y. C.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The Kuroshio Current (KC), one of the most important western boundary currents in the North Pacific Ocean, strongly impacts regional climate in East Asia and upper-ocean thermal structure. However, the responses of KC to regional and remote climate forcing are poorly understood owing to lacking of long-term KC observations. Here, we present a sea surface temperature (SST) record from 1953 to 2004 AD derived from monthly skeletal δ18O data of a living coral Porites core, drilled in Nanwan, southern Taiwan (22°N, 121°E), located on the western front of the Upstream KC. The increased/reduced Kuroshio transport would generate stronger/weaker upwelling in Southern Taiwan, which can cause lower/higher SST. Agreement between dynamics of interannual coral δ18O and modern KC data shows that the regional coral δ18O can be used as a promising proxy for Upstream KC intensity. The KC-induced SST anomaly record reveals prominent interannual and decadal variability predominantly controlled by the bifurcation latitude of North Equatorial Current. We also find that the reconstructed KC intensity at east of Taiwan and south of Japan have nearly simultaneous interannual changes, suggesting the same dominant forcing(s) for the entire KC system. Additional work is needed to understand the KC system with respect to the interannual to decadal climate variability and the influences of global warming.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22928414','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22928414"><span>Impacts of climate variability and human colonization on the vegetation of the Galápagos Islands.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Restrepo, Alejandra; Colinvaux, Paul; Bush, Mark; Correa-Metrio, Alexander; Conroy, Jessica; Gardener, Mark R; Jaramillo, Patricia; Steinitz-Kannan, Miriam; Overpeck, Jonathan</p> <p>2012-08-01</p> <p>A high-resolution (2-9 year sampling interval) fossil pollen record from the Galápagos Islands, which spans the last 2690 years, reveals considerable ecosystem stability. Vegetation changes associated with independently derived histories of El Niño Southern Oscillation variability provided evidence of shifts in the relative abundance of individual species rather than immigration or extinction. Droughts associated with the Medieval Climate Anomaly induced rapid ecological change that was followed by a reversion to the previous state. The paleoecological data suggested nonneutral responses to climatic forcing in this ecosystem prior to the period of human influence. Human impacts on the islands are evident in the record. A marked decline in long-term codominants of the pollen record, Alternanthera and Acalypha, produced a flora without modern analogue before 1930. Intensified animal husbandry after ca. 1930 may have induced the local extinction of Acalypha and Alternanthera. Reductions in populations of grazing animals in the 1970s and 1980s did not result in the return of the native flora, but in invasions by exotic species. After ca. 1970 the trajectory of habitat change accelerated, continuously moving the ecosystem away from the observed range of variability in the previous 2690 years toward a novel ecosystem. The last 40 years of the record also suggest unprecedented transport of lowland pollen to the uplands, consistent with intensified convection and warmer wet seasons.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMPP51C0605D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMPP51C0605D"><span>The Laminated Marca Shale: High-Frequency Climate Cycles From the Latest Cretaceous</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Davies, A.; Kemp, A. E.; Weedon, G.; Barron, J. A.</p> <p>2005-12-01</p> <p>The Latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Marca Shale Member, California, displays a well-preserved record of alternating terrigenous and diatomaceous laminae couplets, remarkably similar in lithology to recent laminated sediments from the Gulf of California and Santa Barbara Basin. This similarity, together with the recognition of intra- and inter-annual variability in the diatom flora, implies an annual origin for these couplets. High-resolution backscattered electron imagery has identified two sublaminae types within the varved succession; near monospecific lamina of Chaetoceros-type resting spore and of large Azpeitiopsis morenoensis. The composition and occurrence of these laminae is similar to ENSO forced intra-annual variability of diatom flora along the modern Californian margin. Relative thickness variations in terrigenous and biogenic laminae (proxies for precipitation and productivity respectively) also exhibit similar characteristics to variability in Quaternary varves from the Santa Barbara Basin, shown to be imparted by ENSO forcing. In order to track changes in the levels of bottom water oxygenation within the basin, a bioturbation index was established. Periods when bioturbation was minimal (enhanced benthic anoxia) coincide with times of greatest diatomaceous export flux and also lowest flux of detrital material. Conversely, periods of enhanced bioturbation correspond with reduced diatomaceous export flux and an increased flux of detrital material, comparable with ENSO forced variations in diatomaceous and terrigenous export flux and associated benthic oxygenation levels in Pleistocene varves off the Californian margin. Power spectra obtained from time-series analysis of the bioturbation index and laminae thickness variations exhibit strong signals within the ENSO band. This research implies that high-frequency climate perturbations are inherent components of the climate system and that ENSO-type variability was not confined to the dynamic climate system of the Quaternary, but occurred as far back as the Cretaceous. These results also add to the growing body of evidence which indicate that warm end-member climate states are not characterised by a permanent El Nino state.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP51C1074S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP51C1074S"><span>Seasonally-resolved trace element concentrations in stalagmites from a shallow cave in New Mexico</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sekhon, N.; Banner, J.; Miller, N. R.; Carlson, P. E.; Breecker, D.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>High-resolution (sub-annual/seasonal) paleoclimate records extending beyond the instrumental period are required to test climate models and better understand how climate warming/cooling and wetting/drying are manifested seasonally. This is particularly the case for areas such as the southwest United States where precipitation and temperature seasonality dictate the regional climate. Study of a 20thcentury stalagmite (Carlson et al., in prep) documented (1) seasonal variation in trace element compositions of a stalagmite from a shallow, well-ventilated cave and (2) demonstrated the seasonal variation in stalagmite Mg to be in agreement with predicted temperature-dependent fractionation between water and calcite. The seasonal nature of variability was constrained by monitoring the cave on a monthly basis (Casteel and Banner, 2015; Carlson et al., in prep). Here we expand on using stalagmites from shallow, well-ventilated caves as archives of seasonally-resolved climate recorders by studying trace element variations in two coeval modern stalagmites (SBFC-1 and SBFC-2) cored from Sitting Bull Falls, southern New Mexico. Seasonal cycles will be confirmed by analyzing Mg, Ba, and Sr in in-situ calcite precipitated on artificial substrates as available (July, Sept., and Nov. 2017). The chronology is constrained by semi-automated peak counting and 14C bomb-peak. In addition, principal component analyses of trace element data identify two primary underlying modes of trace element variability for soil-derived elements (Cu, Zn, and Fe) and bedrock-derived elements (Mg, Sr, and Ba). We hypothesize that the soil-derived elements are transported by seasonal infiltration of organic colloids and the bedrock-derived elements are ­­controlled by variability in cave air temperature, drip water, and calcite growth rate. The two modes of variability will be calibrated against instrumental data over the 20th century. When complete, these new seasonally resolved proxy records will constrain the pattern and mechanism of the regional climate in southwest United States with a focus on drought indicators.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70187400','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70187400"><span>Water isotope systematics: Improving our palaeoclimate interpretations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Jones, M. D.; Dee, S.; Anderson, L.; Baker, A.; Bowen, G.; Noone, D.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen, measured in a variety of archives, are widely used proxies in Quaternary Science. Understanding the processes that control δ18O change have long been a focus of research (e.g. Shackleton and Opdyke, 1973; Talbot, 1990 ; Leng, 2006). Both the dynamics of water isotope cycling and the appropriate interpretation of geological water-isotope proxy time series remain subjects of active research and debate. It is clear that achieving a complete understanding of the isotope systematics for any given archive type, and ideally each individual archive, is vital if these palaeo-data are to be used to their full potential, including comparison with climate model experiments of the past. Combining information from modern monitoring and process studies, climate models, and proxy data is crucial for improving our statistical constraints on reconstructions of past climate variability.As climate models increasingly incorporate stable water isotope physics, this common language should aid quantitative comparisons between proxy data and climate model output. Water-isotope palaeoclimate data provide crucial metrics for validating GCMs, whereas GCMs provide a tool for exploring the climate variability dominating signals in the proxy data. Several of the studies in this set of papers highlight how collaborations between palaeoclimate experimentalists and modelers may serve to expand the usefulness of palaeoclimate data for climate prediction in future work.This collection of papers follows the session on Water Isotope Systematics held at the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. Papers in that session, the breadth of which are represented here, discussed such issues as; understanding sub-GNIP scale (Global Network for Isotopes in Precipitation, (IAEA/WMO, 2006)) variability in isotopes in precipitation from different regions, detailed examination of the transfer of isotope signals from precipitation to geological archives, and the implications of advances in understanding in these areas for the interpretation of palaeo records and proxy data – climate model comparison.Here, we briefly review these areas of research, and discuss challenges for the water isotope community in improving our ability to partition climate vs. auxiliary signals in palaeoclimate data.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014QSRv...90..128B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014QSRv...90..128B"><span>The late Holocene kauri chronology: assessing the potential of a 4500-year record for palaeoclimate reconstruction</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Boswijk, G.; Fowler, A. M.; Palmer, J. G.; Fenwick, P.; Hogg, A.; Lorrey, A.; Wunder, J.</p> <p>2014-04-01</p> <p>Millennial and multi-millennial tree-ring chronologies can provide useful proxy records of past climate, giving insight into a more complete range of natural climate variability prior to the 20th century. Since the 1980s a multi-millennial tree-ring chronology has been developed from kauri (Agathis australis) from the upper North Island, New Zealand. Previous work has demonstrated the sensitivity of kauri to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Here we present recent additions and extensions to the late Holocene kauri chronology (LHKC), and assess the potential of a composite master chronology, AGAUc13, for palaeoclimate reconstruction. The updated composite kauri chronology now spans 4491 years (2488 BCE-2002 CE) and includes data from 18 modern sites, 25 archaeological sites, and 18 sub-fossil (swamp) kauri sites. Consideration of the composition and statistical quality of AGAUc13 suggests the LHKC has utility for palaeoclimate reconstruction but there are caveats. These include: (a) differences in character between the three assemblages including growth rate and sensitivity; (b) low sample depth and low statistical quality in the 10th-13th century CE, when the record transitions from modern and archaeological material to the swamp kauri; (c) a potential difference in amplitude of the signal in the swamp kauri; (d) a westerly bias in site distribution prior to 911 CE; (e) variable statistical quality across the entire record associated with variable replication; and (f) complex changes in sample depth and tree age and size which may influence centennial scale trends in the data. Further tree ring data are required to improve statistical quality, particularly in the first half of the second millennium CE.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ThApC.tmp..199M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ThApC.tmp..199M"><span>A preliminary study on teak tree ring cellulose δ18O from northwestern Thailand: the potential for developing multiproxy records of Thailand summer monsoon variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Muangsong, Chotika; Cai, Binggui; Pumijumnong, Nathsuda; Lei, Guoliang; Wang, Fang</p> <p>2018-05-01</p> <p>Thailand monsoon is located in the transition zone between the Indian and western North Pacific monsoons. Assuredly, proxy climate data from this area could improve our understanding of the nature of Asian monsoon. Tree rings and stalagmites from this area are two potential materials for high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions. However, a comprehensive understanding of these multiproxy records is still a challenge. In this study, a 76-year tree ring cellulose oxygen isotope value (δ18O) of a teak tree from northwestern Thailand was developed to test its climatic significance and potential for multiproxy climate reconstruction. The results indicate that the interannual variability of cellulose δ18O can be interpreted as a proxy of rainfall in the early monsoon season (May to July rainfall) as well as a proxy of relative humidity. Comparisons with speleothem proxies from the same locality and tree ring records from wider geographical areas provide a basis for developing a multiproxy approach. The results from a teleconnection analysis reveal that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an important climate mode that impacts monsoon rainfall in Thailand. High-quality proxy records covering recent decades are critically important not only to improve proxy data calibrations but also to provide a better understanding of teleconnections within the modern atmosphere. Preliminary findings demonstrated the potential of tree ring stable isotopes from Thai teak to develop multiproxy climate reconstruction.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.micropress.org/micropen2/articles/1/6/16999_articles_article_file_1696.pdf','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="http://www.micropress.org/micropen2/articles/1/6/16999_articles_article_file_1696.pdf"><span>Mid-Piacensian mean annual sea surface temperature: an analysis for data-model comparisons</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Dowsett, Harry J.; Robinson, Marci M.; Foley, Kevin M.; Stoll, Danielle K.</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Numerical models of the global climate system are the primary tools used to understand and project climate disruptions in the form of future global warming. The Pliocene has been identified as the closest, albeit imperfect, analog to climate conditions expected for the end of this century, making an independent data set of Pliocene conditions necessary for ground truthing model results. Because most climate model output is produced in the form ofmean annual conditions, we present a derivative of the USGS PRISM3 Global Climate Reconstruction which integrates multiple proxies of sea surface temperature (SST) into single surface temperature anomalies. We analyze temperature estimates from faunal and floral assemblage data,Mg/Ca values and alkenone unsaturation indices to arrive at a single mean annual SST anomaly (Pliocene minus modern) best describing each PRISM site, understanding that multiple proxies should not necessarily show concordance. The power of themultiple proxy approach lies within its diversity, as no two proxies measure the same environmental variable. This data set can be used to verify climate model output, to serve as a starting point for model inter-comparisons, and for quantifying uncertainty in Pliocene model prediction in perturbed physics ensembles.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70032618','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70032618"><span>El Niño-Southern oscillation variability from the late cretaceous marca shale of California</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Davies, Andrew; Kemp, Alan E.S.; Weedon, Graham P.; Barron, John A.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>Changes in the possible behavior of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) with global warming have provoked interest in records of ENSO from past “greenhouse” climate states. The latest Cretaceous laminated Marca Shale of California permits a seasonal-scale reconstruction of water column flux events and hence interannual paleoclimate variability. The annual flux cycle resembles that of the modern Gulf of California with diatoms characteristic of spring upwelling blooms followed by silt and clay, and is consistent with the existence of a paleo–North American Monsoon that brought input of terrigenous sediment during summer storms and precipitation runoff. Variation is also indicated in the extent of water column oxygenation by differences in lamina preservation. Time series analysis of interannual variability in terrigenous sediment and diatom flux and in the degree of bioturbation indicates strong periodicities in the quasi-biennial (2.1–2.8 yr) and low-frequency (4.1–6.3 yr) bands both characteristic of ENSO forcing, as well as decadal frequencies. This evidence for robust Late Cretaceous ENSO variability does not support the theory of a “permanent El Niño,” in the sense of a continual El Niño–like state, in periods of warmer climate.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUSMPP32A..03H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUSMPP32A..03H"><span>Pleistocene climate and biome evolution modulated at orbital, millennial, and centennial time scales</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hooghiemstra, H.</p> <p>2013-05-01</p> <p>For the northern Andes we present a multi-proxy record of environmental and climatic change at millennial- to century-scale resolution of the full Pleistocene. The composite record includes the 540-m Funza core (2250-27 ka; 1050-yr resolution) from the Bogotá basin (~4°N, 2550 m asl, 2100 samples), the 58-mcd core (284-27 ka; 60-yr resolution) from the Fúquene basin (~5°N, 2540 m asl 4700 samples), and the 12-m core (last 14 ka; 25-yr resolution) from the La Cocha basin (1°N, 2780 m asl, 550 samples). At high elevations climatic variability is mainly driven by the 41-kyr component of orbital forcing changing into a dominant 100-kyr frequency during the last 0.9 Ma. High elevation intraAndean environments are mainly driven by temperature and atmospheric pCO2 while changes in moisture is an important driver of the Andean environments on the Amazonian flank. The Pleistocene is reflected by MIS 87 to 1, the last interglacial-glacial cycle by D/O-cycles 28 to 1 (and during MIS 7-6 another 15 D/O-style cycles), and the Holocene shows many events with an acceleration of climate change. Repeatedly the subpáramo shrub biome is temporarily lost suggesting vertical migration of forest exceeded the maximum migration capacity of the subpáramo biome. Continuous changes in altitidinal vegetation distribution caused mountains above ~1500 m were alternatingly covered by different biomes. Forests reached only ~125 ka modern species compositions indicating most of the Pleistocene record shows nonanalog vegetation associations, however not preventing modern ecological ranges can be applied to reconstruct past environments. Comparison with Greenland, Antarctic and marine climate records is demonstrated.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21033366','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21033366"><span>[Serapeo Temple in Pozzuoli, Italy--the unique gauge for the sea (world ocean) level and the Earth surface temperature for over 2100 years].</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Karnaukhov, V N; Karnaukhov, A V</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>The changes in the sea level relative to the position of the Serapeo Temple in Pozzuoly (Italia) over a period of 2100 years are discussed in the context of the well known periods of climate cooling off (Neoglacial, Little Ace Period) and climate warming (Middle Ages Optimum, Modern climate warming). It is noted that the rate of sea level lifting relative to the position of the Serapeo Temple in the modern phase of climate warming, which began the end of the 18th Century is approximately two times higher than in the previous phase of climate warming in the period from the fifth to the mid-tenth century A.D. This indicates that not only the natural cyclic component contributes to the mechanisms of Modern Climate warming but also the anthropogenic component of approximately equivalent power, which results from the waste of CO2 caused by the burning of fossilized fuels.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005E%26PSL.237...69S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005E%26PSL.237...69S"><span>Seasonal and interannual variability of the Mid-Holocene East Asian monsoon in coral δ18O records from the South China Sea</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sun, Donghuai; Gagan, Michael K.; Cheng, Hai; Scott-Gagan, Heather; Dykoski, Carolyn A.; Edwards, R. Lawrence; Su, Ruixia</p> <p>2005-08-01</p> <p>Understanding the full range of past monsoon variability, with reference to specific monsoon seasons, is essential to test coupled climate models and improve their predictive capabilities. We present a 54-year long, high-resolution skeletal oxygen isotope (δ18O) record extracted from a well-preserved, massive Porites sp. coral at Hainan Island, South China Sea, to investigate East Asian monsoon variability during summer and winter ∼4400 calendar yr ago. Analysis of modern coral δ18O confirms that Porites from Hainan Island are well positioned to record winter monsoon forcing of sea surface temperature (SST), as well as the influence of summer monsoon rainfall on sea surface salinity (SSS). The coral record for ∼4400 yr ago shows ∼9% amplification of the annual cycle of δ18O, in good agreement with coupled ocean-atmosphere models showing higher summer rainfall (lower coral δ18O) and cooler winter SSTs (higher coral δ18O) in response to greater Northern Hemisphere insolation seasonality during the Middle Holocene. Mean SSTs in the South China Sea during the Mid-Holocene were within 0.5 °C of modern values, yet the mean δ18O for the fossil coral is ∼0.6‰ higher than that for the modern coral, suggesting that the δ18O of surface seawater was higher by at least ∼0.5‰, relative to modern values. The 18O-enrichment is likely to be driven by greater advection of moisture towards the Asian landmass, enhanced monsoon wind-induced evaporation and vertical mixing, and/or invigorated advection of saltier 18O-enriched Pacific water into the relatively fresh South China Sea. The 18O-enrichment of the northern South China Sea ∼4400 yr ago contributes to mounting evidence for recent freshening of the tropical Western Pacific. Today, winter SST and summer SSS variability in the South China Sea reflect the interannual influence of ENSO and the biennial variability inherent to monsoon precipitation. Spectral analysis of winter SSTs ∼4400 yr ago reveals a strong ENSO cycle at 6.7 y, which is significantly longer than the average 3.6 y cycle observed since 1970. The results suggest that the influence of ENSO on winter SSTs in the South China Sea was well established by ∼4400 yr ago. However, spectral analysis of summer SSS ∼4400 yr ago shows no significant ENSO cycle, suggesting that teleconnections between ENSO and summer monsoon rainfall were restricted. Taken together, the results indicate marked differences in ENSO-monsoon interactions during the winter and summer monsoon seasons in the past. The fossil coral δ18O record also shows that the amplitude of interannual SST and SSS variability was stronger ∼4400 yr ago, despite ENSO variability being significantly weaker in the Pacific region. Thus it appears that the strengthened Mid-Holocene monsoon was sensitive to forces, other than ENSO, that acted as alternative drivers of interannual monsoon variability. If this is the case, greater interannual climate variability could accompany the strengthening of the Asian monsoon predicted to occur during the 21st century as transient greenhouse warming preferentially warms Eurasia, even if ENSO perturbations remain relatively stable.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EGUGA..15.3969M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EGUGA..15.3969M"><span>Annual evaporite deposition at the acme of the Messinian salinity crisis: evidence for solar-lunar climate forcing</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Manzi, Vinicio; Gennari, Rocco; Lugli, Stefano; Roveri, Marco; Scafetta, Nicola; Schreiber, B. Charlotte</p> <p>2013-04-01</p> <p>We studied two evaporite successions (one halite and the other gypsum) consisting of annual varves in order to reconstruct the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions existing during the acme of the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC; ≈5.5 Ma), when huge volumes of evaporites accumulated on the floor of the Mediterranean basin. The spectral analyses of these varved evaporitic successions reveal significant peaks in periodicity at around 3-5, 9, 11-13, 20-27 and 50-100 yr. The deposition of varved sedimentary deposits is usually controlled by climate conditions. A comparison with modern precipitation data in the western Mediterranean shows that during the acme of the MSC the climate was not in a permanent evaporitic stage, but in a dynamic state where evaporite deposition was controlled by quasi-periodic climate oscillations similar to modern analogs including Quasi-Biennial Oscillation, El Niño Southern Oscillation, and decadal to secular lunar- and solar-induced cycles. Particularly, we found a significant quasi-decadal oscillation with a prominent 9-year peak that is also common in modern temperature records and is present in both the contemporary Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index. These cyclical patterns are common to both ancient and modern climate records because they can be associated with solar and solar-lunar tidal cycles. During the Messinian, the Mediterranean basin as well as the global ocean, were characterized by somewhat different continent distribution, ocean size, geography, hydrological connections, and ice-sheet volume with respect to the modern configuration. The recognition of modern-style climate oscillations during the Messinian, however, suggests that, although local geographic factors acted as pre-conditioning factors turning the Mediterranean Sea into a giant brine pool, external climate forcing, regulated by solar-lunar cycles and largely independent of those local geographic factors, modulated the deposition of the evaporites.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP21A2254K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP21A2254K"><span>Spatial variability and trends in Younger Dryas equilibrium line altitudes across the European Alps using a hypsometrically based ELA model: results and implications</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Keeler, D. G.; Rupper, S.; Schaefer, J. M.; Finkel, R. C.; Maurer, J. M.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Alpine glaciers constitute an important component of terrestrial paleoclimate records due to, among other characteristics, their high sensitivity to climate change, near global extent, and their integration of myriad climate variables into a single, easily detected signal. Because the glacier equilibrium line altitude (ELA) provides a more explicit representation of climate than many other glacier properties, ELA methods allow for more direct comparisons of multiple glaciers within or between regions. Such comparisons allow for more complete investigations of the ultimate causes of mountain glaciation during specific events. Many studies however tend to focus on a limited number of sites, and employ a large variety of different techniques for ELA reconstruction between studies, making wider climate implications more tenuous. Methods of ELA reconstruction that can be rapidly and consistently applied to an arbitrary number of paleo-glaciers would provide a more accurate portrayal of the changes in climate across a given region. Here we present ELA reconstructions from Egesen Stadial moraines across the European Alps using an ELA model accounting for differences in glacier width, glacier shape, bed topography, ice thickness, and glacier length, including several glaciers constrained to the Younger Dryas using surface exposure dating techniques. We compare reconstructed Younger Dryas ELA values to modern ELA values using the same model, or using end of summer snowline estimates where no glacier is currently present. We further provide uncertainty estimates on the ΔELA using bootstrapped Monte Carlo simulations for the various input parameters. Preliminary results compare favorably to previous glacier studies of the European Younger Dryas, but provide greater context from many glaciers across the region as a whole. Such results allow for a more thorough investigation of the spatial variability and trends in climate during the Younger Dryas across the European Alps, and comparisons of other regions in the future.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18..413M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18..413M"><span>Effects of land-use and climate on Holocene vegetation composition in northern Europe</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Marquer, Laurent; Gaillard, Marie-José; Sugita, Shinya; Poska, Anneli; Trondman, Anna-Kari; Mazier, Florence; Nielsen, Anne Birgitte; Fyfe, Ralph; Jönsson, Anna Maria</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>Prior to the advent of agriculture, broad-scale vegetation patterns in Europe were controlled primarily by climate. Early agriculture can be detected in palaeovegetation records, but the relative extent to which past regional vegetation was climatically or anthropogenically-forced is of current scientific interest. Using comparisons of transformed pollen data, climate-model data, dynamic vegetation model simulations and anthropogenic land-cover change data, this study aims to estimate the relative impacts of human activities and climate on the Holocene vegetation composition of northern Europe at a subcontinental scale. The REVEALS model was used for pollen-based quantitative reconstruction of vegetation (RV). Climate variables from ECHAM and the extent of human deforestation from KK10 were used as explanatory variables to evaluate their respective impacts on RV. Indices of vegetation-composition changes based on RV and climate-induced vegetation simulated by the LPJ-GUESS model (LPJG) were used to assess the relative importance of climate and anthropogenic impacts. The results show that climate is the major predictor of Holocene vegetation changes until 5000 years ago. The similarity in rate of change and turnover between RV and LPJG decreases after this time. Changes in RV explained by climate and KK10 vary for the last 2000 years; the similarity in rate of change, turnover, and evenness between RV and LPJG decreases to the present. The main conclusions provide important insights on Neolithic forest clearances that affected regional vegetation from 6700 years ago, although climate (temperature and precipitation) still was a major driver of vegetation change (explains 37% of the variation) at the subcontinental scale. Land use became more important around 5000-4000 years ago, while the influence of climate decreased (explains 28% of the variation). Land-use affects all indices of vegetation compositional change during the last 2000 years; the influence of climate on vegetation, although reduced, remains at 16% until modern time while land-use explains 7%, which underlines that North-European vegetation is still climatically sensitive and, therefore, responds strongly to ongoing climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..1614307Y','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..1614307Y"><span>Testing the hypothesis on cognitive evolution of modern humans' learning ability: current status of past-climatic approaches.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Yoneda, Minoru; Abe-Ouchi, Ayako; Kawahata, Hodaka; Yokoyama, Yusuke; Oguchi, Takashi</p> <p>2014-05-01</p> <p>The impact of climate change on human evolution is important and debating topic for many years. Since 2010, we have involved in a general joint project entitled "Replacement of Neanderthal by Modern Humans: Testing Evolutional Models of Learning", which based on a theoretical prediction that the cognitive ability related to individual and social learning divide fates of ancient humans in very unstable Late Pleistocene climate. This model predicts that the human populations which experienced a series of environmental changes would have higher rate of individual learners, while detailed reconstructions of global climate change have reported fluent and drastic change based on ice cores and stalagmites. However, we want to understand the difference between anatomically modern human which survived and the other archaic extinct humans including European Neanderthals and Asian Denisovans. For this purpose the global synchronized change is not useful for understanding but the regional difference in the amplitude and impact of climate change is the information required. Hence, we invited a geophysicist busing Global Circulation Model to reconstruct the climatic distribution and temporal change in a continental scale. At the same time, some geochemists and geographers construct a database of local climate changes recorded in different proxies. At last, archaeologists and anthropologists tried to interpret the emergence and disappearance of human species in Europe and Asia on the reconstructed past climate maps using some tools, such as Eco-cultural niche model. Our project will show the regional difference in climate change and related archaeological events and its impact on the evolution of learning ability of modern humans.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFM.C33C1305B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFM.C33C1305B"><span>Climate during the Last Glacial Maximum in the Wasatch Mountains Inferred from Glacier Mass-Balance and Ice-Flow Modeling</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bash, E. A.; Laabs, B. J.</p> <p>2006-12-01</p> <p>The Wasatch Mountains of northern Utah contained numerous valley glaciers east and immediately downwind of Lake Bonneville during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). While the extent and chronology of glaciation in the Wasatch Mountains and the rise and fall of Lake Bonneville are becoming increasingly well understood, inferences of climatic conditions during the LGM for this area and elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains and northern Great Basin have yielded a wide range of temperature depression estimates. For example, previous estimates of temperature depression based on glacier and lake reconstructions in this region generally range from 7° to 9° C colder than modern. Glacier modeling studies for Little Cottonwood Canyon (northern Wasatch Mountains) suggest that such temperature depressions would have been accompanied by precipitation increases of about 3 to 1x modern, respectively (McCoy and Williams, 1985; Laabs et al., 2006). However, interpretations of other proxies suggest that temperature depression in this area may have been significantly greater, up to 13° C (e.g., Kaufman 2003), which would likely have been accompanied by less precipitation than modern. To address this issue, we reconstructed ice extent in the American Fork Canyon of the Wasatch Mountains and applied glacier modeling methods of Plummer and Phillips (2003) to infer climatic conditions during the LGM. Field mapping indicates that glaciers occupied an area of more than 20 km2 in the canyon and reached maximum lengths of about 9 km. To link ice extent to climatic changes, a physically based, two- dimensional numerical model of glacier mass balance and ice flow was applied to these valleys. The modeling approach allows the combined effects of temperature, precipitation and solar radiation on net mass balance of a drainage basin to be explored. Results of model experiments indicate that a temperature depression of less than 9° C in the American Fork Canyon would have been accompanied by greater precipitation than modern, whereas greater temperature depressions would have required less-than-modern precipitation to sustain glaciers in the Wasatch Mountains. Without independent estimates of either temperature or precipitation for the LGM, model results do not provide a unique combination of these two variables based on simulated ice extent. However, the reconstructed pattern of glaciation in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains indicates a sharp westward decline in glacier equilibrium- line altitudes in valleys immediately downwind of Lake Bonneville (Munroe et al, 2006), which suggests that precipitation in the Wasatch Mountains was enhanced during the LGM. Therefore, model results can be used to set limits on the temperature and precipitation. We estimate that, if temperatures during the LGM were 6° to 8° C less than modern, precipitation was 3 to 1.5x modern. Such precipitation increases would reflect the importance of Lake Bonneville as a moisture source for valleys in the Wasatch Mountains, as suggested by previous studies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017WRR....53.9600C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017WRR....53.9600C"><span>Probable Maximum Precipitation in the U.S. Pacific Northwest in a Changing Climate</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Chen, Xiaodong; Hossain, Faisal; Leung, L. Ruby</p> <p>2017-11-01</p> <p>The safety of large and aging water infrastructures is gaining attention in water management given the accelerated rate of change in landscape, climate, and society. In current engineering practice, such safety is ensured by the design of infrastructure for the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP). Recently, several numerical modeling approaches have been proposed to modernize the conventional and ad hoc PMP estimation approach. However, the underlying physics have not been fully investigated and thus differing PMP estimates are sometimes obtained without physics-based interpretations. In this study, we present a hybrid approach that takes advantage of both traditional engineering practice and modern climate science to estimate PMP for current and future climate conditions. The traditional PMP approach is modified and applied to five statistically downscaled CMIP5 model outputs, producing an ensemble of PMP estimates in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) during the historical (1970-2016) and future (2050-2099) time periods. The hybrid approach produced consistent historical PMP estimates as the traditional estimates. PMP in the PNW will increase by 50% ± 30% of the current design PMP by 2099 under the RCP8.5 scenario. Most of the increase is caused by warming, which mainly affects moisture availability through increased sea surface temperature, with minor contributions from changes in storm efficiency in the future. Moist track change tends to reduce the future PMP. Compared with extreme precipitation, PMP exhibits higher internal variability. Thus, long-time records of high-quality data in both precipitation and related meteorological fields (temperature, wind fields) are required to reduce uncertainties in the ensemble PMP estimates.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC31D1020C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC31D1020C"><span>The safety of high-hazard water infrastructures in the U.S. Pacific Northwest in a changing climate</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Chen, X.; Hossain, F.; Leung, L. R.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The safety of large and aging water infrastructures is gaining attention in water management given the accelerated rate of change in landscape, climate and society. In current engineering practice, such safety is ensured by the design of infrastructure for the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP). Recently, several numerical modeling approaches have been proposed to modernize the conventional and ad hoc PMP estimation approach. However, the underlying physics have not been investigated and thus differing PMP estimates are obtained without clarity on their interpretation. In this study, we present a hybrid approach that takes advantage of both traditional engineering practice and modern climate science to estimate PMP for current and future climate conditions. The traditional PMP approach is improved and applied to five statistically downscaled CMIP5 model outputs, producing an ensemble of PMP estimates in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) during the historical (1970-2016) and future (2050-2099) time periods. The new historical PMP estimates are verified against the traditional estimates. PMP in the PNW will increase by 50%±30% of the current level by 2099 under the RCP8.5 scenario. Most of the increase is caused by warming, which mainly affects moisture availability through increased sea surface temperature, with minor contributions from changes in storm efficiency in the future. Moist track change tends to reduce the future PMP. Compared with extreme precipitation, PMP exhibits higher internal variability. Thus long-time records of high-quality data in both precipitation and related meteorological fields (temperature, wind fields) are required to reduce uncertainties in the ensemble PMP estimates.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017JGRG..122.3362C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017JGRG..122.3362C"><span>Linkages Among Climate, Fire, and Thermoerosion in Alaskan Tundra Over the Past Three Millennia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Chipman, M. L.; Hu, F. S.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Amplified Arctic warming may facilitate novel tundra disturbance regimes, as suggested by recent increases in the rate and extent of thermoerosion and fires in some tundra areas. Thermoerosion and wildfire can exacerbate warming by releasing large permafrost carbon stocks, and interactions between disturbance regimes can lead to complex ecosystem feedbacks. We conducted geochemical and charcoal analyses of lake sediments from an Alaskan lake to identify thermoerosion and fire events over the past 3,000 years. Thermoerosion was inferred from lake sediments in the context of modern soil data from retrogressive thaw slumps (RTS). Magnetic susceptibility (MS), Ca:K, and Ca:Sr increased with depth in modern RTS soils and were higher on recently exposed than older slump surfaces. Peaks in bulk density, % CaCO3, Ca:K, Ca:Sr, and MS values in the sediments suggest at least 18 thermoerosion events in the Loon Lake watershed over the past 3,000 years. Charcoal analysis identifies 22 fires over the same period at this site. Temporal variability in these records suggests climate-driven responses of both thermoerosion and fire disturbance regimes, with fewer RTS episodes and fire events during the Little Ice Age than the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Moreover, RTS activity lagged behind catchment fires by 20-30 years (>90% confidence interval), implying that fires facilitated thermoerosion on decadal time scales, possibly because of prolonged active-layer deepening following fire and postfire proliferation of insulative shrub cover. These results highlight the potential for complex interactions between climate, vegetation, and tundra disturbance in response to ongoing warming.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_7");'>7</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li class="active"><span>9</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_9 --> <div id="page_10" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li class="active"><span>10</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="181"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1994/of94-645/','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1994/of94-645/"><span>ANALOG: a program for estimating paleoclimate parameters using the method of modern analogs</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Schweitzer, Peter N.</p> <p>1994-01-01</p> <p>Beginning in the 1970s with CLIMAP, paleoclimatologists have been trying to derive quantitative estimates of climatic parameters from the sedimentary record. In general the procedure is to observe the modern distribution of some component of surface sediment that depends on climate, find an empirical relationship between climate and the character of sediments, then extrapolate past climate by studying older sediments in the same way. Initially the empirical relationship between climate and components of the sediment was determined using a multiple regression technique (Imbrie and Kipp, 1971). In these studies sea-floor sediments were examined to determine the percentage of various species of planktonic foraminifera present in them. Supposing that the distribution of foraminiferal assemblages depended strongly on the extremes of annual sea-surface temperature (SST), the foraminiferal assemblages (refined through use of varimax factor analysis) were regressed against the average SST during the coolest and warmest months of the year. The result was a set of transfer functions, equations that could be used to estimate cool and warm SST from the faunal composition of a sediment sample. Assuming that the ecological preference of the species had remained constant throughout the last several hundred thousand years, these transfer functions could be used to estimate SSTs during much of the late Pleistocene. Hutson (1980) and Overpeck, Webb, and Prentice (1985) proposed an alternative approach to estimating paleoclimatic parameters. Their 'method of modern analogs' revolved not around the existence of a few climatically-sensitive faunal assemblages but rather on the expectation that similar climatic regimes should foster similar faunal and floral assemblages. From a large pool of modern samples, those few are selected whose faunal compositions are most similar to a given fossil sample. Paleoclimate estimates are derived using the climatic character of only the most similar modern samples, the modern analogs of the fossil sample. This report describes how to use the program ANALOG to carry out the method of modern analogs. It is assumed that the user has faunal census estimates of one or more fossil samples, and one or more sets of faunal data from modern samples. Furthermore, the user must understand the taxonomic categories represented in the data sets, and be able to recognize taxa that are or may be considered equivalent in the analysis. ANALOG provides the user with flexibility in input data format, output data content, and choice of distance measure, and allows the user to determine which taxa from each modern and fossil data file are compared. Most of the memory required by the program is allocated dynamically, so that, on systems that permit program segments to grow, the program consumes only as many system resources as are needed to accomplish its task.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3877294','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3877294"><span>3800 Years of Quantitative Precipitation Reconstruction from the Northwest Yucatan Peninsula</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Carrillo-Bastos, Alicia; Islebe, Gerald A.; Torrescano-Valle, Nuria</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Precipitation over the last 3800 years has been reconstructed using modern pollen calibration and precipitation data. A transfer function was then performed via the linear method of partial least squares. By calculating precipitation anomalies, it is estimated that precipitation deficits were greater than surpluses, reaching 21% and <9%, respectively. The period from 50 BC to 800 AD was the driest of the record. The drought related to the abandonment of the Maya Preclassic period featured a 21% reduction in precipitation, while the drought of the Maya collapse (800 to 860 AD) featured a reduction of 18%. The Medieval Climatic Anomaly was a period of positive phases (3.8–7.6%). The Little Ice Age was a period of climatic variability, with reductions in precipitation but without deficits. PMID:24391940</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012PhDT.......190H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012PhDT.......190H"><span>The influence of sea ice on Antarctic ice core sulfur chemistry and on the future evolution of Arctic snow depth: Investigations using global models</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hezel, Paul J.</p> <p></p> <p>Observational studies have examined the relationship between methanesulfonic acid (MSA) measured in Antarctic ice cores and sea ice extent measured by satellites with the aim of producing a proxy for past sea ice extent. MSA is an oxidation product of dimethylsulfide (DMS) and is potentially linked to sea ice based on observations of very high surface seawater DMS in the sea ice zone. Using a global chemical transport model, we present the first modeling study that specifically examines this relationship on interannual and on glacial-interglacial time scales. On interannual time scales, the model shows no robust relationship between MSA deposited in Antarctica and sea ice extent. We show that lifetimes of MSA and DMS are longer in the high latitudes than in the global mean, interannual variability of sea ice is small (<25%) as a fraction of sea ice area, and sea ice determines only a fraction of the variability (<30%) of DMS emissions from the ocean surface. A potentially larger fraction of the variability in DMS emissions is determined by surface wind speed (up to 46%) via the parameterization for ocean-to-atmosphere gas exchange. Furthermore, we find that a significant fraction (up to 74%) of MSA deposited in Antarctica originates from north of 60°S, north of the seasonal sea ice zone. We then examine the deposition of MSA and non-sea-salt sulfate (nss SO2-4 ) on glacial-interglacial time scales. Ice core observations on the East Antarctic Plateau suggest that MSA increases much more than nss SO2-4 during the last glacial maximum (LGM) compared to the modern period. It has been suggested that high MSA during the LGM is indicative of higher primary productivity and DMS emissions in the LGM compared to the modern day. Studies have also shown that MSA is subject to post-depositional volatilization, especially during the modern period. Using the same chemical transport model driven by meteorology from a global climate model, we examine the sensitivity of MSA and nss SO2-4 deposition to differences between the modern and LGM climates, including sea ice extent, sea surface temperatures, oxidant concentrations, and meteorological conditions. We are unable to find a mechanism whereby MSA deposition fluxes are higher than nss SO2-4 deposition fluxes on the East Antarctic Plateau in the LGM compared the modern period. We conclude that the observed differences between MSA and nss SO2-4 on glacial-interglacial time scales are due to post-depositional processes that affect the ice core MSA concentrations. We can not rule out the possibility of increased DMS emissions in the LGM compared to the modern day. If oceanic DMS production and ocean-to-air fluxes in the sea ice zone are significantly enhanced by the presence of sea ice as indicated by observations, we suggest that the potentially larger amplitude of the seasonal cycle in sea ice extent in the LGM implies a more important role for sea ice in modulating the sulfur cycle during the LGM compared to the modern period. We then shift our focus to study the evolution of snow depth on sea ice in global climate model simulations of the 20th and 21st centuries from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 5 (CMIP5). Two competing processes, decreasing sea ice extent and increasing precipitation, will affect snow accumulation on sea ice in the future, and it is not known a priori which will dominate. The decline in Arctic sea ice extent is a well-studied problem in future scenarios of climate change. Moisture convergence into the Arctic is also expected to increase in a warmer world, which may result in increasing snowfall rates. We show that the accumulated snow depth on sea ice in the spring declines as a result of decreased ice extent in the early autumn, in spite of increased winter snowfall rates. The ringed seal (Phoca hispida ) depends on accumulated snow in the spring to build subnivean birth lairs, and provides one of the motivations for this study. Using an empirical threshold of 20 cm of snow depth on level sea ice for ringed seal lair success, we estimate a decline of potential ringed seal habitat of nearly 70%.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP13C1098M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP13C1098M"><span>Exploring the Causes of Mid-Holocene Drought in the Rocky Mountains Using Hydrologic Forward Models</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Meador, E.; Morrill, C.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>We present a quantitative model-data comparison for mid-Holocene (6 ka) lake levels in the Rocky Mountains, with the goals of assessing the skill coupled climate models and hydrologic forward models in simulating climate change and improving our understanding of the factors causing past changes in water resources. The mid-Holocene climate in this area may in some ways be similar to expected future climate, thus improved understanding of the factors causing past changes in water resources have the potential to aid in the process of water allocation for large areas that share a relatively small water source. This project focuses on Little Windy Hill Pond in the Medicine Bow Forest in the Rocky Mountains in southern Wyoming. We first calibrated the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) catchment hydrologic model and the one-dimensional Hostetler Bartlein lake energy-balance model to modern observations, using U.S. Geological Survey stream discharge data and Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) data to ensure appropriate selection of model parameters. Once the models were calibrated to modern conditions, we forced them with output from eight mid-Holocene coupled climate model simulations completed as part of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, Phase 5. Forcing from nearly all of the CMIP5 models generates intense, short-lived droughts for the mid-Holocene that are more severe than any we modeled for the past six decades. The severity of the mid-Holocene droughts could be sufficient, depending on sediment processes in the lake, to account for low lake levels recorded by loss-on-ignition in sediment cores. Our preliminary analysis of model output indicates that the combined effects of decreased snowmelt runoff and increased summer lake evaporation cause low mid-Holocene lake levels. These factors are also expected to be important in the future under anthropogenic climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/897995','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/897995"><span>Climate Change in Lowland Central America During the Late Deglacial and Early Holocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Hillesheim, M B; Hodell, D A; Leyden, B W</p> <p>2005-02-08</p> <p>The transition from arid glacial to moist early Holocene conditions represented a profound change in northern lowland Neotropical climate. Here we report a detailed record of changes in moisture availability during the latter part of this transition ({approx}11,250 to 7,500 cal yr BP) inferred from sediment cores retrieved in Lake Peten Itza, northern Guatemala. Pollen assemblages demonstrate that a mesic forest had been largely established by {approx}11,250 cal yr BP, but sediment properties indicate that lake level was more than 35 m below modern stage. From 11,250 to 10,350 cal yr BP, during the Preboreal period, lithologic changes in sedimentsmore » from deep-water cores (>50 m below modern water level) indicate several wet-dry cycles that suggest distinct changes in effective moisture. Four dry events (designated PBE1-4) occurred at 11,200, 10,900, 10,700, and 10,400 cal yr BP and correlate with similar variability observed in the Cariaco Basin titanium record and glacial meltwater pulses into the Gulf of Mexico. After 10,350 cal yr BP, multiple sediment proxies suggest a shift to a more persistently moist early Holocene climate. Comparison of results from Lake Peten Itza with other records from the circum-Caribbean demonstrates a coherent climate response during the entire span of our record. Furthermore, lowland Neotropical climate during the late deglacial and early Holocene period appears to be tightly linked to climate change in the high-latitude North Atlantic. We speculate that the observed changes in lowland Neotropical precipitation were related to the intensity of the annual cycle and associated displacements in the mean latitudinal position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and Azores-Bermuda high-pressure system. This mechanism operated on millennial-to-submillennial timescales and may have responded to changes in solar radiation, glacial meltwater, North Atlantic sea ice, and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC).« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29314468','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29314468"><span>A mineralogical record of ocean change: Decadal and centennial patterns in the California mussel.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>McCoy, Sophie J; Kamenos, Nicholas A; Chung, Peter; Wootton, Timothy J; Pfister, Catherine A</p> <p>2018-06-01</p> <p>Ocean acidification, a product of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, may already have affected calcified organisms in the coastal zone, such as bivalves and other shellfish. Understanding species' responses to climate change requires the context of long-term dynamics. This can be particularly difficult given the longevity of many important species in contrast with the relatively rapid onset of environmental changes. Here, we present a unique archival dataset of mussel shells from a locale with recent environmental monitoring and historical climate reconstructions. We compare shell structure and composition in modern mussels, mussels from the 1970s, and mussel shells dating back to 1000-2420 years BP. Shell mineralogy has changed dramatically over the past 15 years, despite evidence for consistent mineral structure in the California mussel, Mytilus californianus, over the prior 2500 years. We present evidence for increased disorder in the calcium carbonate shells of mussels and greater variability between individuals. These changes in the last decade contrast markedly from a background of consistent shell mineralogy for centuries. Our results use an archival record of natural specimens to provide centennial-scale context for altered minerology and variability in shell features as a response to acidification stress and illustrate the utility of long-term studies and archival records in global change ecology. Increased variability between individuals is an emerging pattern in climate change responses, which may equally expose the vulnerability of organisms and the potential of populations for resilience. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ISPAr.XL7..157B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ISPAr.XL7..157B"><span>NDVI dynamics of the taiga zone in connection with modern climate changes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bobkov, A.; Panidi, E.; Torlopova, N.; Tsepelev, V.</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>This research is dedicated to the investigation of the relations between the XXI century climate changes and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) variability of the taiga zone. For this purposes was used the observations of vegetation variability on the test area located nearby Syktyvkar city (Komi Republic, Russia), 16-day averages of NDVI data derived from TERRA/MODIS space imagery (spatial resolution is about 250 meters), and the air temperature and precipitation observations from Syktyvkar meteorological station. The research results confirmed the statistically significant positive correlation between NDVI and air temperature for all vegetation types of the test area, for both spring and autumn seasons. The weakest correlation was found for coniferous forest, namely, pine forest on poor soils, and the strongest correlation was found for meadows and bogs. Additionally the map of NDVI trends of the test area shows that the sectors of greatest positive trend located on the territories with non-forest cover, and as a result, the positive trend of air temperature is indicated most brightly on vegetation of non-forest lands. Thereby these lands can serve as climate changes indicator in the investigated region. The study was partially supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR), research project No. 14-05-00858 a.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20170004582','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20170004582"><span>The Impact of ENSO on Trace Gas Composition in the Upper Troposphere to Lower Stratosphere</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Oman, Luke; Douglass, Anne; Ziemke, Jerry; Waugh, Darryn Warwick</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant mode of interannual variability in the tropical troposphere and its effects extend well into the stratosphere. Its impact on atmospheric dynamics and chemistry cause important changes to trace gas constituent distributions. A comprehensive suite of satellite observations, reanalyses, and chemistry climate model simulations are illuminating our understanding of processes like ENSO. Analyses of more than a decade of observations from NASAs Aura and Aqua satellites, combined with simulations from the Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry-Climate Model (GEOSCCM) and other Chemistry Climate Modeling Initiative (CCMI) models, and the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis have provided key insights into the response of atmospheric composition to ENSO. While we will primarily focus on ozone and water vapor responses in the upper troposphere to lower stratosphere, the effects of ENSO ripple through many important trace gas species throughout the atmosphere. The very large 2015-2016 El Nino event provides an opportunity to closely examine these impacts with unprecedented observational breadth. An improved quantification of natural climate variations, like those from ENSO, is needed to detect and quantify anthropogenic climate changes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016JGRD..12114344Z','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016JGRD..12114344Z"><span>Land surface temperature over global deserts: Means, variability, and trends</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Zhou, Chunlüe; Wang, Kaicun</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Land surface air temperature (LSAT) has been a widely used metric to study climate change. Weather observations of LSAT are the fundamental data for climate change studies and provide key evidence of global warming. However, there are very few meteorological observations over deserts due to their uninhabitable environment. This study fills this gap and provides independent evidence using satellite-derived land surface temperatures (LSTs), benefiting from their global coverage. The frequency of clear sky from MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) LST data over global deserts was found to be greater than 94% for the 2002-2015 period. Our results show that MODIS LST has a bias of 1.36°C compared to ground-based observations collected at 31 U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) stations, with a standard deviation of 1.83°C. After bias correction, MODIS LST was used to evaluate existing reanalyses, including ERA-Interim, Japanese 55-year Reanalysis (JRA-55), Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), MERRA-land, National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)-R1, and NCEP-R2. The reanalyses accurately reproduce the seasonal cycle and interannual variability of the LSTs, but their multiyear means and trends of LSTs exhibit large uncertainties. The multiyear averaged LST over global deserts is 23.5°C from MODIS and varies from 20.8°C to 24.5°C in different reanalyses. The MODIS LST over global deserts increased by 0.25°C/decade from 2002 to 2015, whereas the reanalyses estimated a trend varying from -0.14 to 0.10°C/decade. The underestimation of the LST trend by the reanalyses occurs for approximately 70% of the global deserts, likely due to the imperfect performance of the reanalyses in reproducing natural climate variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51F..07M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51F..07M"><span>Abrupt hydroclimate disruption across the Australian arid zone 50 ka coincident with human colonization</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Miller, G. H.; Fogel, M. L.; Magee, J. W.; Gagan, M. K.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Although many studies focus on how climate change impacted ancient societies, in Australia a growing body of evidence indicates that activities of the earliest human colonizers in turn altered the Australian climate. We utilize the stable isotopes of carbon and oxygen preserved in near-continuous 100 ka time series of avian eggshell from five regions across the Australian arid zone to reconstruct ecosystem status (d13C) and effective moisture (d18O). Training sets of sub-modern samples provide the basis for the reconstructions. Together, d13C and d18O provide independent estimates of ecosystem status and climate over the past 100 ka from the same dated sample, reducing correlation uncertainties between proxies. Changes in eggshell d13C document a dramatic reduction of palatable summer-wet C4 grasses in all regions between 50 and 45 ka, that has persisted through to modern times. Continuous 100 ka records of effective moisture derived from eggshell d18O show moist conditions from 100 to 60 ka, with variable drying after 60 ka, but the strong shift toward greatest aridity is coincident with the onset of the last glacial maximum 30 ka ago, 15 ka after the observed ecosystem restructuring. Combining the d13C and d18O time-series shows that an abrupt and permanent restructuring of the moisture/ecosystem balance occurred between 50 and 45 ka. Additional studies show that most large monsoon-fed inland arid-zone lakes carried permanent water at least intermittently between 120 and 50 ka, but never experienced permanent deep-water status after 45 ka, despite a wide range of global climate states, including the early Holocene when most other monsoon systems were reinvigorated. The lack of exceptional climate shifts either locally or globally between 60 and 40 ka eliminates climate as the cause of the ecosystem restructuring and persistent lake desiccation. Collectively these data suggest the wave of human colonization across Australia in altered land surface characteristics in a way that reduced the efficiency of the climate system to deliver monsoon moisture to the continental interior. This explanation will now be tested with climate modeling.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11303088','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11303088"><span>Cultural responses to climate change during the late Holocene.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>deMenocal, P B</p> <p>2001-04-27</p> <p>Modern complex societies exhibit marked resilience to interannual-to- decadal droughts, but cultural responses to multidecadal-to-multicentury droughts can only be addressed by integrating detailed archaeological and paleoclimatic records. Four case studies drawn from New and Old World civilizations document societal responses to prolonged drought, including population dislocations, urban abandonment, and state collapse. Further study of past cultural adaptations to persistent climate change may provide valuable perspective on possible responses of modern societies to future climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150000763','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150000763"><span>Climate Forcing Datasets for Agricultural Modeling: Merged Products for Gap-Filling and Historical Climate Series Estimation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Ruane, Alex C.; Goldberg, Richard; Chryssanthacopoulos, James</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>The AgMERRA and AgCFSR climate forcing datasets provide daily, high-resolution, continuous, meteorological series over the 1980-2010 period designed for applications examining the agricultural impacts of climate variability and climate change. These datasets combine daily resolution data from retrospective analyses (the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, MERRA, and the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis, CFSR) with in situ and remotely-sensed observational datasets for temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation, leading to substantial reductions in bias in comparison to a network of 2324 agricultural-region stations from the Hadley Integrated Surface Dataset (HadISD). Results compare favorably against the original reanalyses as well as the leading climate forcing datasets (Princeton, WFD, WFD-EI, and GRASP), and AgMERRA distinguishes itself with substantially improved representation of daily precipitation distributions and extreme events owing to its use of the MERRA-Land dataset. These datasets also peg relative humidity to the maximum temperature time of day, allowing for more accurate representation of the diurnal cycle of near-surface moisture in agricultural models. AgMERRA and AgCFSR enable a number of ongoing investigations in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) and related research networks, and may be used to fill gaps in historical observations as well as a basis for the generation of future climate scenarios.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41D..03O','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41D..03O"><span>Orbital Forcing driving climate variability on Tropical South Atlantic</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Oliveira, A. S.; Baker, P. A.; Silva, C. G.; Dwyer, G. S.; Chiessi, C. M.; Rigsby, C. A.; Ferreira, F.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Past research on climate response to orbital forcing in tropical South America has emphasized on high precession cycles influencing low latitude hydrologic cycles, and driving the meridional migration of Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).However, marine proxy records from the tropical Pacific Ocean showed a strong 41-ka periodicities in Pleistocene seawater temperature and productivity related to fluctuations in Earth's obliquity. It Indicates that the western Pacific ITCZ migration was influenced by combined precession and obliquity changes. To reconstruct different climate regimes over the continent and understand the orbital cycle forcing over Tropical South America climate, hydrological reconstruction have been undertaken on sediment cores located on the Brazilian continental slope, representing the past 1.6 million years. Core CDH 79 site is located on a 2345 m deep seamount on the northern Brazilian continental slope (00° 39.6853' N, 44° 20.7723' W), 320 km from modern coastline of the Maranhão Gulf. High-resolution XRF analyses of Fe, Ti, K and Ca are used to define the changes in precipitation and sedimentary input history of Tropical South America. The response of the hydrology cycle to orbital forcing was studied using spectral analysis.The 1600 ka records of dry/wet conditions presented here indicates that orbital time-scale climate change has been a dominant feature of tropical climate. We conclude that the observed oscillation reflects variability in the ITCZ activity associated with the Earth's tilt. The prevalence of the eccentricity and obliquity signals in continental hydrology proxies (Ti/Ca and Fe/K) as implicated in our precipitation records, highlights that these orbital forcings play an important role in tropics hydrologic cycles. Throughout the Quaternary abrupt shifts of tropical variability are temporally correlated with abrupt climate changes and atmospheric reorganization during Mid-Pleistocene Transition and Mid-Brunhes Events. Our findings suggets that over Late Quaternary, the N-S ITCZ movement is not only exclusively related to precessional forcing. The prevalence of the obliquity signal in both precipitation and weathering as implicated in our records, highlights that this orbital forcing exerts a significant control on global hydrological cycle.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP43D..04A','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP43D..04A"><span>An Coral Ensemble Approach to Reconstructing Central Pacific Climate Change During the Holocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Atwood, A. R.; Cobb, K. M.; Grothe, P. R.; Sayani, H. R.; Southon, J. R.; Edwards, R. L.; Deocampo, D.; Chen, T.; Townsend, K. J.; Hagos, M. M.; Chiang, J. C. H.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The processes that control El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability on long timescales are still poorly understood. As a consequence, limited progress has been made in understanding how ENSO will change under greenhouse gas forcing. The mid-Holocene provides a well-defined target to study the fundamental controls of ENSO variability. A large number of paleo-ENSO records spanning the tropical Pacific indicate that ENSO variability was reduced by as much as 50% between 3000-6000 yr BP, relative to modern times. Dynamical models of ENSO suggest that ENSO properties can shift in response to changes in the tropical Pacific mean state and/or seasonal cycle, but few proxy records can resolve such changes during the interval in question with enough accuracy. While decades of research have demonstrated the fidelity of tropical Pacific coral d18O records to quantify interannual temperature and precipitation anomalies associated with ENSO, substantial mean offsets exist across overlapping coral sequences that have made it difficult to quantify past changes in mean climate. Here, we test a new approach to reconstruct changes in mean climate from coral records using a large ensemble of bulk d18O measurements on radiometrically-dated fossil corals from Christmas Island that span the Holocene. In contrast to the traditional method of high-resolution sampling to reconstruct monthly climate conditions, we implement a bulk approach, which dramatically reduces the analysis time needed to estimate mean coral d18O and enables a large number of corals to be analyzed in the production of an ensemble of mean climate estimates. A pseudo-coral experiment based on simulations with a Linear Inverse Model and a coupled GCM is used to determine the number of bulk coral estimates that are required to resolve a given mean climate perturbation. In addition to these bulk measurements, short transects are sampled at high resolution to constrain changes in the amplitude of the seasonal cycle. We present preliminary results from our joint bulk/high-resolution sampling approach that provide new constraints on changes in mean climate and seasonality in the central equatorial Pacific over the last 6,000 yr BP.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110008565','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110008565"><span>An Update on the VAMOS Extremes Working Group Activities</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Schubert, Siegfried; Cavalcanti, Iracema</p> <p>2011-01-01</p> <p>We review here the progress of the Variability of the American MOnsoon Systems (VAMOS) extremes working group since it was formed in February of 2010. The goals of the working group are to 1) develop an atlas of warm-season extremes over the Americas, 2) evaluate existing and planned simulations, and 3) suggest new model runs to address mechanisms and predictability of extremes. Substantial progress has been made in the development of an extremes atlas based on gridded observations and several reanalysis products including Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR). The status of the atlas, remaining issues and plans for its expansion to include model data will be discussed. This includes the possibility of adding a companion atlas based on station observations based on the software developed under the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) Expert Team on Climate Change. Detection and Indices (ETCCDI) activity. We will also review progress on relevant research and plans for the use and validation of the atlas results.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70017774','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70017774"><span>Middle Pliocene vegetation: Reconstructions, paleoclimatic inferences, and boundary conditions for climate modeling</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Thompson, R.S.; Fleming, R.F.</p> <p>1996-01-01</p> <p>The general characteristics of global vegetation during the middle Pliocene warm period can be reconstructed from fossil pollen and plant megafossil data. The largest differences between Pliocene vegetation and that of today occurred at high latitudes in both hemispheres, where warming was pronounced relative to today. In the Northern Hemisphere coniferous forests lived in the modern tundra and polar desert regions, whereas in the Southern Hemisphere southern beech apparently grew in coastal areas of Antarctica. Pliocene middle latitude vegetation differed less, although moister-than-modern conditions supported forest and woodland growth in some regions now covered by steppe or grassland. Pliocene tropical vegetation reflects essentially modern conditions in some regions and slightly cooler-than-or warmer-than- modern climates in other areas. Changes in topography induced by tectonics may be responsible for many of the climatic changes since the Pliocene in both middle and lower latitudes. However, the overall latitudinal progression of climatic conditions on land parallels that seen in the reconstruction of middle Pliocene sea-surface temperatures. Pliocene paleovegetational data was employed to construct a 2????2?? global grid of estimated mid-Pliocene vegetational cover for use as boundary conditions for numerical General Circulation Model simulations of middle Pliocene climates. Continental outlines and topography were first modified to represent the Pliocene landscape on the 2????2?? grid. A modern 1????1?? vegetation grid was simplified and mapped on this Pliocene grid, and then modified following general geographic trends evident in the Pliocene paleovegetation data set.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMPP31B1137M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMPP31B1137M"><span>Reconstruction of Pleistocene Paleo-Hydrology and Climate Variations in Western Asia as Recorded in Speleothems from West-Central Iran</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Mehterian, S.; Pourmand, A.; Sharifi, A.; Lahijani, H. A. K.; Naderi, M.; Swart, P. K.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>Extending from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the northwest Indian Ocean and modern Iran, West Asia represents one of the most climatically dynamic regions in the northern hemisphere. The regional climate of West Asia is governed by interactions between the mid-latitude Westerlies, the Siberian Anticyclone and the Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon. In recent years, sparse records of Pleistocene climate variability have emerged from cave deposits (speleothems) in East Asia, the Arabian Peninsula and eastern Mediterranean. However, there remains a large gap in our understanding of abrupt and long-term climate variability in this region. We present for the first time δ18O data from speleothem and water samples that were collected from two cave systems in west-central Iran at similar latitudes, 60km apart: Qaleh Kord Cave (QKC, 35°47'50"N, 48°51'25"E) and Kataleh Khor Cave (KKC, 35°50'09"N, 48°09'41"E). U-Th geochronometry in two stalagmites from QKC yielded ages that range from 73,000 to 118,000 years B.P. Likewise, two stalagmites dated from KKC yielded ages 214,000-260,000 years B.P. and 300,000-500,000 years B.P. The analysis of additional speleothems from these caves should help to establish a continuous half million year multi-proxy record of δ18O variations, trace metal composition (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca), and radiogenic Sr isotopes in these cave systems. High-resolution δ18O analyses of QKC stalagmites show patterns of variation that can be attributed to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5a and 5b. Since both these caves sit at relatively high elevations (QKC: 2,160 masl, KKC: 1,695 masl) far from major seas (1,100km from Mediterranean Sea, 1,500km from North Indian Ocean), this record potentially reflects the synoptic interactions between the Westerlies and the Siberian Anticyclone during this time interval, as opposed to direct variations caused by sea level fluctuations. Measurements of drip water composition and modern environmental parameters (temperature, relative humidity and pCO2) inside the caves paired with δ18O analyses of fluid inclusions in the stalagmites will place additional constraints on multi-proxy reconstruction of paleo-records from these cave systems.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMGC13D1185G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMGC13D1185G"><span>Assessing climate adaptation options and uncertainties for cereal systems in West Africa</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Guan, K.; Sultan, B.; Biasutti, M.; Lobell, D. B.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>The already fragile agriculture production system in West Africa faces further challenges in meeting food security in the coming decades, primarily due to a fast increasing population and risks of climate change. Successful adaptation of agriculture should not only benefit in the current climate but should also reduce negative (or enhance positive) impacts for climate change. Assessment of various possible adaptation options and their uncertainties provides key information for prioritizing adaptation investments. Here, based on the several robust aspects of climate projections in this region (i.e. temperature increases and rainfall pattern shifts), we use two well-validated crop models (i.e. APSIM and SARRA-H) and an ensemble of downscaled climate forcing to assess five possible and realistic adaptation options (late sowing, intensification, thermal time increase, water harvesting and increased resilience to heat stress) in West Africa for the staple crop production of sorghum. We adopt a new assessment framework to account for both the impacts of adaptation options in current climate and their ability to reduce impacts of future climate change, and also consider changes in both mean yield and its variability. Our results reveal that most proposed "adaptation options" are not more beneficial in the future than in the current climate, i.e. not really reduce the climate change impacts. Increased temperature resilience during grain number formation period is the main adaptation that emerges. We also find that changing from the traditional to modern cultivar, and later sowing in West Sahel appear to be robust adaptations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1813948K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1813948K"><span>Insights into the paleoclimate of the PETM from an ensemble of EMIC simulations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Keery, John; Holden, Philip; Edwards, Neil; Monteiro, Fanny; Ridgwell, Andy</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>The Eocene epoch, and in particular, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) of 55.8 Ma, exhibit several features of particular interest for probing our understanding of the Earth system and carbon cycle. CO2 levels have not yet been definitively established, but were known to have varied considerably, peaking at up to several times modern values. Temperatures were several degrees higher than in the modern era, and there were periods of relatively rapid warming, with substantial variability in carbon cycle processes. The Eocene is therefore highly relevant for our understanding of the climate of the 21st Century. Earth system models of intermediate complexity (EMICs), with less detailed simulation of the dynamics of the atmosphere and oceans than general circulation models (GCMs), are sufficiently fast to allow climate modelling over long periods of geological time in comparatively short periods of computer run-time. This speed advantage of EMICs over GCMs permits an "ensemble" of model simulations to be run, allowing statistical analysis of results to be carried out, and allowing the uncertainties in model predictions to be estimated. Here we apply the EMICs PLASIM-GENIE, and GENIE-1, with an Eocene paleogeography which incorporates the major continental configurations and ocean connections, including a shallow strait linking the Arctic to the Tethys, but with neither the Tasman Gateway nor the Drake Passage yet open. Our two model strategy benefits from the detailed simulation of ocean biogeochemistry in GENIE-1, and the 3D spectral atmospheric dynamics in PLASIM-GENIE, which also provides boundary conditions for the GENIE-1 simulations. Using a 50-member ensemble of 1000-year quasi-equilibrium simulations with PLASIM-GENIE, we investigate the relative contributions of orbital and CO2 variability on climate and equator-pole temperature gradients. Results from PLASIM-GENIE are used to configure a harmonised ensemble of GENIE-1 simulations, which will be compared with newly obtained geochemical data on ocean oxygenation through the Eocene from the UK NERC RESPIRE project.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017CliPa..13.1901A','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017CliPa..13.1901A"><span>The climate of the Common Era off the Iberian Peninsula</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Abrantes, Fátima; Rodrigues, Teresa; Rufino, Marta; Salgueiro, Emília; Oliveira, Dulce; Gomes, Sandra; Oliveira, Paulo; Costa, Ana; Mil-Homens, Mário; Drago, Teresa; Naughton, Filipa</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The Mediterranean region is a climate hot spot, sensitive not only to global warming but also to water availability. In this work we document major temperature and precipitation changes in the Iberian Peninsula and margin during the last 2000 years and propose an interplay of the North Atlantic internal variability with the three atmospheric circulation modes (ACMs), (North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), east atlantic (EA) and Scandinavia (SCAND)) to explain the detected climate variability. We present reconstructions of sea surface temperature (SST derived from alkenones) and on-land precipitation (estimated from higher plant n-alkanes and pollen data) in sedimentary sequences recovered along the Iberian Margin between the south of Portugal (Algarve) and the northwest of Spain (Galiza) (36 to 42° N). A clear long-term cooling trend, from 0 CE to the beginning of the 20th century, emerges in all SST records and is considered to be a reflection of the decrease in the Northern Hemisphere summer insolation that began after the Holocene optimum. Multi-decadal/centennial SST variability follows other records from Spain, Europe and the Northern Hemisphere. Warm SSTs throughout the first 1300 years encompass the Roman period (RP), the Dark Ages (DA) and the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA). A cooling initiated at 1300 CE leads to 4 centuries of colder SSTs contemporary with the Little Ice Age (LIA), while a climate warming at 1800 CE marks the beginning of the modern/Industrial Era. Novel results include two distinct phases in the MCA: an early period (900-1100 years) characterized by intense precipitation/flooding and warm winters but a cooler spring-fall season attributed to the interplay of internal oceanic variability with a positive phase in the three modes of atmospheric circulation (NAO, EA and SCAND). The late MCA is marked by cooler and relatively drier winters and a warmer spring-fall season consistent with a shift to a negative mode of the SCAND. The Industrial Era reveals a clear difference between the NW Iberia and the Algarve records. While off NW Iberia variability is low, the Algarve shows large-amplitude decadal variability with an inverse relationship between SST and river input. Such conditions suggest a shift in the EA mode, from negative between 1900 and 1970 CE to positive after 1970, while NAO and SCAND remain in a positive phase. The particularly noticeable rise in SST at the Algarve site by the mid-20th century (±1970), provides evidence for a regional response to the ongoing climate warming. The reported findings have implications for decadal-scale predictions of future climate change in the Iberian Peninsula.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_8");'>8</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li class="active"><span>10</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_10 --> <div id="page_11" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li class="active"><span>11</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="201"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70039718','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70039718"><span>Quantitative estimation of climatic parameters from vegetation data in North America by the mutual climatic range technique</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Anderson, Katherine H.; Bartlein, Patrick J.; Strickland, Laura E.; Pelltier, Richard T.; Thompson, Robert S.; Shafer, Sarah L.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>The mutual climatic range (MCR) technique is perhaps the most widely used method for estimating past climatic parameters from fossil assemblages, largely because it can be conducted on a simple list of the taxa present in an assemblage. When applied to plant macrofossil data, this unweighted approach (MCRun) will frequently identify a large range for a given climatic parameter where the species in an assemblage can theoretically live together. To narrow this range, we devised a new weighted approach (MCRwt) that employs information from the modern relations between climatic parameters and plant distributions to lessen the influence of the "tails" of the distributions of the climatic data associated with the taxa in an assemblage. To assess the performance of the MCR approaches, we applied them to a set of modern climatic data and plant distributions on a 25-km grid for North America, and compared observed and estimated climatic values for each grid point. In general, MCRwt was superior to MCRun in providing smaller anomalies, less bias, and better correlations between observed and estimated values. However, by the same measures, the results of Modern Analog Technique (MAT) approaches were superior to MCRwt. Although this might be reason to favor MAT approaches, they are based on assumptions that may not be valid for paleoclimatic reconstructions, including that: 1) the absence of a taxon from a fossil sample is meaningful, 2) plant associations were largely unaffected by past changes in either levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide or in the seasonal distributions of solar radiation, and 3) plant associations of the past are adequately represented on the modern landscape. To illustrate the application of these MCR and MAT approaches to paleoclimatic reconstructions, we applied them to a Pleistocene paleobotanical assemblage from the western United States. From our examinations of the estimates of modern and past climates from vegetation assemblages, we conclude that the MCRun technique provides reliable and unbiased estimates of the ranges of possible climatic conditions that can reasonably be associated with these assemblages. The application of MCRwt and MAT approaches can further constrain these estimates and may provide a systematic way to assess uncertainty. The data sets required for MCR analyses in North America are provided in a parallel publication.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29855515','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29855515"><span>Changing flood frequencies under opposing late Pleistocene eastern Mediterranean climates.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Ben Dor, Yoav; Armon, Moshe; Ahlborn, Marieke; Morin, Efrat; Erel, Yigal; Brauer, Achim; Schwab, Markus Julius; Tjallingii, Rik; Enzel, Yehouda</p> <p>2018-05-31</p> <p>Floods comprise a dominant hydroclimatic phenomenon in aridlands with significant implications for humans, infrastructure, and landscape evolution worldwide. The study of short-term hydroclimatic variability, such as floods, and its forecasting for episodes of changing climate therefore poses a dominant challenge for the scientific community, and predominantly relies on modeling. Testing the capabilities of climate models to properly describe past and forecast future short-term hydroclimatic phenomena such as floods requires verification against suitable geological archives. However, determining flood frequency during changing climate is rarely achieved, because modern and paleoflood records, especially in arid regions, are often too short or discontinuous. Thus, coeval independent climate reconstructions and paleoflood records are required to further understand the impact of climate change on flood generation. Dead Sea lake levels reflect the mean centennial-millennial hydrological budget in the eastern Mediterranean. In contrast, floods in the large watersheds draining directly into the Dead Sea, are linked to short-term synoptic circulation patterns reflecting hydroclimatic variability. These two very different records are combined in this study to resolve flood frequency during opposing mean climates. Two 700-year-long, seasonally-resolved flood time series constructed from late Pleistocene Dead Sea varved sediments, coeval with significant Dead Sea lake level variations are reported. These series demonstrate that episodes of rising lake levels are characterized by higher frequency of floods, shorter intervals between years of multiple floods, and asignificantly larger number of years that experienced multiple floods. In addition, floods cluster into intervals of intense flooding, characterized by 75% and 20% increased frequency above their respective background frequencies during rising and falling lake-levels, respectively. Mean centennial precipitation in the eastern Mediterranean is therefore coupled with drastic changes in flood frequencies. These drastic changes in flood frequencies are linked to changes in the track, depth, and frequency of mid-latitude eastern Mediterranean cyclones, determining mean climatology resulting in wetter and drier regional climatic episodes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28825982','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28825982"><span>Nature-based agricultural solutions: Scaling perennial grains across Africa.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Peter, Brad G; Mungai, Leah M; Messina, Joseph P; Snapp, Sieglinde S</p> <p>2017-11-01</p> <p>Modern plant breeding tends to focus on maximizing yield, with one of the most ubiquitous implementations being shorter-duration crop varieties. It is indisputable that these breeding efforts have resulted in greater yields in ideal circumstances; however, many farmed locations across Africa suffer from one or more conditions that limit the efficacy of modern short-duration hybrids. In view of global change and increased necessity for intensification, perennial grains and long-duration varieties offer a nature-based solution for improving farm productivity and smallholder livelihoods in suboptimal agricultural areas. Specific conditions where perennial grains should be considered include locations where biophysical and social constraints reduce agricultural system efficiency, and where conditions are optimal for crop growth. Using a time-series of remotely-sensed data, we locate the marginal agricultural lands of Africa, identifying suboptimal temperature and precipitation conditions for the dominant crop, i.e., maize, as well as optimal climate conditions for two perennial grains, pigeonpea and sorghum. We propose that perennial grains offer a lower impact, sustainable nature-based solution to this subset of climatic drivers of marginality. Using spatial analytic methods and satellite-derived climate information, we demonstrate the scalability of perennial pigeonpea and sorghum across Africa. As a nature-based solution, we argue that perennial grains offer smallholder farmers of marginal lands a sustainable solution for enhancing resilience and minimizing risk in confronting global change, while mitigating social and edaphic drivers of low and variable production. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1076809','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1076809"><span>TECA: A Parallel Toolkit for Extreme Climate Analysis</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Prabhat, Mr; Ruebel, Oliver; Byna, Surendra</p> <p>2012-03-12</p> <p>We present TECA, a parallel toolkit for detecting extreme events in large climate datasets. Modern climate datasets expose parallelism across a number of dimensions: spatial locations, timesteps and ensemble members. We design TECA to exploit these modes of parallelism and demonstrate a prototype implementation for detecting and tracking three classes of extreme events: tropical cyclones, extra-tropical cyclones and atmospheric rivers. We process a modern TB-sized CAM5 simulation dataset with TECA, and demonstrate good runtime performance for the three case studies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP24B..02B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP24B..02B"><span>Ocean-atmosphere forcing of South American tropical paleoclimate, LGM to present</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Baker, P. A.; Fritz, S. C.; Dwyer, G. S.; Rigsby, C. A.; Silva, C. G.; Burns, S. J.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>Because of many recent terrestrial paleoclimatic and marine paleoceanographic records, late Quaternary South American tropical paleoclimate is as well understood as that anywhere in the world. While lessons learned from the recent instrumental record of climate are informative, this record is too short to capture much of the lower frequency variability encountered in the paleoclimate records and much of the observed paleoclimate is without modern analogue. This paleoclimate is known to be regionally variable with significant differences both north and south of the equator and between the western high Andes and eastern lowlands of the Amazon and Nordeste Brazil. Various extrinsic forcing mechanisms affected climate throughout the period, including global concentrations of GHGs, Northern Hemisphere ice sheet forcing, seasonal insolation forcing of the South American summer monsoon (SASM), millennial-scale Atlantic forcing, and Pacific forcing of the large-scale Walker circulation. The magnitude of the climate response to these forcings varied temporally, largely because of the varying amplitude of the forcing itself. For example, during the last glacial, large-amplitude north Atlantic forcing during Heinrich 1 and the LGM itself, led to wet (dry) conditions south (north) of the equator. During the Holocene, Atlantic forcing was lower amplitude, thus seasonal insolation forcing generally predominated with a weaker-than-normal SASM during the early Holocene resulting in dry conditions in the south-western tropics and wet conditions in the eastern lowlands and Nordeste; in the late Holocene seasonal insolation reached a maximum in the southern tropics and climate conditions reversed.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMIN13B1666B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMIN13B1666B"><span>Teleconnection Locator: TeleLoc</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bowen, M. K.; Duffy, D.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Extreme climate events, such as tropical storms, droughts, and floods, have an enormous impact on all aspects of society. Being able to detect the causes of such events on a global scale is paramount to being able to predict when and where these events will occur. These teleconnections, where a small change in a closed, complex system creates drastic disturbances elsewhere in the system, are generally represented by an index, one of the most famous being the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, due to the enormity, complexity, and technical challenges surrounding climate and its data, it is hypothesized that many of these teleconnections have as of yet gone undiscovered. TeleLoc (Teleconnection Locator) is a machine-learning framework combining a number of techniques for finding correlations between weather trends and extreme climate events. The current focus is on connecting global trends with tropical cyclones. A combination of two data sets, The International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) and the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA2), are being utilized. PostGIS is used for raw data storage, and a Python API has been developed as the core of the framework. Cyclones are first clustered using a combination of Symbolic Aggregate ApproXimation (this allows for a symbolic, sequential representation of the various time-series variables of interest) and DBSCAN. This serves to break the events into subcategories, which alleviates computational load for the next step. Events which are clustered together (those with similar characteristics) are compared against global climate variables of interest, which are also converted to a symbolic form, leading up to the event using Association Rule Mining. Results will be shown where cyclones have been clustered, specifically in the West Pacific storm basin, as well as the global variable symbolic subsections with a high support that have been singled out for analysis.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16922322','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16922322"><span>Weak climatic control of stand-scale fire history during the late holocene.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Gavin, Daniel G; Hu, Feng Sheng; Lertzman, Kenneth; Corbett, Peter</p> <p>2006-07-01</p> <p>Forest fire occurrence is affected by multiple controls that operate at local to regional scales. At the spatial scale of forest stands, regional climatic controls may be obscured by local controls (e.g., stochastic ignitions, topography, and fuel loads), but the long-term role of such local controls is poorly understood. We report here stand-scale (<100 ha) fire histories of the past 5000 years based on the analysis of sediment charcoal at two lakes 11 km apart in southeastern British Columbia. The two lakes are today located in similar subalpine forests, and they likely have experienced the same late-Holocene climatic changes because of their close proximity. We evaluated two independent properties of fire history: (1) fire-interval distribution, a measure of the overall incidence of fire, and (2) fire synchroneity, a measure of the co-occurrence of fire (here, assessed at centennial to millennial time scales due to the resolution of sediment records). Fire-interval distributions differed between the sites prior to, but not after, 2500 yr before present. When the entire 5000-yr period is considered, no statistical synchrony between fire-episode dates existed between the two sites at any temporal scale, but for the last 2500 yr marginal levels of synchrony occurred at centennial scales. Each individual fire record exhibited little coherency with regional climate changes. In contrast, variations in the composite record (average of both sites) matched variations in climate evidenced by late-Holocene glacial advances. This was probably due to the increased sample size and spatial extent represented by the composite record (up to 200 ha) plus increased regional climatic variability over the last several millennia, which may have partially overridden local, non-climatic controls. We conclude that (1) over past millennia, neighboring stands with similar modern conditions may have experienced different fire intervals and asynchronous patterns in fire episodes, likely because local controls outweighed the synchronizing effect of climate; (2) the influence of climate on fire occurrence is more strongly expressed when climatic variability is relatively great; and (3) multiple records from a region are essential if climate-fire relations are to be reliably described.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27578766','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27578766"><span>Late Quaternary climate stability and the origins and future of global grass endemism.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Sandel, Brody; Monnet, Anne-Christine; Govaerts, Rafaël; Vorontsova, Maria</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>Earth's climate is dynamic, with strong glacial-interglacial cycles through the Late Quaternary. These climate changes have had major consequences for the distributions of species through time, and may have produced historical legacies in modern ecological patterns. Unstable regions are expected to contain few endemic species, many species with strong dispersal abilities, and to be susceptible to the establishment of exotic species from relatively stable regions. We test these hypotheses with a global dataset of grass species distributions. We described global patterns of endemism, variation in the potential for rapid population spread, and exotic establishment in grasses. We then examined relationships of these response variables to a suite of predictor variables describing the mean, seasonality and spatial pattern of current climate and the temperature change velocity from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present. Grass endemism is strongly concentrated in regions with historically stable climates. It also depends on the spatial pattern of current climate, with many endemic species in areas with regionally unusual climates. There was no association between the proportion of annual species (representing potential population spread rates) and climate change velocity. Rather, the proportion of annual species depended very strongly on current temperature. Among relatively stable regions (<10 m year -1 ), increasing velocity decreased the proportion of species that were exotic, but this pattern reversed for higher-velocity regions (>10 m year -1 ). Exotic species were most likely to originate from relatively stable regions with climates similar to those found in their exotic range. Long-term climate stability has important influences on global endemism patterns, largely confirming previous work from other groups. Less well recognized is its role in generating patterns of exotic species establishment. This result provides an important historical context for the conjecture that climate change in the near future may promote species invasions. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP22A..05I','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP22A..05I"><span>Evaluating climate controls on isotopic shifts in high-altitude forests during the Last Interglacial</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Insel, N.; Berkelhammer, M. B.; Sturm, C.; Karimova, G.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Forests play a significant role in the global carbon cycle, and influence climate through their effect on albedo and latent heat flux. Predicting the response of these ecosystems to climate change is complicated by competing influences between rising CO2, warming, and shifts in hydrology such as timing, rate, and type of precipitation. A key to detection and prediction of future regional and global changes of modern ecosystems lies in understanding the causes and characteristics of historical variations at the ecosystem level. The Last Interglacial (LIG: 130 to 116 ka) is the most recent period in Earth's history when growing season temperature exceeded those of today. In this study, we are using isotope-enabled regional climate model (REMOiso) simulations under LIG (115ka, 125 ka and 135 ka) and modern forcings to evaluate climate controls on boreal forest in the western US. In particular, we investigate (1) changes in moisture sources and moisture transport, (2) changes in the annual and seasonal extent and duration of precipitation, and (3) temperature variations to explore how ecosystem carbon and water fluxes change under coupled temperature and precipitation variability. Eemian wood samples from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado show a progressive increase in the 18O seasonal cycle that may be related to trees utilizing isotopically enriched monsoonal moisture. However, Eemian climate simulations (125ka) incorporate orbital forcings that result in stronger seasonal changes in temperature, precipitation, and snow cover in comparison to today, while annual anomalies are small. The seasonal shift in climate affects the water availability and the length of growing season for Eemian plants. Model results indicate only a very slight increase in monsoonal moisture transport from the south, resulting in slightly wetter conditions in western Colorado, but slightly drier conditions in the eastern part. Preliminary results suggest that changes in the North American monsoon system were not sufficient to explain the observed isotopic enrichment in Eemian wood samples. Current isotope simulations address changes in the seasonal isotopic cycle in the precipitation during the Eemian and will allow us to distinguish tree's reliance on summer or winter moisture sources more clearly.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP11C2037S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP11C2037S"><span>Insights into deep-time terrestrial carbon cycle processes from modern plant isotope ecology</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sheldon, N. D.; Smith, S. Y.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>While the terrestrial biosphere and soils contain much of the readily exchangeable carbon on Earth, how those reservoirs function on long time scales and at times of higher atmospheric CO2 and higher temperatures is poorly understood, which limits our ability to make accurate future predictions of their response to anthropogenic change. Recent data compilation efforts have outlined the response of plant carbon isotope compositions to a variety of environmental factors including precipitation amount and timing, elevation, and latitude. The compilations involve numerous types of plants, typically only found at a limited number of climatic conditions. Here, we expand on those efforts by examining the isotopic response of specific plant groups found both globally and across environmental gradients including: 1) ginkgo, 2) conifers, and 3) C4 grasses. Ginkgo is presently widely distributed as a cultivated plant and the ginkgoalean fossil record spans from the Permian to the present, making it an ideal model organism to understand climatic influence on carbon cycling both in modern and ancient settings. Ginkgo leaves have been obtained from a range of precipitation conditions (400-2200 mm yr-1), including dense sampling from individuals and populations in both Mediterranean and temperate climate areas and samples of different organs and developmental stages. Ginkgo carbon isotope results plot on the global C3 plant array, are consistent among trees at single sites, among plant organs, and among development stages, making ginkgo a robust recorder of both climatic conditions and atmospheric δ13C. In contrast, a climate-carbon isotope transect in Arizona highlights that conifers (specifically, pine and juniper) record large variability between organs and have a very different δ13C slope as a function of climate than the global C3 plant array, while C4 plants have a slope with the opposite sign as a function of climate. This has a number of implications for paleo-diet studies. Finally, using these new results we examine terrestrial carbon inputs into the Cretaceous Interior Seaway using plant fossils from the Campanian Pierre Shale, as well as presenting mean annual precipitation (MAP) estimates derived from the relationship between conifer δ13C composition and MAP described above.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EurSS..49..988P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EurSS..49..988P"><span>Reconstruction of climate, soil, and vegetation conditions of the Srubnaya cultural epoch on the basis of kurgan studies in the Cis-Ural forest-steppe of the Republic of Bashkortostan</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Prikhod'ko, V. E.; Rohozin, Ye. P.; Chaplygin, M. S.</p> <p>2016-09-01</p> <p>The reconstruction of soil, vegetation, and climatic conditions for the Srubnaya cultural epoch (3660 ± 40 (date wood), 3860 ± 120 (bones date) was performed on the basis of palynological and paleosol studies with radiocarbon dating of bones and wood fragments from two kurgans in the Cis-Ural forest-steppe of the Republic of Bashkortostan. Morphological features and chemical properties of the modern background soils, the soils formed on the surface of burial mounds (kurgans), and the soils buried under them were characterized. According to palynological data, the climate of this territory in the period of construction of these kurgans was more humid than the modern climate. The paleovegetation of the Srubnaya epoch was represented by mesophilic herbaceous steppes with a lower participation of xerophytic species as compared to the modern steppe and by small forest groves composed of birch and pine trees with some admixture of lime trees. The temperature conditions were close to those at present, or somewhat cooler, which is evidenced by the lower content of pollen of the broadleaved trees. The modern background soils and the soils buried under the kurgans are classified as thin light loamy typical calcareous chernozems; they have similar morphologies and physicochemical properties. However, the reconstructed organic matter content in the upper 50 cm of the buried paleosols is higher than that in the modern soils. This attests to more favorable climatic conditions during the Srubnaya epoch and is in agreement with palynological data.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3324023','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3324023"><span>Insights from past millennia into climatic impacts on human health and survival</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>McMichael, Anthony J.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>Climate change poses threats to human health, safety, and survival via weather extremes and climatic impacts on food yields, fresh water, infectious diseases, conflict, and displacement. Paradoxically, these risks to health are neither widely nor fully recognized. Historical experiences of diverse societies experiencing climatic changes, spanning multicentury to single-year duration, provide insights into population health vulnerability—even though most climatic changes were considerably less than those anticipated this century and beyond. Historical experience indicates the following. (i) Long-term climate changes have often destabilized civilizations, typically via food shortages, consequent hunger, disease, and unrest. (ii) Medium-term climatic adversity has frequently caused similar health, social, and sometimes political consequences. (iii) Infectious disease epidemics have often occurred in association with briefer episodes of temperature shifts, food shortages, impoverishment, and social disruption. (iv) Societies have often learnt to cope (despite hardship for some groups) with recurring shorter-term (decadal to multiyear) regional climatic cycles (e.g., El Niño Southern Oscillation)—except when extreme phases occur. (v) The drought–famine–starvation nexus has been the main, recurring, serious threat to health. Warming this century is not only likely to greatly exceed the Holocene's natural multidecadal temperature fluctuations but to occur faster. Along with greater climatic variability, models project an increased geographic range and severity of droughts. Modern societies, although larger, better resourced, and more interconnected than past societies, are less flexible, more infrastructure-dependent, densely populated, and hence are vulnerable. Adverse historical climate-related health experiences underscore the case for abating human-induced climate change. PMID:22315419</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1918644S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1918644S"><span>The Centre for Early Human Behaviour (EHB) at the University of Bergen: A transdisciplinary exploration into the evolution of homo sapiens behaviour</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sobolowski, Stefan; Henshilwood, Christopher; Jansen, Eystein</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>Homo sapiens was anatomically modern by 200 000 years ago in Africa, but there is no archaeological evidence to demonstrate that behaviour was modern at the time. Attributes of modern behaviour, perhaps inspired by changes in the human brain, are only recognizable after 100 000 years ago. Before we can study the process, we must critically define the criteria for the term 'modern behaviour' and then find a means to recognize such behavior in the record. This seemingly simple research statement involves complex exploration by a team of specialists. In this highly competitive research field our centre will, for the first time, be able to rise to the challenge by combining the skills of cutting-edge scientists in archaeology, climate reconstruction and modelling, and the cognitive and social sciences. Over the next decade we will integrate knowledge and methods from different disciplines to synthesize approaches and contribute to a sophisticated understanding of early human behaviour. Our highly ambitious research program will focus explicitly on rare, well preserved archaeological sites occupied in the period between 100-50 000 years ago because these contain the 'keys' for unlocking the past. A major competitive edge is the EHB Director's 25 years of archaeological experience and his long-term exclusive access, with permits, to a number of the best-preserved sites in the southern Cape, South Africa - a region regarded as a major locus for vital evidence that could inform on the behaviour of early humans. Our planned excavations at existing and new sites and our ground-breaking and innovative interdisciplinary approaches, including climate (The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research) and cognitive research, to understanding the processes that shaped human cultures. Primarily, EHB will directly address unanswered, first order questions about Homo sapiens: a) what defines the switch to 'modern behaviour', exactly how should this term be defined and then, when, why and how did the 'switch' occur; b) were there changes in the human brain at that time that accelerated behavioural variability and how can these be measured now? Secondary linked tasks address the social organization of these early humans: was social cohesion enhanced by symbolic material culture or vice-versa and did it lead to innovation; what cognitive skills had to be in place in order for other skills to develop; how adaptable were humans to environmental change and did climate act as a driver for technological innovation, social change and subsistence adaptations? This presentation will introduce the recently awarded center, its key objectives and ambitions, and serve as an open invitation to collaboration and intellectual engagement on this exciting topic.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1816613K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1816613K"><span>Contribution of Sediment Compaction/Loading to the Ganges-Bangladesh Delta Subsidence</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Karpytchev, Mikhail; Krien, Yann; Ballu, Valerie; Becker, Melanie; Calmant, Stephane; Spada, Giorgio; Guo, Junyi; Khan, Zahirul; Shum, Ck</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>A pronounced spatial variability characterizes the subsidence/uplift rates in the Ganges-Bangladesh delta estimated from both sediment cores and modern geodetic techniques. The large variability of the subsidence rates suggests an interplay of different natural and anthropogenic processes including tectonics, sediment loading and sediment compaction, groundwater extaction among many others drivers of the delta vertical land movements.In this study, we focus on estimating the subsidence rates due to the sediments transported by the Ganges-Brahmaputra since the last 18 000 years. The delta subsidence induced by the sediment loading and the resulting sea level changes are modelled by the TABOO and SELEN software (Spada, 2003; Stocchi and Spada, 2007) in the framework of a gravitationally self-consistent Earth model. The loading history was obtained from available sediment cores and from the isopach map of Goodbread and Kuehl (2000). The results demonstrate that the delta loading enhanced by the Holocene sedimention can be responsable for a regular subsidence across the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta with an amplitude of 1-5 mm/yr along the Bengal coast. These estimates demonstrate that the contribution of the Holocene as well as modern sediment loading should be taken into account in climate change mitigation politicy for Bangladesh.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15295596','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15295596"><span>Vigorous exchange between the Indian and Atlantic oceans at the end of the past five glacial periods.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Peeters, Frank J C; Acheson, Ruth; Brummer, Geert-Jan A; De Ruijter, Wilhelmus P M; Schneider, Ralph R; Ganssen, Gerald M; Ufkes, Els; Kroon, Dick</p> <p>2004-08-05</p> <p>The magnitude of heat and salt transfer between the Indian and Atlantic oceans through 'Agulhas leakage' is considered important for balancing the global thermohaline circulation. Increases or reductions of this leakage lead to strengthening or weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning and associated variation of North Atlantic Deep Water formation. Here we show that modern Agulhas waters, which migrate into the south Atlantic Ocean in the form of an Agulhas ring, contain a characteristic assemblage of planktic foraminifera. We use this assemblage as a modern analogue to investigate the Agulhas leakage history over the past 550,000 years from a sediment record in the Cape basin. Our reconstruction indicates that Indian-Atlantic water exchange was highly variable: enhanced during present and past interglacials and largely reduced during glacial intervals. Coherent variability of Agulhas leakage with northern summer insolation suggests a teleconnection to the monsoon system. The onset of increased Agulhas leakage during late glacial conditions took place when glacial ice volume was maximal, suggesting a crucial role for Agulhas leakage in glacial terminations, timing of interhemispheric climate change and the resulting resumption of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4542542','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4542542"><span>Genetic data from algae sedimentary DNA reflect the influence of environment over geography</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Stoof-Leichsenring, Kathleen R.; Herzschuh, Ulrike; Pestryakova, Luidmila A.; Klemm, Juliane; Epp, Laura S.; Tiedemann, Ralph</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Genetic investigations on eukaryotic plankton confirmed the existence of modern biogeographic patterns, but analyses of palaeoecological data exploring the temporal variability of these patterns have rarely been presented. Ancient sedimentary DNA proved suitable for investigations of past assemblage turnover in the course of environmental change, but genetic relatedness of the identified lineages has not yet been undertaken. Here, we investigate the relatedness of diatom lineages in Siberian lakes along environmental gradients (i.e. across treeline transects), over geographic distance and through time (i.e. the last 7000 years) using modern and ancient sedimentary DNA. Our results indicate that closely-related Staurosira lineages occur in similar environments and less-related lineages in dissimilar environments, in our case different vegetation and co-varying climatic and limnic variables across treeline transects. Thus our study reveals that environmental conditions rather than geographic distance is reflected by diatom-relatedness patterns in space and time. We tentatively speculate that the detected relatedness pattern in Staurosira across the treeline could be a result of adaptation to diverse environmental conditions across the arctic boreal treeline, however, a geographically-driven divergence and subsequent repopulation of ecologically different habitats might also be a potential explanation for the observed pattern. PMID:26261899</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ESDD....5.1571B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ESDD....5.1571B"><span>Optimizing cropland cover for stable food production in Sub-Saharan Africa using simulated yield and Modern Portfolio Theory</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bodin, P.; Olin, S.; Pugh, T. A. M.; Arneth, A.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>Food security can be defined as stable access to food of good nutritional quality. In Sub Saharan Africa access to food is strongly linked to local food production and the capacity to generate enough calories to sustain the local population. Therefore it is important in these regions to generate not only sufficiently high yields but also to reduce interannual variability in food production. Traditionally, climate impact simulation studies have focused on factors that underlie maximum productivity ignoring the variability in yield. By using Modern Portfolio Theory, a method stemming from economics, we here calculate optimum current and future crop selection that maintain current yield while minimizing variance, vs. maintaining variance while maximizing yield. Based on simulated yield using the LPJ-GUESS dynamic vegetation model, the results show that current cropland distribution for many crops is close to these optimum distributions. Even so, the optimizations displayed substantial potential to either increase food production and/or to decrease its variance regionally. Our approach can also be seen as a method to create future scenarios for the sown areas of crops in regions where local food production is important for food security.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26261899','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26261899"><span>Genetic data from algae sedimentary DNA reflect the influence of environment over geography.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Stoof-Leichsenring, Kathleen R; Herzschuh, Ulrike; Pestryakova, Luidmila A; Klemm, Juliane; Epp, Laura S; Tiedemann, Ralph</p> <p>2015-08-11</p> <p>Genetic investigations on eukaryotic plankton confirmed the existence of modern biogeographic patterns, but analyses of palaeoecological data exploring the temporal variability of these patterns have rarely been presented. Ancient sedimentary DNA proved suitable for investigations of past assemblage turnover in the course of environmental change, but genetic relatedness of the identified lineages has not yet been undertaken. Here, we investigate the relatedness of diatom lineages in Siberian lakes along environmental gradients (i.e. across treeline transects), over geographic distance and through time (i.e. the last 7000 years) using modern and ancient sedimentary DNA. Our results indicate that closely-related Staurosira lineages occur in similar environments and less-related lineages in dissimilar environments, in our case different vegetation and co-varying climatic and limnic variables across treeline transects. Thus our study reveals that environmental conditions rather than geographic distance is reflected by diatom-relatedness patterns in space and time. We tentatively speculate that the detected relatedness pattern in Staurosira across the treeline could be a result of adaptation to diverse environmental conditions across the arctic boreal treeline, however, a geographically-driven divergence and subsequent repopulation of ecologically different habitats might also be a potential explanation for the observed pattern.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1911209S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1911209S"><span>Climate-related relative sea-level changes from Chesapeake Bay, U.S. Atlantic coast</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Shaw, Timothy; Horton, Benjamin; Kemp, Andrew; Cahill, Niamh; Mann, Michael; Engelhart, Simon; Kopp, Robert; Brain, Matthew; Clear, Jennifer; Corbett, Reide; Nikitina, Daria; Garcia-Artola, Ane; Walker, Jennifer</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>Proxy-based reconstructions of relative sea level (RSL) from the coastlines of the North Atlantic have revealed spatial and temporal variability in the rates of RSL rise during periods of known Late-Holocene climatic variability. Regional driving mechanisms for such variability include glacial isostatic adjustment, static-equilibrium of land-ice changes and/or ocean dynamic effects as well as more localized factors (e.g. sediment compaction and tidal range change). We present a 4000-year RSL reconstruction from salt-marsh sediments of the Chesapeake Bay using a foraminiferal-based transfer function and a composite chronology. A local contemporary training set of foraminifera was developed to calibrate fossil counterparts and provide estimates of paleo marsh elevation with vertical uncertainties of ±0.06m. A composite chronology combining 30 radiocarbon dates, pollen chronohorizons, regional pollution histories, and short-lived radionuclides was placed into a Bayesian age-depth framework yielding low temporal uncertainties averaging 40 years. A compression-only geotechnical model was applied to decompact the RSL record. We coupled the proxy reconstruction with direct observations from nearby tide gauge records before rates of RSL rise were quantified through application of an Errors-In-Variables Integrated Gaussian Process model. The RSL history for Chesapeake Bay shows 6 m of rise since 2000 BCE. Between 2000 BCE and 1300 BCE, rates of RSL increasing to 1.4 mm/yr precede a significant decrease to 0.8 mm/yr at 700 BCE. This minimum coincides with widespread climate cooling identified in multiple paleoclimate archives of the North Atlantic. An increase in the rate of RSL rise to 2.1 mm/yr at 200 CE similarly precedes a decrease in the rate of RSL rise at 1450 CE (1.3 mm/yr) that coincides with the Little Ice Age. Modern rates of RSL rise (3.6 mm/yr) are the fastest observed in the past 4000 years. The temporal length and decadal resolution of the RSL reconstruction further reconciles the response of sea levels to late Holocene climate variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1713065F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1713065F"><span>Determination of Arctic sea ice variability modes on interannual timescales via nonhierarchical clustering</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Fučkar, Neven-Stjepan; Guemas, Virginie; Massonnet, François; Doblas-Reyes, Francisco</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>Over the modern observational era, the northern hemisphere sea ice concentration, age and thickness have experienced a sharp long-term decline superimposed with strong internal variability. Hence, there is a crucial need to identify robust patterns of Arctic sea ice variability on interannual timescales and disentangle them from the long-term trend in noisy datasets. The principal component analysis (PCA) is a versatile and broadly used method for the study of climate variability. However, the PCA has several limiting aspects because it assumes that all modes of variability have symmetry between positive and negative phases, and suppresses nonlinearities by using a linear covariance matrix. Clustering methods offer an alternative set of dimension reduction tools that are more robust and capable of taking into account possible nonlinear characteristics of a climate field. Cluster analysis aggregates data into groups or clusters based on their distance, to simultaneously minimize the distance between data points in a given cluster and maximize the distance between the centers of the clusters. We extract modes of Arctic interannual sea-ice variability with nonhierarchical K-means cluster analysis and investigate the mechanisms leading to these modes. Our focus is on the sea ice thickness (SIT) as the base variable for clustering because SIT holds most of the climate memory for variability and predictability on interannual timescales. We primarily use global reconstructions of sea ice fields with a state-of-the-art ocean-sea-ice model, but we also verify the robustness of determined clusters in other Arctic sea ice datasets. Applied cluster analysis over the 1958-2013 period shows that the optimal number of detrended SIT clusters is K=3. Determined SIT cluster patterns and their time series of occurrence are rather similar between different seasons and months. Two opposite thermodynamic modes are characterized with prevailing negative or positive SIT anomalies over the Arctic basin. The intermediate mode, with negative anomalies centered on the East Siberian shelf and positive anomalies along the North American side of the basin, has predominately dynamic characteristics. The associated sea ice concentration (SIC) clusters vary more between different seasons and months, but the SIC patterns are physically framed by the SIT cluster patterns.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_9");'>9</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li class="active"><span>11</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_11 --> <div id="page_12" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li class="active"><span>12</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="221"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006JQS....21..723C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006JQS....21..723C"><span>Development and testing of transfer functions for generating quantitative climatic estimates from Australian pollen data</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Cook, Ellyn J.; van der Kaars, Sander</p> <p>2006-10-01</p> <p>We review attempts to derive quantitative climatic estimates from Australian pollen data, including the climatic envelope, climatic indicator and modern analogue approaches, and outline the need to pursue alternatives for use as input to, or validation of, simulations by models of past, present and future climate patterns. To this end, we have constructed and tested modern pollen-climate transfer functions for mainland southeastern Australia and Tasmania using the existing southeastern Australian pollen database and for northern Australia using a new pollen database we are developing. After testing for statistical significance, 11 parameters were selected for mainland southeastern Australia, seven for Tasmania and six for northern Australia. The functions are based on weighted-averaging partial least squares regression and their predictive ability evaluated against modern observational climate data using leave-one-out cross-validation. Functions for summer, annual and winter rainfall and temperatures are most robust for southeastern Australia, while in Tasmania functions for minimum temperature of the coldest period, mean winter and mean annual temperature are the most reliable. In northern Australia, annual and summer rainfall and annual and summer moisture indexes are the strongest. The validation of all functions means all can be applied to Quaternary pollen records from these three areas with confidence. Copyright</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26PSL.492..130M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26PSL.492..130M"><span>Climate-driven unsteady denudation and sediment flux in a high-relief unglaciated catchment-fan using 26Al and 10Be: Panamint Valley, California</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Mason, Cody C.; Romans, Brian W.</p> <p>2018-06-01</p> <p>Environmental changes within erosional catchments of sediment routing systems are predicted to modulate sediment transfer dynamics. However, empirical and numerical models that predict such phenomena are difficult to test in natural systems over multi-millennial timescales. Tectonic boundary conditions and climate history in the Panamint Range, California, are relatively well-constrained by existing low-temperature thermochronology and regional multi-proxy paleoclimate studies, respectively. Catchment-fan systems present there minimize sediment storage and recycling, offering an excellent natural laboratory to test models of climate-sedimentary dynamics. We used stratigraphic characterization and cosmogenic radionuclides (CRNs; 26Al and 10Be) in the Pleasant Canyon complex (PCC), a linked catchment-fan system, to examine the effects of Pleistocene high-magnitude, high-frequency climate change on CRN-derived denudation rates and sediment flux in a high-relief, unglaciated catchment-fan system. Calculated 26Al/10Be burial ages from 13 samples collected in an ∼180 m thick outcropping stratigraphic succession range from ca. 1.55 ± 0.22 Ma in basal strata, to ca. 0.36 ± 0.18-0.52 ± 0.20 Ma within the uppermost part of the succession. The mean long-term CRN-derived paleodenudation rate, 36 ± 8 mm/kyr (1σ), is higher than the modern rate of 24 ± 0.6 mm/kyr from Pleasant Canyon, and paleodenudation rates during the middle Pleistocene display some high-frequency variability in the high end (up to 54 ± 10 mm/kyr). The highest CRN-derived denudation rates are associated with stratigraphic evidence for increased precipitation during glacial-pluvial events after the middle Pleistocene transition (post ca. 0.75 Ma), suggesting 100 kyr Milankovitch periodicity could drive the observed variability. We investigated the potential for non-equilibrium sedimentary processes, i.e. increased landslides or sediment storage/recycling, to influence apparent paleodenudation rates; end-member mixing models suggest that a mixture of >50% low-CRN-concentration sediment from landslides is required to produce the largest observed increase in paleodenudation rate. The overall pattern of CRN-derived burial ages, paleodenudation rates, and stratigraphic facies suggests Milankovitch timescale climate transitions drive variability in catchment denudation rates and sediment flux, or alternatively that climate transitions affect sedimentary process regimes that result in measurable variability of CRN concentrations in unglaciated catchment-fan systems.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3698218','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3698218"><span>Continuity of Microblade Technology in the Indian Subcontinent Since 45 ka: Implications for the Dispersal of Modern Humans</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Mishra, Sheila; Chauhan, Naveen; Singhvi, Ashok K.</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>We extend the continuity of microblade technology in the Indian Subcontinent to 45 ka, on the basis of optical dating of microblade assemblages from the site of Mehtakheri, (22° 13' 44″ N Lat 76° 01' 36″ E Long) in Madhya Pradesh, India. Microblade technology in the Indian Subcontinent is continuously present from its first appearance until the Iron Age (~3 ka), making its association with modern humans undisputed. It has been suggested that microblade technology in the Indian Subcontinent was developed locally by modern humans after 35 ka. The dates reported here from Mehtakheri show this inference to be untenable and suggest alternatively that this technology arrived in the Indian Subcontinent with the earliest modern humans. It also shows that modern humans in Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia were associated with differing technologies and this calls into question the “southern dispersal” route of modern humans from Africa through India to SE Asia and then to Australia. We suggest that modern humans dispersed from Africa in two stages coinciding with the warmer interglacial conditions of MIS 5 and MIS 3. Competitive interactions between African modern humans and Indian archaics who shared an adaptation to tropical environments differed from that between modern humans and archaics like Neanderthals and Denisovans, who were adapted to temperate environments. Thus, while modern humans expanded into temperate regions during warmer climates, their expansion into tropical regions, like the Indian Subcontinent, in competition with similarly adapted populations, occurred during arid climates. Thus modern humans probably entered the Indian Subcontinent during the arid climate of MIS 4 coinciding with their disappearance from the Middle East and Northern Africa. The out of phase expansion of modern humans into tropical versus temperate regions has been one of the factors affecting the dispersal of modern humans from Africa during the period 200–40 ka. PMID:23840912</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFMPP51C1150D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFMPP51C1150D"><span>Post-glacial Paleo-oceanographic and Paleo-climatic Conditions and Linkages Along the West Coast of Canada</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Dallimore, A.; Enkin, R. J.; McKechnie, I.</p> <p>2006-12-01</p> <p>Along the west coast of Canada, our continuing studies of annually laminated marine sediments in anoxic fjords illustrate the changing environment as glaciers retreated from this area about 12 ka y BP. New data from mid-coastal British Columbia expands our knowledge of the interplay between climate and ocean dynamics in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, and defines the evolution of modern climate conditions as ice receded from the coast, followed by the establishment of modern oceanographic and climatic conditions about 6,000 ky BP. The Late Pleistocene and Holocene record also marks dramatic changes in sea level, climate, coastal oceanographic dynamics and glacial sedimentary source and transport, with implications for the possibility of early human migration routes and glacial refugia. Changes in pre-historical aboriginal settlement sites and food sources also give indications of a dynamic Holocene land and seascape as modern conditions became established. Excellent chronological control is provided by complementary yet independent dating methods including radiocarbon dates on both plants and shells, identification of the Mazama Ash, varve counting and paleomagnetic/paleosecular variation correlations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP13A2259M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP13A2259M"><span>Linking the Modern and Recent Record of Cabo Frio Upwelling with Local Climate and Biogeochemical Processes in Hypersaline Coastal Lagoons, Região dos Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>McKenzie, J. A.; Nascimento, G. S.; Albuquerque, A. L.; Belem, A. L.; Carreira, R.; Eglinton, T. I.; Vasconcelos, C.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>A unique marine and lagoonal system along the coast east of Rio de Janeiro is being investigated to understand the impact of climatic variability on the South Atlantic carbon cycle and biomineralisation processes involved in carbonate precipitation in the hypersaline coastal lagoons. The region is dominated by a semi-arid microclimate attributed to the local coastal upwelling phenomenon near Cabo Frio. The intensity of the upwelling affects the hydrology of the annual water and biogeochemical cycles in the lagoons, as well as biogeochemical signals of environmental change recorded in both onshore and offshore sediments. Preliminary results of δ18O and δD values of water samples collected monthly in Lagoa Vermelha and Brejo do Espinho from 2011 to 2014 show lower values for waters corresponding to the wet season, reflecting increased input of meteoric water. The higher values for waters collected during the dry season reflect the greater amount of evaporation with increased seasonal aridity. Radiocarbon dating of Holocene marine and lagoonal cores indicates that Mg-carbonate precipitation in the lagoons is associated with high evaporation. Modern field observations for the last 3 years suggest that the amount of carbonate precipitation is correlated with evaporitic conditions associated with the upwelling phenomenon. A calibration study of hydrogen isotopic fractionation in the modern lagoons is underway to define a relationship between δDlipid of suspended particles and δDwater of associated water. This isotopic relationship will be applied to material obtained in cores from the lagoons. Offshore cores will be studied using well-tested paleotemperature proxies to evaluate the intensity of the upwelling during the Holocene. In summary, linking the coastal upwelling with the lagoonal hydrology has the potential to furnish important insights about the relationship between the local climate and paleoceanographic circulation associated with the regional carbon cycle.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016QSRv..153..192H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016QSRv..153..192H"><span>Early Holocene deglaciation of Drangajökull, Vestfirðir, Iceland</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Harning, David J.; Geirsdóttir, Áslaug; Miller, Gifford H.; Zalzal, Kate</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The status of Icelandic ice caps during the early Holocene provides important constraints on North Atlantic climate and the mechanisms behind natural climate variability. A recent study postulates that Drangajökull on Vestfirðir, Iceland, persisted through the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM, 7.9-5.5 ka) and may be a relic from the last glacial period. We test this hypothesis with a suite of sediment cores from threshold lakes both proximal and distal to the ice cap's modern margin. Distal lakes document rapid early Holocene deglaciation from the coast and across the highlands south of the glacier. Sediment from Skorarvatn, a lake to the north of Drangajökull, shows that the northern margin of the ice cap reached a size comparable to its contemporary limit by ∼10.3 ka. Two southeastern lakes with catchments extending well beneath modern Drangajökull confirm that by ∼9.2 ka, the ice cap was reduced to ∼20% of its current area. A continuous 10.3ka record of biological productivity from Skorarvatn's sediment indicates local peak warmth occurred between 9 and 6.9 ka. The combination of warm and dry summers on Vestfirðir suggests that Drangajökull very likely melted completely shortly after 9.2 ka, similar to most other Icelandic ice caps.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20561210','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20561210"><span>Diversification and biogeography of Juniperus (Cupressaceae): variable diversification rates and multiple intercontinental dispersals.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Mao, Kangshan; Hao, Gang; Liu, Jianquan; Adams, Robert P; Milne, Richard I</p> <p>2010-10-01</p> <p>• A central aim of biogeography is to understand when and how modern patterns of species diversity and distribution developed. Many plant groups have disjunct distributions within the Northern Hemisphere, but among these very few have been studied that prefer warm semi-arid habitats. • Here we examine the biogeography and diversification history of Juniperus, which occurs in semi-arid habitats through much of the Northern Hemisphere. A phylogeny was generated based on > 10,000 bp of cpDNA for 51 Juniperus species plus many outgroups. Phylogenies based on fewer species were also constructed based on nuclear internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) and combined nrITS/cpDNA data sets to check for congruence. Divergence time-scales and ancestral distributions were further inferred. • Both long dispersal and migration across land bridges probably contributed to the modern range of Juniperus, while long-term climatic changes and the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau probably drove its diversification. Diversification apparently slowed down during climate-stable period of the Oligocene, and then speeded up from the Miocene onwards. • Juniperus probably originated in Eurasia, and was a part of the south Eurasian Tethyan vegetation of the Eocene to Oligocene. It reached America once at this time, once in the Miocene and once more recently.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013MarGR..34..367L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013MarGR..34..367L"><span>Low energy, low latitude wave-dominated shallow marine depositional systems: examples from northern Borneo</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lambiase, Joseph J.; Suraya Tulot</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>The depositional environments of the wave-dominant successions in the middle to late Miocene Belait and Sandakan Formations in northwestern and northern Borneo, respectively, were determined based on grain size distributions, sedimentary structures and facies successions, as well as trace and microfossil assemblages. Generally, progradational shoreface successions in the Belait Formation were deposited in very low wave energy environments where longshore currents were too weak to generate trough cross-bedding. Shoreface sands are laterally continuous for several km and follow the basin contours, suggesting attached beaches similar to the modern Brunei coastline. In contrast, trough cross-bedding is common in the coarser Sandakan Formation and back-barrier mangrove swamp deposits cap the progradational succession as on the modern northern Dent Peninsula coastline, indicating barrier development and higher wave energy conditions than in the Belait Formation. The Borneo examples indicate that barrier systems that include significant tidal facies form under higher wave energy conditions than attached beaches with virtually no tidal facies. Also, Borneo's low latitude climate promotes back-barrier mangrove which reduces tidal exchange and reduces tidal influence relative to comparable temperate climate systems. The results of the study indicate that depositional systems on low energy, wave-dominated coasts are highly variable, as are the sand bodies and facies associations they generate.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23488703','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23488703"><span>Life politics, nature and the state: Giddens' sociological theory and The Politics of Climate Change.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Thorpe, Charles; Jacobson, Brynna</p> <p>2013-03-01</p> <p>Anthony Giddens' The Politics of Climate Change represents a significant shift in the way in which he addresses ecological politics. In this book, he rejects the relevance of environmentalism and demarcates climate-change policy from life politics. Giddens addresses climate change in the technocratic mode of simple rather than reflexive modernization. However, Giddens' earlier sociological theory provides the basis for a more reflexive understanding of climate change. Climate change instantiates how, in high modernity, the existential contradiction of the human relationship with nature returns in new form, expressed in life politics and entangled with the structural contradictions of the capitalist state. The interlinking of existential and structural contradiction is manifested in the tension between life politics and the capitalist nation-state. This tension is key for understanding the failures so far of policy responses to climate change. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2013.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..19.2006S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..19.2006S"><span>Late Holocene climate and environmental change from Asiul cave speleothems: interpretations in light of modern cave monitoring.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Smith, Andrew; Wynn, Peter; Barker, Philip; Leng, Melanie; Noble, Steve; Tych, Wlodek</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>Northern Iberia offers an excellent location to study fluctuations in North Atlantic Ocean (NA) conditions and the impact that changes in the NA have on atmospheric systems, which dominate Europe's climate. Two speleothems from Cueva de Asiul (Matienzo, N. Spain) have been used to reconstruct rainfall variability in N. Spain throughout the Holocene (Smith et al., 2016a). The carbonate δ18O records from these speleothems are interpreted in the light of a rigorous modern cave monitoring program undertaken at Cueva de Asiul (Smith et al., 2016b). Drip water δ18O reflects a modern rainfall amount effect whilst δ13C appears influenced by Prior Calcite Precipitation (PCP) in the short term and changes in vegetation at long timescales. The speleothem δ18O shows that long duration ( 1500 year) cycles in wetting and drying are prevalent in N. Spain during the Holocene and that dry climate phases are related to the timing of cold events (Bond et al., 2001) in the NA. Here we look in more detail at one of these speleothems, assessing both δ18O and δ13C during the last two thousand years. We show that Cueva de Asiul speleothems not only preserve long duration climate cycles in δ18O, but that they also appear influenced by shorter duration changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), in-sync with other NAO archives (Olsen et al., 2012). However, the Cueva de Asiul record does not appear to preserve a predominately positive NAO signal during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) as is common within many European archives (Trouet et al., 2009), possibly due to the sites' close proximity to the NA and localised oceanic weather systems (Moreno et al., 2012). Alongside climatic changes, the speleothem δ13C shows a clear transition toward higher isotope values around 360 years BP (BP=1950), signalling a major environmental change in the region possibly due to anthropogenic removal of vast swathes of natural forest to support ship building and industry related to the Spanish Armada. Bond et al., (2001), Science 294, 2130-2136. Moreno et al., (2012), Quat. Sci. Rev. 43, 16-32. Olsen et al., (2012), Nat. Geosci. 5, 1-14. Smith et al., (2016a), Sci. Reports.6:24745. Smith et al., (2016b) Int. J. Speleol. 45, 1-9. Trouet et al., (2009), Science 324, 78-80.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20167785','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20167785"><span>Climate, critters, and cetaceans: Cenozoic drivers of the evolution of modern whales.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Marx, Felix G; Uhen, Mark D</p> <p>2010-02-19</p> <p>Modern cetaceans, a poster child of evolution, play an important role in the ocean ecosystem as apex predators and nutrient distributors, as well as evolutionary "stepping stones" for the deep sea biota. Recent discussions on the impact of climate change and marine exploitation on current cetacean populations may benefit from insights into what factors have influenced cetacean diversity in the past. Previous studies suggested that the rise of diatoms as dominant marine primary producers and global temperature change were key factors in the evolution of modern whales. Based on a comprehensive diversity data set, we show that much of observed cetacean paleodiversity can indeed be explained by diatom diversity in conjunction with variations in climate as indicated by oxygen stable isotope records (delta18O).</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1714486M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1714486M"><span>Examining the reproducibility of stable isotope ratios in the marine bivalve, Astarte borealis, from populations in the White Sea, Russia: implications for biological consequences of climate change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>McNabb, Justin; Surge, Donna</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>Shells of the marine bivalve, Astarte, are uniquely suited to investigate links between environmental/climate change and biological consequences because of their change in size and biogeographic distribution through time. For example, are there corresponding changes in lifespan and biogeographic distribution depending on warm vs. cold climate states? Does warm vs. cold climate state result in longer or shorter lifespans? Early studies of Astarte have documented a decrease in shell size through geologic time. Modern specimens are much smaller than those from the mid Pliocene at similar latitudes. Astarte had a wide latitudinal and cosmopolitan distribution in the western North Atlantic during the Oligocene to Pliocene. During the early Pleistocene, most of the warm-water species became extinct, and today, their biogeographic distribution is mostly restricted to the northern Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans. To answer questions linking biological consequences and climate change, we must first decipher ontogenetic changes in shell growth of modern specimens. Preliminary data using isotope sclerochronology identified slowed shell growth from late summer to winter in modern specimens from the White Sea, Russia, possibly triggered by increasing freshwater input and decreasing temperatures. Here, we present new data examining the reproducibility of isotopic time series and season of slowed growth among modern individuals collected at the same time from the same population.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28528799','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28528799"><span>A multifactorial obesity model developed from nationwide public health exposome data and modern computational analyses.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Gittner, LisaAnn S; Kilbourne, Barbara J; Vadapalli, Ravi; Khan, Hafiz M K; Langston, Michael A</p> <p></p> <p>Obesity is both multifactorial and multimodal, making it difficult to identify, unravel and distinguish causative and contributing factors. The lack of a clear model of aetiology hampers the design and evaluation of interventions to prevent and reduce obesity. Using modern graph-theoretical algorithms, we are able to coalesce and analyse thousands of inter-dependent variables and interpret their putative relationships to obesity. Our modelling is different from traditional approaches; we make no a priori assumptions about the population, and model instead based on the actual characteristics of a population. Paracliques, noise-resistant collections of highly-correlated variables, are differentially distilled from data taken over counties associated with low versus high obesity rates. Factor analysis is then applied and a model is developed. Latent variables concentrated around social deprivation, community infrastructure and climate, and especially heat stress were connected to obesity. Infrastructure, environment and community organisation differed in counties with low versus high obesity rates. Clear connections of community infrastructure with obesity in our results lead us to conclude that community level interventions are critical. This effort suggests that it might be useful to study and plan interventions around community organisation and structure, rather than just the individual, to combat the nation's obesity epidemic. Copyright © 2017 Asia Oceania Association for the Study of Obesity. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70193598','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70193598"><span>Integrating satellite observations and modern climate measurements with the recent sedimentary record: An example from Southeast Alaska</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Addison, Jason A.; Finney, Bruce P.; Jaeger, John M.; Stoner, Joseph S.; Norris, Richard D.; Hangsterfer, Alexandra</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Assessments of climate change over time scales that exceed the last 100 years require robust integration of high-quality instrument records with high-resolution paleoclimate proxy data. In this study, we show that the recent biogenic sediments accumulating in two temperate ice-free fjords in Southeast Alaska preserve evidence of North Pacific Ocean climate variability as recorded by both instrument networks and satellite observations. Multicore samples EW0408-32MC and EW0408-43MC were investigated with 137Cs and excess 210Pb geochronometry, three-dimensional computed tomography, high-resolution scanning XRF geochemistry, and organic stable isotope analyses. EW0408-32MC (57.162°N, 135.357°W, 146 m depth) is a moderately bioturbated continuous record that spans AD ∼1930–2004. EW0408-43MC (56.965°N, 135.268°W, 91 m depth) is composed of laminated diatom oozes, a turbidite, and a hypopycnal plume (river flood) deposit. A discontinuous event-based varve chronology indicates 43MC spans AD ∼1940–1981. Decadal-scale fluctuations in sedimentary Br/Cl ratios accurately reflect changes in marine organic matter accumulation that display the same temporal pattern as that of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. An estimated Sitka summer productivity parameter calibrated using SeaWiFS satellite observations support these relationships. The correlation of North Pacific climate regime states, primary productivity, and sediment geochemistry indicate the accumulation of biogenic sediment in Southeast Alaska temperate fjords can be used as a sensitive recorder of past productivity variability, and by inference, past climate conditions in the high-latitude Gulf of Alaska.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51A2287H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51A2287H"><span>The role of the NAO on the North Atlantic hydrological conditions and its interplay with the EA and SCAND atmospheric patterns</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hernandez, A.; Rubio-Ingles, M. J.; Shanahan, T. M.; Sáez, A.; Raposeiro, P. M.; Vázquez-Loureiro, D.; Sánchez-López, G.; Gonçalves, V. M.; Bao, R.; Trigo, R.; Giralt, S.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The NAO is the main atmospheric circulation mode controlling the largest fraction of the North Atlantic climate variability. It is defined by the normalized air pressure difference between the Azores High and the Iceland Low as the southern and northern centers of action of the dipole respectively. The NAO pattern has large influence over the precipitation regime in the North Atlantic and the western facade of Europe. Thus, the Lake Azul (São Miguel island, Azores archipelago), with a strategic location in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean, is influenced by variations on intensity and position of the southern NAO center of action. The reconstruction of the past hydrological conditions in lake location for the last 700 years was obtained by means of high resolution δD plant leaf wax analyses, a proxy for the Precipitation/Evaporation ratio. The 700 years of climatic history included the end of the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA), the Little Ice Age (LIA) and the modern Global Warming (GW). The hydrological results showed multidecadal variations with no particular conditions at any climatic period. Overall, the MCA (1285 - 1350 AD) displayed mostly dry conditions, the LIA (1350 - 1820 AD) was mainly wet and, the last 200 years of record showed highly variable conditions. The lake Azul hydrological variations have been compared with a wide range of additional proxy datasets, including: documentary, ice, tree rings, speleothem, lacustrine and oceanic records from the North Atlantic. This comparison has allowed us to understand the decadal and centennial imprints of the NAO as well as to infer its interaction with other relevant large-scale circulation patterns over this sector, such as the Eastern Atlantic (EA) and the Scandinavian (SCAND) climate modes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EurSS..46..721P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EurSS..46..721P"><span>Climate and soil salinity in the deserts of Central Asia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Pankova, E. I.; Konyushkova, M. V.</p> <p>2013-07-01</p> <p>A comparative analysis of climatic and soil salinity characteristics of the deserts of Central Asia, including deserts of the Turan Depression, the Gobi Desert, and deserts of the Dzungar and Tarim depressions was performed. The climatic characteristics—the degree of aridity, the degree of continentality, and the amount and regime of precipitation—are different in these deserts. No direct relationships between the areas occupied by the automorphic salt-affected soils and the aridity of the climate are observed in the studied regions. In the automorphic landscapes of Asian deserts, the degree and chemistry of the soil salinization and the distribution of salt-affected soils are controlled by the history of the particular territories rather than by their modern climatic conditions. The presence and properties of the salt-bearing rocks and the eolian migration of salts play the most significant role. The deficit of moisture in the modern climate favors the preservation of salt accumulations in places of their origin. The specific features of the climate, including the regime of precipitation, affect the redistribution of salts in the profiles of automorphic salt-affected soils. An increase in the degree of climatic continentality is accompanied by the decrease in the intensity of weathering and initial accumulation of salts. A different situation is observed in the soils of hydromorphic desert landscapes, in which the degree of salinity of the surface horizons and the area occupied by salt-affected soils are directly influenced by the modern climatic conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24374801','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24374801"><span>Extreme climate, rather than population history, explains mid-facial morphology of Northern Asians.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Evteev, Andrej; Cardini, Andrea L; Morozova, Irina; O'Higgins, Paul</p> <p>2014-03-01</p> <p>Previous studies have examined mid-facial cold adaptation among either widely dispersed and genetically very diverse groups of humans isolated for tens of thousands of years, or among very closely related groups spread over climatically different regions. Here we present a study of one East Asian and seven North Asian populations in which we examine the evidence for convergent adaptations of the mid-face to a very cold climate. Our findings indicate that mid-facial morphology is strongly associated with climatic variables that contrast the temperate climate of East Asians and the very cold and dry climate of North Asians. This is also the case when either maxillary or nasal cavity measurements are considered alone. The association remains significant when mtDNA distances among populations are taken into account. The morphological contrasts between populations are consistent with physiological predictions and prior studies of mid-facial cold adaptation in more temperate regions, but among North Asians there appear to be some previously undescribed morphological features that might be considered as adaptive to extreme cold. To investigate this further, analyses of the seven North Asian populations alone suggest that mid-facial morphology remains strongly associated with climate, particularly winter precipitation, contrasting coastal Arctic and continental climates. However, the residual covariation among North Asian mid-facial morphology and climate when genetic distances are considered, is not significant. These findings point to modern adaptations to extreme climate that might be relevant to our understanding of the mid-facial morphology of fossil hominins that lived during glaciations. Copyright © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC51B0808A','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC51B0808A"><span>Holocene Vegetation and Fire Dynamics for Ecosystem Management in the Spruce-Moss Domain in Northwestern Québec</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Andy, H.; Blarquez, O.; Grondin, P.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Facing the depletion of the wood resource in Québec and possible threats such as climate change, actors of the forest sector urge the need for a scientific frame to the forest management. A set of reference conditions has been developed for defining management targets that will help to keep forests within their natural range of variability according to the preindustrial period (XIX-XX centuries). Those reference conditions are based on the stands age-class distribution under a given fire regime that enable to define the percentage of old-growth forest (>100 years) to be maintained in a landscape. For the western spruce-moss domain in Québec, the fire return interval (FRI) is equal to 150 years resulting in a target of 48% of old-growth forests. Yet, this target supposes that the environment and the ecosystem processes are homogeneous for an entire bioclimatic domain of 175 000 km2. By using a Redundancy Analysis (RDA) on modern inventories data on natural and human disturbances; climate and physical variables and forest composition, we were able to distinguish 5 main zones where interactions between stands and their environment are homogeneous and where local management targets could be developed. We then used 10 published sedimentary pollens and charcoal series in order to reconstruct the holocene fire and vegetation dynamics for those zones. Vegetation deduced from the analysis of the pollen diagrams showed that the long-term vegetation dynamics are zone specific indicating that the modern forest composition is a result of the Holocene trajectories occurring within each zone. Charcoals series were statistically analyzed for past fire detection and long-term FRI reconstruction. They suggest that for the entire territory the holocene FRI range from 174 to 265 years resulting in old-growth forests percentage within 44 and 65% depending on the zone. Hence, we conclude that current management targets should be revised to fit more with local forests ecosystem variability at the landscape scale and that reference condition should be supplemented with data on the long-term fire dynamics and forest composition variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25207544','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25207544"><span>A spring forward for hominin evolution in East Africa.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Cuthbert, Mark O; Ashley, Gail M</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Groundwater is essential to modern human survival during drought periods. There is also growing geological evidence of springs associated with stone tools and hominin fossils in the East African Rift System (EARS) during a critical period for hominin evolution (from 1.8 Ma). However it is not known how vulnerable these springs may have been to climate variability and whether groundwater availability may have played a part in human evolution. Recent interdisciplinary research at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, has documented climate fluctuations attributable to astronomic forcing and the presence of paleosprings directly associated with archaeological sites. Using palaeogeological reconstruction and groundwater modelling of the Olduvai Gorge paleo-catchment, we show how spring discharge was likely linked to East African climate variability of annual to Milankovitch cycle timescales. Under decadal to centennial timescales, spring flow would have been relatively invariant providing good water resource resilience through long droughts. For multi-millennial periods, modelled spring flows lag groundwater recharge by 100 s to 1000 years. The lag creates long buffer periods allowing hominins to adapt to new habitats as potable surface water from rivers or lakes became increasingly scarce. Localised groundwater systems are likely to have been widespread within the EARS providing refugia and intense competition during dry periods, thus being an important factor in natural selection and evolution, as well as a vital resource during hominin dispersal within and out of Africa.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMEP53C0841C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMEP53C0841C"><span>Revisiting Melton: Analyzing the correlation structure of geomorphological and climatological parameters</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Carothers, R. A.; Sangireddy, H.; Passalacqua, P.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>In his expansive 1957 study of over 80 basins in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, Mark Melton measured key morphometric, soil, land cover, and climatic parameters [Melton, 1957]. He identified correlations between morphological parameters and climatic regimes in an attempt to characterize the geomorphology of the basin as a function of climate and vegetation. Using modern techniques such as high resolution digital terrain models in combination with high spatial resolution weather station records, vector soil maps, seamless raster geological data, and land cover vector maps, we revisit Melton's 1957 dataset with the following hypotheses: (1) Patterns of channelization carry strong, codependent signatures in the form of statistical correlations of rainfall variability, soil type, and vegetation patterns. (2) Channelization patterns reflect the erosion processes on sub-catchment scale and the subsequent processes of vegetation recovery and gullying. In order to characterize various topographic and climatic parameters, we obtain elevation and land cover data from the USGS National Elevation dataset, climate data from the Western Regional Climate Center and PRISM climate group database, and soil type from the USDA STATSGO soil database. We generate a correlative high resolution database on vegetation, soil cover, lithology, and climatology for the basins identified by Melton in his 1957 study. Using the GeoNet framework developed by Passalacqua et al. [2010], we extract various morphological parameters such as slope, drainage density, and stream frequency. We also calculate metrics for patterns of channelization such as number of channelized pixels in a basin and channel head density. In order to understand the correlation structure between climate and morphological variables, we compute the Pearson's correlation coefficient similar to Melton's analysis and also explore other statistical procedures to characterize the feedbacks between these variables. By identifying the differences in Melton's and our results, we address the influence of climate over the degree of channel dissection in the landscape. References: Melton, M. A. (1957). An analysis of the relations among elements of climate, surface properties, and geomorphology (No. CU-TR-11). COLUMBIA UNIV NEW YORK Passalacqua, P., Do Trung, T., Foufoula-Georgiou, E., Sapiro, G., & Dietrich, W. E. (2010). A geometric framework for channel network extraction from lidar: Nonlinear diffusion and geodesic paths. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (2003-2012), 115(F1). PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University, http://prism.oregonstate.edu, created 4 Feb 2004 Soil Survey Staff, Natural Resources Conservation Service, United States Department of Agriculture. U.S. General Soil Map (STATSGO2). Available online at http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov USGS National Map Viewer, United States Geological Survey. Web. 10 June 2013. http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ Western U.S. Historical Climate Summaries, Western Regional Climate Group, 2013. Web. 10 June 2013. http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/Climsum.html</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_10");'>10</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li class="active"><span>12</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_12 --> <div id="page_13" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li class="active"><span>13</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="241"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMGC53A1256W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMGC53A1256W"><span>Climate change and the rising cost of living for forests in the southwestern United States and beyond</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Williams, P.; Allen, C. D.; Macalady, A. K.; Griffin, D.; Woodhouse, C. A.; Meko, D. M.; Swetnam, T. W.; Rauscher, S.; Seager, R.; Grissino-Mayer, H.; Dean, J.; Cook, E.; Gangodagamage, C.; Cai, M.; McDowell, N. G.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>As climate changes, drought may reduce tree productivity and survival across many forest ecosystems; however, the relative influence of specific climate parameters on forest decline is poorly understood. We derive a forest drought-stress index (FDSI) for the southwestern United States using a comprehensive tree-ring dataset representing CE 1000-2007. FDSI is approximately equally influenced by warm-season atmospheric moisture demand (largely controlled by temperature) and cold-season precipitation, together explaining 82% of FDSI variability. Correspondence between FDSI and measures of forest productivity, mortality, bark-beetle outbreak, and wildfire validate FDSI as a holistic indicator of forest vigor throughout the region. In fact, the exceptionally large burned areas in 2002, 2011, and 2012 were all predictable based upon FDSI. If atmospheric moisture demand continues increasing as projected by climate models, average forest drought stress levels by the 2050s will exceed those of the worst megadroughts in at least 1000 years. Collectively, these results foreshadow 21st century changes in southwestern forest structures and compositions, with a transition of southwestern forests, and perhaps water-limited forests globally, toward distributions unfamiliar to modern civilization.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16..409B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16..409B"><span>Thermohaline circulation and its box models simulation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bazyura, Kateryna; Polonsky, Alexander; Sannikov, Viktor</p> <p>2014-05-01</p> <p>Ocean Thermochaline circulation (THC) is the part of large-scale World Ocean circulation and one of the main climate system components. It is generated by global meridional density gradients, which are controlled by surface heat and freshwater fluxes. THC regulates climate variability on different timescales (from decades to thousands years) [Stocker (2000), Clark (2002)]. Study of paleoclimatic evidences of abrupt and dramatic changes in ocean-atmosphere system in the past (such as, Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events or Younger Dryas, see e.g., [Rahmstorf (2002), Alley & Clark(1999)]) shows that these events are connected with THC regimes. At different times during last 120,000 years, three THC modes have prevailed in the Atlantic. They can be labeled as stadial, interstadial and Heinrich modes or as cold, warm and off mode. THC collapse (or thermohaline catastrophe) can be one of the consequences of global warming (including modern anthropogenic climate changes occurring at the moment). The ideas underlying different box-model studies, possibility of thermochaline catastrophe in present and past are discussed in this presentation. Response of generalized four box model of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation [developing the model of Griffies & Tzippermann (1995)] on periodic, stochastic and linear forcing is studied in details. To estimate climatic parameters of the box model we used monthly salinity and temperature data of ECMWF operational Ocean Reanalysis System 3 (ORA-S3) and data from atmospheric NCEP/NCAR reanalysis on precipitation, and heat fluxes for 1959-2011. Mean values, amplitude of seasonal cycle, amplitudes and periods of typical interdecadal oscillations, white noise level, linear trend coefficients and their significance level were estimated for every hydrophysical parameter. In response to intense freshwater or heat forcing, THC regime can change resulting in thermohaline catastrophe. We analyze relevant thresholds of external forcing in cases of using linear and nonlinear seawater state equation. In the frame of four-box model it is shown that: 1) The occurrence of the thermohaline catastrophe, which is likely happened at Younger Dryas period or developed as Heinrich events in the past, is improbable in modern climate epoch. 2) Choice of nonlinear seawater equitation of state leads to stabilization of warm mode of THC, which corresponds to modern climate state. 3) Typical white noise in heat and freshwater fluxes leads to generation of multidecadal oscillations of volume transport. Time-scale of these oscillations coincides with Atlantic Multidecadal oscillation periodicity. So, it is shown that that recent climate is characterized by quasi-periodical stable multidecadal THC warm regime. Stocker, T. F., 2000: Past and future reorganisations in the climate system. Quat. Sci.Rev, Vol. 19, P.301-319. Clark U., 2002: The role of the thermohaline circulation in abrupt climate change. Nature. Vol. 415, P.863-869. Rahmstorf S., 2002: Ocean circulation and climate during the past 120000 years. Nature. Vol. 419, P.207-214. Alley, R. B. & Clark, P. U., 1999: The deglaciation of the Northern Hemisphere: a global perspective. Annu.Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. Vol. 27, P.149-182. Griffies S.M., Tziperman E., 1995: A linear thermohaline oscillator driven by stochastic atmospheric forcing. Journal of Climate. Vol. 8. P. 2440-2453.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70073401','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70073401"><span>Changes in North Atlantic deep-sea temperature during climatic fluctuations of the last 25,000 years based on ostracode Mg/Ca ratios</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Dwyer, Gary S.; Cronin, Thomas M.; Baker, Paul A.; Rodriguez-Lazaro, Julio</p> <p>2000-01-01</p> <p>We reconstructed three time series of last glacial-to-present deep-sea temperature from deep and intermediate water sediment cores from the western North Atlantic using Mg/Ca ratios of benthic ostracode shells. Although the Mg/Ca data show considerable variability (“scatter”) that is common to single-shell chemical analyses, comparisons between cores, between core top shells and modern bottom water temperatures (BWT), and comparison to other paleo-BWT proxies, among other factors, suggest that multiple-shell average Mg/Ca ratios provide reliable estimates of BWT history at these sites. The BWT records show not only glacial-to-interglacial variations but also indicate BWT changes during the deglacial and within the Holocene interglacial stage. At the deeper sites (4500- and 3400-m water depth), BWT decreased during the last glacial maximum (LGM), the late Holocene, and possibly during the Younger Dryas. Maximum deep-sea warming occurred during the latest deglacial and early Holocene, when BWT exceeded modern values by as much as 2.5°C. This warming was apparently most intense around 3000 m, the depth of the modern-day core of North Atlantic deep water (NADW). The BWT variations at the deeper water sites are consistent with changes in thermohaline circulation: warmer BWT signifies enhanced NADW influence relative to Antarctic bottom water (AABW). Thus maximum NADW production and associated heat flux likely occurred during the early Holocene and decreased abruptly around 6500 years B.P., a finding that is largely consistent with paleonutrient studies in the deep North Atlantic. BWT changes in intermediate waters (1000-m water depth) of the subtropical gyre roughly parallel the deep BWT variations including dramatic mid-Holocene cooling of around 4°C. Joint consideration of the Mg/Ca-based BWT estimates and benthic oxygen isotopes suggests that the cooling was accompanied by a decrease in salinity at this site. Subsequently, intermediate waters warmed to modern values that match those of the early Holocene maximum of ∼7°C. Intermediate water BWT changes must also be driven by changes in ocean circulation. These results thus provide independent evidence that supports the hypothesis that deep-ocean circulation is closely linked to climate change over a range of timescales regardless of the mean climate state. More generally, the results further demonstrate the potential of benthic Mg/Ca ratios as a tool for reconstructing past ocean and climate conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ESuD....6..271M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ESuD....6..271M"><span>Estimates of late Cenozoic climate change relevant to Earth surface processes in tectonically active orogens</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Mutz, Sebastian G.; Ehlers, Todd A.; Werner, Martin; Lohmann, Gerrit; Stepanek, Christian; Li, Jingmin</p> <p>2018-04-01</p> <p>The denudation history of active orogens is often interpreted in the context of modern climate gradients. Here we address the validity of this approach and ask what are the spatial and temporal variations in palaeoclimate for a latitudinally diverse range of active orogens? We do this using high-resolution (T159, ca. 80 × 80 km at the Equator) palaeoclimate simulations from the ECHAM5 global atmospheric general circulation model and a statistical cluster analysis of climate over different orogens (Andes, Himalayas, SE Alaska, Pacific NW USA). Time periods and boundary conditions considered include the Pliocene (PLIO, ˜ 3 Ma), the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ˜ 21 ka), mid-Holocene (MH, ˜ 6 ka), and pre-industrial (PI, reference year 1850). The regional simulated climates of each orogen are described by means of cluster analyses based on the variability in precipitation, 2 m air temperature, the intra-annual amplitude of these values, and monsoonal wind speeds where appropriate. Results indicate the largest differences in the PI climate existed for the LGM and PLIO climates in the form of widespread cooling and reduced precipitation in the LGM and warming and enhanced precipitation during the PLIO. The LGM climate shows the largest deviation in annual precipitation from the PI climate and shows enhanced precipitation in the temperate Andes and coastal regions for both SE Alaska and the US Pacific Northwest. Furthermore, LGM precipitation is reduced in the western Himalayas and enhanced in the eastern Himalayas, resulting in a shift of the wettest regional climates eastward along the orogen. The cluster-analysis results also suggest more climatic variability across latitudes east of the Andes in the PLIO climate than in other time slice experiments conducted here. Taken together, these results highlight significant changes in late Cenozoic regional climatology over the last ˜ 3 Myr. Comparison of simulated climate with proxy-based reconstructions for the MH and LGM reveal satisfactory to good performance of the model in reproducing precipitation changes, although in some cases discrepancies between neighbouring proxy observations highlight contradictions between proxy observations themselves. Finally, we document regions where the largest magnitudes of late Cenozoic changes in precipitation and temperature occur and offer the highest potential for future observational studies that quantify the impact of climate change on denudation and weathering rates.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015CliPD..11.2121S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015CliPD..11.2121S"><span>Eastern Andean environmental and climate synthesis for the last 2000 years BP from terrestrial pollen and charcoal records of Patagonia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sottile, G. D.; Echeverria, M. E.; Mancini, M. V.; Bianchi, M. M.; Marcos, M. A.; Bamonte, F. P.</p> <p>2015-06-01</p> <p>The Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds (SWW) constitute an important zonal circulation system that dominates the dynamics of Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude climate. Little is known about climatic changes in the Southern South America in comparison to the Northern Hemisphere due to the low density of proxy records, and adequate chronology and sampling resolution to address environmental changes of the last 2000 years. Since 2009, new pollen and charcoal records from bog and lakes in northern and southern Patagonia at the east side of the Andes have been published with an adequate calibration of pollen assemblages related to modern vegetation and ecological behaviour. In this work we improve the chronological control of some eastern Andean previously published sequences and integrate pollen and charcoal dataset available east of the Andes to interpret possible environmental and SWW variability at centennial time scales. Through the analysis of modern and past hydric balance dynamics we compare these scenarios with other western Andean SWW sensitive proxy records for the last 2000 years. Due to the distinct precipitation regimes that exist between Northern (40-45° S) and Southern Patagonia (48-52° S) pollen sites locations, shifts on latitudinal and strength of the SWW results in large changes on hydric availability on forest and steppe communities. Therefore, we can interpret fossil pollen dataset as changes on paleohydric balance at every single site by the construction of paleohydric indices and comparison to charcoal records during the last 2000 cal yrs BP. Our composite pollen-based Northern and Southern Patagonia indices can be interpreted as changes in latitudinal variation and intensity of the SWW respectively. Dataset integration suggest poleward SWW between 2000 and 750 cal yrs BP and northward-weaker SWW during the Little Ice Age (750-200 cal yrs BP). These SWW variations are synchronous to Patagonian fire activity major shifts. We found an in phase fire regime (in terms of timing of biomass burning) between northern Patagonia Monte shrubland and Southern Patagonia steppe environments. Conversely, there is an antiphase fire regime between Northern and Southern Patagonia forest and forest-steppe ecotone environments. SWW variability may be associated to ENSO variability especially during the last millennia. For the last 200 cal yrs BP we can concluded that the SWW belt were more intense and poleward than the previous interval. Our composite pollen-based SWW indices show the potential of pollen dataset integration to improve the understanding of paleohydric variability especially for the last 2000 millennial in Patagonia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP54A..04P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP54A..04P"><span>Holocene Paleoceanographic Environments at the Chukchi-Alaskan Margin: Implications for Future Changes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Polyak, L.; Nam, S. I.; Dipre, G.; Kim, S. Y.; Ortiz, J. D.; Darby, D. A.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The impacts of the North Pacific oceanic and atmospheric system on the Arctic Ocean result in accelerated sea-ice retreat and related changes in hydrography and biota in the western Arctic. Paleoclimatic records from the Pacific sector of the Arctic are key for understanding the long-term history of these interactions. As opposed to stratigraphically long but strongly compressed sediment cores recovered from the deep Arctic Ocean, sediment depocenters on the Chukchi-Alaskan margin yield continuous, medium to high resolution records formed since the last deglaciation. While early Holocene conditions were non-analogous to modern environments due to the effects of prolonged deglaciation and insufficiently high sea levels, mid to late Holocene sediments are more relevant for recent and modern climate variability. Notably, a large depocenter at the Alaskan margin has sedimentation rates estimated as high as a few millimeters per year, thus providing a decadal to near-annual resolution. This high accumulation can be explained by sediment delivery via the Alaskan Coastal Current originating from the Bering Sea and supposedly controlled by the Aleutian Low pressure center. Preliminary results from sediment cores recovering the last several centuries, along with a comparison with other paleoclimatic proxy records from the Arctic-North Pacific region, indicate a persistent role of the Aleutian Low in the Bering Strait inflow and attendant deposition. More proxy studies are underway to reconstruct the history of this circulation system and its relationship with sea ice extent. The expected results will improve our understanding of natural variability in oceanic and atmospheric conditions at the Chukchi-Alaskan margin, a critical area for modulating the Arctic climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1435191','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1435191"><span>Potential impacts of climate change on the built environment: ASHRAE climate zones, building codes and national energy efficiency</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>New, Joshua Ryan; Kumar, Jitendra; Hoffman, Forrest M.</p> <p></p> <p>Statement of the Problem: ASHRAE releases updates to 90.1 “Energy Standard for Buildings except Low-Rise Residential Buildings” every three years resulting in a 3.7%-17.3% increase in energy efficiency for buildings with each release. This is adopted by or informs building codes in nations across the globe, is the National Standard for the US, and individual states elect which release year of the standard they will enforce. These codes are built upon Standard 169 “Climatic Data for Building Design Standards,” the latest 2017 release of which defines climate zones based on 8, 118 weather stations throughout the world and data frommore » the past 8-25 years. This data may not be indicative of the weather that new buildings built today, will see during their upcoming 30-120 year lifespan. Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: Using more modern, high-resolution datasets from climate satellites, IPCC climate models (PCM and HadGCM), high performance computing resources (Titan) and new capabilities for clustering and optimization the authors briefly analyzed different methods for redefining climate zones. Using bottom-up analysis of multiple meteorological variables which were the subject matter, experts selected as being important to energy consumption, rather than the heating/cooling degree days currently used. Findings: We analyzed the accuracy of redefined climate zones, compared to current climate zones and how the climate zones moved under different climate change scenarios, and quantified the accuracy of these methods on a local level, at a national scale for the US. Conclusion & Significance: There is likely to be a significant annual, national energy and cost (billions USD) savings that could be realized by adjusting climate zones to take into account anticipated trends or scenarios in regional weather patterns.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP24A..06C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP24A..06C"><span>Holocene and Last Interglacial climate of the Faroe Islands from sedimentary leaf wax hydrogen isotopes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Curtin, L.; D'Andrea, W. J.; de Wet, G.; Balascio, N.; Bradley, R. S.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The climate of the North Atlantic region is extremely sensitive to changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation, and understanding past natural variability in North Atlantic climate provides important context for modern climate change. Here, we present Holocene and Eemian hydrogen isotope (δD) records from leaf waxes preserved in lacustrine sediments from the North Atlantic Faroe Islands and interpret them as a proxy for temperature and hydroclimate variability. In addition to helping to constrain the timing and amplitude of climate evolution during each of these interglacial periods, the data can be used to directly compare Eemian and Holocene climate using the same proxy from the same terrestrial location. Of the leaf waxes measured, the δD values of long-chain and mid-chain n-alkanes showed two different signals, which we interpret to represent leaf water δD values and lake water δD values, respectively. The δD values for long-chain and mid-chain fatty acids were most similar to the mid-chain n-alkanes, and likely represent a mixture of terrestrial and aquatic sources. Leaf wax-inferred δD values of precipitation during the early Holocene (10,000 to 8,000 cal yr BP) are 13‰ enriched compared to the remainder of the Holocene (after 8,000 cal yr BP), which show relatively stable values over time. Inferred lake water δD values decreased slowly over the late Holocene, suggesting a gradual transition to a wetter climate after 4,000 cal yr BP. At 2,000 cal yr BP there was a significant change in the distribution of leaf waxes that suggests a transition from shrubland to grassland, but which pre-dates the pollen evidence for this transition. The last interglacial period has been suggested as an analog for future climate conditions. We found that long-chain alkane δD values from the Eemian are most similar to the earliest Holocene, which corroborate previous pollen studies suggesting a warmer climate at the Faroe Islands during this period.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018CliPa..14..193B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018CliPa..14..193B"><span>The Ross Sea Dipole - temperature, snow accumulation and sea ice variability in the Ross Sea region, Antarctica, over the past 2700 years</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bertler, Nancy A. N.; Conway, Howard; Dahl-Jensen, Dorthe; Emanuelsson, Daniel B.; Winstrup, Mai; Vallelonga, Paul T.; Lee, James E.; Brook, Ed J.; Severinghaus, Jeffrey P.; Fudge, Taylor J.; Keller, Elizabeth D.; Baisden, W. Troy; Hindmarsh, Richard C. A.; Neff, Peter D.; Blunier, Thomas; Edwards, Ross; Mayewski, Paul A.; Kipfstuhl, Sepp; Buizert, Christo; Canessa, Silvia; Dadic, Ruzica; Kjær, Helle A.; Kurbatov, Andrei; Zhang, Dongqi; Waddington, Edwin D.; Baccolo, Giovanni; Beers, Thomas; Brightley, Hannah J.; Carter, Lionel; Clemens-Sewall, David; Ciobanu, Viorela G.; Delmonte, Barbara; Eling, Lukas; Ellis, Aja; Ganesh, Shruthi; Golledge, Nicholas R.; Haines, Skylar; Handley, Michael; Hawley, Robert L.; Hogan, Chad M.; Johnson, Katelyn M.; Korotkikh, Elena; Lowry, Daniel P.; Mandeno, Darcy; McKay, Robert M.; Menking, James A.; Naish, Timothy R.; Noerling, Caroline; Ollive, Agathe; Orsi, Anaïs; Proemse, Bernadette C.; Pyne, Alexander R.; Pyne, Rebecca L.; Renwick, James; Scherer, Reed P.; Semper, Stefanie; Simonsen, Marius; Sneed, Sharon B.; Steig, Eric J.; Tuohy, Andrea; Ulayottil Venugopal, Abhijith; Valero-Delgado, Fernando; Venkatesh, Janani; Wang, Feitang; Wang, Shimeng; Winski, Dominic A.; Winton, V. Holly L.; Whiteford, Arran; Xiao, Cunde; Yang, Jiao; Zhang, Xin</p> <p>2018-02-01</p> <p>High-resolution, well-dated climate archives provide an opportunity to investigate the dynamic interactions of climate patterns relevant for future projections. Here, we present data from a new, annually dated ice core record from the eastern Ross Sea, named the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) ice core. Comparison of this record with climate reanalysis data for the 1979-2012 interval shows that RICE reliably captures temperature and snow precipitation variability in the region. Trends over the past 2700 years in RICE are shown to be distinct from those in West Antarctica and the western Ross Sea captured by other ice cores. For most of this interval, the eastern Ross Sea was warming (or showing isotopic enrichment for other reasons), with increased snow accumulation and perhaps decreased sea ice concentration. However, West Antarctica cooled and the western Ross Sea showed no significant isotope temperature trend. This pattern here is referred to as the Ross Sea Dipole. Notably, during the Little Ice Age, West Antarctica and the western Ross Sea experienced colder than average temperatures, while the eastern Ross Sea underwent a period of warming or increased isotopic enrichment. From the 17th century onwards, this dipole relationship changed. All three regions show current warming, with snow accumulation declining in West Antarctica and the eastern Ross Sea but increasing in the western Ross Sea. We interpret this pattern as reflecting an increase in sea ice in the eastern Ross Sea with perhaps the establishment of a modern Roosevelt Island polynya as a local moisture source for RICE.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51B..01Q','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51B..01Q"><span>Tales from the South (and West) Pacific in the Common Era: A Climate Proxy Perspective (Invited)</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Quinn, T. M.; Taylor, F. W.; Partin, J. W.; Maupin, C. R.; Hereid, K. A.; Gorman, M. K.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>The southwest Pacific is a major source of tropical climate variability through heat and moisture exchanges associated with the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) and the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). These variations are especially significant at the annual, interannual (El Niño-Southern Oscillation, ENSO), and multi-decadal timescales. Gridded SST data products are available in the pre-satellite era in this region for the past ~130 years, although data density is a significant issue for the older half of these records. Time series of salinity (SSS) and rainfall from this region are exceedingly rare. Thus, climate proxy records must be used to reconstruct SST, SSS, and rainfall variations in the Common Era (CE) in the tropical Pacific. The analytical laboratory for paleoclimate studies at UT has focused its research efforts into producing climate proxy time series from southwest tropical Pacific using modern and fossil corals, and speleothems. Our most recent results are summarized in this presentation, although much of this work is still in progress. Coral climate records have been generated from Sabine Bank, Vanuatu (16°S, 166°E) and Misima Island, Papua New Guinea (10.6°S, 152.8°E). The Vanuatu coral record of monthly resolved Sr/Ca variations extends back to the late 18th century. All strong ENSO warm phase events of the 20th century observed in the instrumental record are also observed in the coral record. We note that several ENSO warm phase events in the 19th century portion of the coral record are comparable in size to that recorded in response to the 1982/1983 and 1997/1998 events. The Misima coral record of monthly resolved δ18O and Sr/Ca variations spans the interval ~1414-1645 CE — the heart of the Little Ice Age. Amplitude modulation of interannual variability is observed in this LIA record, much like what is observed during the relatively quiescent period of 1920-1950 in the 20th century instrumental and proxy records of ENSO. However, the amplitude of individual ENSO warm phase events in the LIA record is reduced, relative to that of the 1941/1942 ENSO warm phase events observed in a near modern coral record from Misima. Speleothem climate records have been generated from Espirito Santo, Vanuatu (15.5°S, 167°E) and Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands (~9°S, 160°E). The Vanuatu record of δ18O variations is from a fast-growing speleothem (~1-3 mm/year), which yields a record of rainfall variability spanning ~1670-2005 CE, as dated by U-Th disequilibrium techniques. Interannual changes in speleothem δ18O appear to capture ENSO events and subsequent reorganizations of the SPCZ. The Vanuatu speleothem δ18O record also exhibits concentrations of variance on the decadal scale. The Guadalcanal record of δ18O variations is also from a fast-growing speleothem (~1-4 mm/year), which yields a record of rainfall variability spanning ~1650-2010 CE, as dated by U-Th disequilibrium techniques. The δ18O records from both of these stalagmites provide evidence for changes in convection in the equatorial WPWP region of the SPCZ: the rising limb of the Pacific Walker Circulation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014PNAS..111.4375P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014PNAS..111.4375P"><span>Pluvials, droughts, the Mongol Empire, and modern Mongolia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Pederson, Neil; Hessl, Amy E.; Baatarbileg, Nachin; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.; Di Cosmo, Nicola</p> <p>2014-03-01</p> <p>Although many studies have associated the demise of complex societies with deteriorating climate, few have investigated the connection between an ameliorating environment, surplus resources, energy, and the rise of empires. The 13th-century Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Although drought has been proposed as one factor that spurred these conquests, no high-resolution moisture data are available during the rapid development of the Mongol Empire. Here we present a 1,112-y tree-ring reconstruction of warm-season water balance derived from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees in central Mongolia. Our reconstruction accounts for 56% of the variability in the regional water balance and is significantly correlated with steppe productivity across central Mongolia. In combination with a gridded temperature reconstruction, our results indicate that the regional climate during the conquests of Chinggis Khan's (Genghis Khan's) 13th-century Mongol Empire was warm and persistently wet. This period, characterized by 15 consecutive years of above-average moisture in central Mongolia and coinciding with the rise of Chinggis Khan, is unprecedented over the last 1,112 y. We propose that these climate conditions promoted high grassland productivity and favored the formation of Mongol political and military power. Tree-ring and meteorological data also suggest that the early 21st-century drought in central Mongolia was the hottest drought in the last 1,112 y, consistent with projections of warming over Inner Asia. Future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar heat droughts, with potentially severe consequences for modern Mongolia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24616521','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24616521"><span>Pluvials, droughts, the Mongol Empire, and modern Mongolia.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Pederson, Neil; Hessl, Amy E; Baatarbileg, Nachin; Anchukaitis, Kevin J; Di Cosmo, Nicola</p> <p>2014-03-25</p> <p>Although many studies have associated the demise of complex societies with deteriorating climate, few have investigated the connection between an ameliorating environment, surplus resources, energy, and the rise of empires. The 13th-century Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Although drought has been proposed as one factor that spurred these conquests, no high-resolution moisture data are available during the rapid development of the Mongol Empire. Here we present a 1,112-y tree-ring reconstruction of warm-season water balance derived from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees in central Mongolia. Our reconstruction accounts for 56% of the variability in the regional water balance and is significantly correlated with steppe productivity across central Mongolia. In combination with a gridded temperature reconstruction, our results indicate that the regional climate during the conquests of Chinggis Khan's (Genghis Khan's) 13th-century Mongol Empire was warm and persistently wet. This period, characterized by 15 consecutive years of above-average moisture in central Mongolia and coinciding with the rise of Chinggis Khan, is unprecedented over the last 1,112 y. We propose that these climate conditions promoted high grassland productivity and favored the formation of Mongol political and military power. Tree-ring and meteorological data also suggest that the early 21st-century drought in central Mongolia was the hottest drought in the last 1,112 y, consistent with projections of warming over Inner Asia. Future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar heat droughts, with potentially severe consequences for modern Mongolia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFM.H21G1125F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFM.H21G1125F"><span>Hindcasting 2000 years of Pacific sea and land surface temperature changes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Friedel, M. J.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>Studies of climate variability often rely on surface temperature change anomalies. Here regional Pacific sea and land surface temperature data were extended from a century to millennial scale using a type of unsupervised artificial neural network. In this approach, the imputation of annual climate fields was done based on the nonlinear and self-organized relations among modern (1897-2003) sea and land temperature and paleo-proxy (0-2000) land-based Palmer Drought Severity Index data vectors. Stochastic crossvalidation (using median values from 30 Monte Carlo trials) of the model revealed that predictions of temperature change over the regions of 00N30N, 30N60N, 60N-90N, and 60S-60N latitude were globally unbiased and highly correlated (Spearman Rho > 0.94) with the modern observations. The prediction uncertainty was characterized as nonlinear with minor (<5%) local bias attributed to unaccounted for measurement uncertainty. Quantile modeling of the reconstructed temperature change data revealed interruptions in the long-term climate record by short-term changes that coincided with the so-called Medieval Warm Period (~900 to ~1250) and Little Ice Age (~1400 to ~1850). These interruptions were present at all latitudes but the structure shifted toward lower magnitudes as the region moved toward the equator. In all cases, the maximum temperature change was slightly greater than during the Medieval Warm Period. These findings demonstrated that the El Niño Southern Oscillation operated over a continuum of temporal and spatial scales. These findings have broad economic, political, and social implications with respect to developing water resource policies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3970536','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3970536"><span>Pluvials, droughts, the Mongol Empire, and modern Mongolia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Pederson, Neil; Hessl, Amy E.; Baatarbileg, Nachin; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.; Di Cosmo, Nicola</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Although many studies have associated the demise of complex societies with deteriorating climate, few have investigated the connection between an ameliorating environment, surplus resources, energy, and the rise of empires. The 13th-century Mongol Empire was the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Although drought has been proposed as one factor that spurred these conquests, no high-resolution moisture data are available during the rapid development of the Mongol Empire. Here we present a 1,112-y tree-ring reconstruction of warm-season water balance derived from Siberian pine (Pinus sibirica) trees in central Mongolia. Our reconstruction accounts for 56% of the variability in the regional water balance and is significantly correlated with steppe productivity across central Mongolia. In combination with a gridded temperature reconstruction, our results indicate that the regional climate during the conquests of Chinggis Khan’s (Genghis Khan’s) 13th-century Mongol Empire was warm and persistently wet. This period, characterized by 15 consecutive years of above-average moisture in central Mongolia and coinciding with the rise of Chinggis Khan, is unprecedented over the last 1,112 y. We propose that these climate conditions promoted high grassland productivity and favored the formation of Mongol political and military power. Tree-ring and meteorological data also suggest that the early 21st-century drought in central Mongolia was the hottest drought in the last 1,112 y, consistent with projections of warming over Inner Asia. Future warming may overwhelm increases in precipitation leading to similar heat droughts, with potentially severe consequences for modern Mongolia. PMID:24616521</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1913222M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1913222M"><span>Late Cenozoic Climate Change and its Implications on the Denudation of Orogen Syntaxes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Mutz, Sebastian; Ehlers, Todd</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>The denudation history of active orogens is often interpreted in the context of modern climate gradients. Despite the influence of climatic conditions on erosion rates, information about paleoclimate evolution is often not available and thus not considered when denudation histories are interpreted. In this study, we analyze output from paleoclimate simulations conducted with ECHAM5-wiso at T159 (ca. 80x80km) resolution. Specifically, we analyze simulations of pre-industrial (PI, pre-1850), Mid-Holocene (MH, ca. 6ka), Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ca. 21ka) and Pliocene (PLIO, ca. 3ka) climates and focus on a selection of orogen syntaxes as study regions (e.g. Himalaya, SE Alaska, Cascadia, and Central Andes). For the selected region, we carry out a cluster analysis using a hybrid of hierarchical and k-means clustering procedures using mean annual temperature (MAT), temperature amplitude, mean annual precipitation (MAP), precipitation amplitude and u-wind and v-wind in different months to provide a general overview of paleoclimates in the study regions. Additionally, we quantify differences between paleoclimates by applying two-group linear discrimination analyses to the simulation output for a similar selection of variables. Results indicate the largest differences to the PI climate are observed for the LGM and PLIO climates in the form of widespread cooling and reduced precipitation in the LGM and warming and enhanced precipitation during the PLIO. These global trends can be observed for most locations in the investigated areas, but the strength varies regionally and the trends in precipitation are less uniform than trends in temperatures. The LGM climate shows the largest deviation in annual precipitation from the PI climate, and shows enhanced precipitation in the temperate Andes, and coastal regions for both SE Alaska and the US Pacific Northwest Pacific. Furthermore, LGM precipitation is reduced in the western Himalayas and enhanced in the eastern Himalayas, resulting in a shift of the wettest regional climates eastward along the orogen towards the eastern syntax. The cluster-analysis results also suggest more climatic variability across latitudes east of the Andes in the PLIO climate than in other time-slice experiments conducted here. Results from the discriminant analysis show that the quantified differences in climate and the relative contribution to these differences by each of the analyzed parameters are highly variable in space for each of the paleoclimates. Taken together, these results highlight significant changes in Late Cenozoic regional climatology over active orogens on time scales ranging from glacial cycles to geologic. As a result, future interpretation of recent and paleo denudation rates in these areas from sediment flux inventories, cosmogenic radionuclides, or low-temperature thermochronology techniques warrant careful consideration of these changes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7333472','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7333472"><span>Geography and health.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Kratochvil, O</p> <p>1981-01-01</p> <p>The most important factors affecting the social, economic, and cultural development are geography, climate, and social fertility. The interaction of these different influences are described, and their relationship with the world's health as shown. Of particular interest is how the introduction of modern techniques can counteract certain of the effects of climatic and geographical factors. Health in the various population groups of the world results from the successive interplay of a long series of factors. Generally, it is known that poverty and ignorance breed disease. Possibly the extent to which economic and educational development is dependent upon climatic and other geographical factors is not fully realized. The distribution of humans over the world's surface is governed by the availability of food and water. Agriculture alone allows the congregation of large populations and the establishment of settled communities, villages, and eventually towns. Social development ensues which may give rise to culture and science. This will allow the birth of industry and the improvement of agricultural techniques. Together they will permit economic development, capable in turn of supporting a competent administration, part of which will cater to the sanitary and medical needs of the community and contribute the health of the population. Apart from the general consequences of living in isolation, or in communities of humankind's social and cultural development, there is also an immediate and direct effect upon health. Complete isolation interferes with the transmission of cultural traditions and with the transmission of most infections. Community life creates chances of mutual infection with resulting immunity. Large cities present many opportunities for acquiring numerous infections and building up resistance to them at an early age. Their endemicity will replace epidemics. The extremely cold climate of the arctic and subarctic regions is usually well tolerated provided deficiency in sunlight is made up of consumption of large amounts of vitamins. The temperate climates are the most favorable to human life. The mild climate is nearly as variable. Hot and dry climates as a rule are well tolerated by humans. Hot and humid climates are less favorable to human well-being and health. Modern transport makes it possible to feed humans in barren areas, to furnish them with comfortable dwellings. New health methods may protect against various germs and parasites of which they would otherwise have been the prey.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20170002756','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20170002756"><span>Large-Scale and Global Hydrology. Chapter 92</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Rodell, Matthew; Beaudoing, Hiroko Kato; Koster, Randal; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Famiglietti, James S.; Lakshmi, Venkat</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>Powered by the sun, water moves continuously between and through Earths oceanic, atmospheric, and terrestrial reservoirs. It enables life, shapes Earths surface, and responds to and influences climate change. Scientists measure various features of the water cycle using a combination of ground, airborne, and space-based observations, and seek to characterize it at multiple scales with the aid of numerical models. Over time our understanding of the water cycle and ability to quantify it have improved, owing to advances in observational capabilities, the extension of the data record, and increases in computing power and storage. Here we present some of the most recent estimates of global and continental ocean basin scale water cycle stocks and fluxes and provide examples of modern numerical modeling systems and reanalyses.Further, we discuss prospects for predicting water cycle variability at seasonal and longer scales, which is complicated by a changing climate and direct human impacts related to water management and agriculture. Changes to the water cycle will be among the most obvious and important facets of climate change, thus it is crucial that we continue to invest in our ability to monitor it.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70039757','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70039757"><span>Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Williams, A. Park; Allen, Craig D.; Macalady, Alison K.; Griffin, Daniel; Woodhouse, Connie A.; Meko, David M.; Swetnam, Thomas W.; Rauscher, Sara A.; Seager, Richard; Grissino-Mayer, Henri D.; Dean, Jeffrey S.; Cook, Edward R.; Gangodagamage, Chandana; Cai, Michael; McDowell, Nathan G.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>s the climate changes, drought may reduce tree productivity and survival across many forest ecosystems; however, the relative influence of specific climate parameters on forest decline is poorly understood. We derive a forest drought-stress index (FDSI) for the southwestern United States using a comprehensive tree-ring data set representing AD 1000-2007. The FDSI is approximately equally influenced by the warm-season vapour-pressure deficit (largely controlled by temperature) and cold-season precipitation, together explaining 82% of the FDSI variability. Correspondence between the FDSI and measures of forest productivity, mortality, bark-beetle outbreak and wildfire validate the FDSI as a holistic forest-vigour indicator. If the vapour-pressure deficit continues increasing as projected by climate models, the mean forest drought-stress by the 2050s will exceed that of the most severe droughts in the past 1,000 years. Collectively, the results foreshadow twenty-first-century changes in forest structures and compositions, with transition of forests in the southwestern United States, and perhaps water-limited forests globally, towards distributions unfamiliar to modern civilization.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018GPC...161..231P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018GPC...161..231P"><span>Regional climate and vegetation response to orbital forcing within the mid-Pliocene Warm Period: A study using HadCM3</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Prescott, C. L.; Dolan, A. M.; Haywood, A. M.; Hunter, S. J.; Tindall, J. C.</p> <p>2018-02-01</p> <p>Regional climate and environmental variability in response to orbital forcing during interglacial events within the mid-Piacenzian (Pliocene) Warm Period (mPWP; 3.264-3.025 Ma) has been rarely studied using climate and vegetation models. Here we use climate and vegetation model simulations to predict changes in regional vegetation patterns in response to orbital forcing for four different interglacial events within the mPWP (Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) G17, K1, KM3 and KM5c). The efficacy of model-predicted changes in regional vegetation is assessed by reference to selected high temporal resolution palaeobotanical studies that are theoretically capable of discerning vegetation patterns for the selected interglacial stages. Annual mean surface air temperatures for the studied interglacials are between 0.4 °C to 0.7 °C higher than a comparable Pliocene experiment using modern orbital parameters. Increased spring/summer and reduced autumn/winter insolation in the Northern Hemisphere during MIS G17, K1 and KM3 enhances seasonality in surface air temperature. The two most robust and notable regional responses to this in vegetation cover occur in North America and continental Eurasia, where forests are replaced by more open-types of vegetation (grasslands and shrubland). In these regions our model results appear to be inconsistent with local palaeobotanical data. The orbitally driven changes in seasonal temperature and precipitation lead to a 30% annual reduction in available deep soil moisture (2.0 m from surface), a critical parameter for forest growth, and subsequent reduction in the geographical coverage of forest-type vegetation; a phenomenon not seen in comparable simulations of Pliocene climate and vegetation run with a modern orbital configuration. Our results demonstrate the importance of examining model performance under a range of realistic orbital forcing scenarios within any defined time interval (e.g. mPWP). Additional orbitally resolved records of regional vegetation are needed to further examine the validity of model-predicted regional climate and vegetation responses in greater detail.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP22A..08W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP22A..08W"><span>A 13,500 Year Record of Holocene Climate, Fire and Vegetation from Swan Lake, Idaho, USA</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Wahl, D.; Anderson, L.; Miller, D. M.; Rosario, J. J.; Starratt, S.; McGeehin, J. P.; Bright, J. E.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Modern climate dynamics in the western US are largely determined by a combination of two factors: 1) the strength and position of midlatitude pressure systems, which, in turn, are responsible for the generation and trajectory of winter storms, and 2) the strength of the North America Monsoon (NAM) which brings summer precipitation northward in response to northern hemisphere warming. Paleoclimate records from the Great Basin of the western US suggest some coherence in the timing of major climatic shifts during the Holocene. However, knowledge of the timing and magnitude of these changes at local scales, which can help explain the relative contribution of midlatitude winter storms vs. NAM, is lacking in many places. Here we present new data that constrain the timing and magnitude of late glacial and Holocene climate variability in the northeastern Great Basin, provide insight into past spatial variability of precipitation patterns in the western US, and improve our understanding of regional scale influences on Great Basin climate. In 2011, a 7.65 m sediment core was raised from Swan Lake, a small wetland located in southeastern Idaho that was formed in the spillway channel created by the catastrophic flooding of Lake Bonneville ~18 ka BP. Pollen, charcoal, clumped isotope, diatom, ostracod, and sedimentological data are used to reconstruct vegetation, fire history, and lake level/groundwater flux over the last 13,500 years. Age control is provided by 19 AMS radiocarbon determinations, which are reported as thousands of calibrated years before present (ka BP). This effort builds on earlier work by Bright (1966) who reported on pollen, macrofossils, and sediment type from Swan Lake. Our data suggest cool and wet conditions prevailed until around 12.3 ka BP, after which a drying trend begins. The early Holocene was marked by a warmer, drier climate, which persisted until around 6.2 ka BP. Moister conditions after 6.2 ka BP likely resulted from a combination of enhanced NAM and increased winter storm activity. The period from 4.6-1.1 ka BP is characterized by increased variability, although it appears to have been relatively dry compared to the preceding two millennia. Data suggest that climate in the area was relatively wet from 1.1 ka BP to the present.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_11");'>11</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li class="active"><span>13</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_13 --> <div id="page_14" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li class="active"><span>14</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="261"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011CliPD...7.2159S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011CliPD...7.2159S"><span>Synchronicity of the East Asian Summer Monsoon variability and Northern Hemisphere climate change since the last deglaciation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Shinozaki, T.; Uchida, M.; Minoura, K.; Kondo, M.; Rella, S. F.; Shibata, Y.</p> <p>2011-06-01</p> <p>Understanding of the mechanism of the East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) is required for the prediction of climate change in East Asia in a scenario of modern global warming. In this study, we present high-resolution climate records from peat sediments in Northeast Japan to reconstruct the EASM variability based on peat bulk cellulose δ13C since the last deglaciation. We used a 8.8 m long peat sediment core collected from the Tashiro Bog, Northeast Japan. Based on 42 14C measurements, the core bottom reaches ~15.5 ka. δ13C, accumulation rate and accumulation flux time-series correlate well to Greenland ice core δ18O variability, suggesting that the climate record in Northeast Japan is linked to global climate changes. The δ13C record at Tashiro Bog and other paleo-EASM records at Northeast and Southern China consistently demonstrate that hydrological environments were spatially different in mid-high and mid-low latitude regions over the last 15.5 kyr. During global cooling (warming) periods, mid-high and mid-low latitude regions were characterized by wet (dry) and dry (wet) environments, respectively. We suggest that these climatic patterns are related to the migration of the EASM-related rain belt during global climate changes, as a consequence of variations in intensity and location of both the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the Western Pacific Subtropical High (STH). The location of the rain belt largely influences the East Asian hydrological environment. Our δ13C time-series are characterized by a 1230 yr throughout the Holocene and a 680 yr periodicity during the early Holocene. The 1230 yr periodicity is in agreement with North Atlantic ice-rafted debris (IRD) events, suggesting a teleconnection between the Northeast Japan and the North Atlantic during the Holocene. In addition, it is the first evidence that the Bond events were recorded in terrestrial sediment in Japan. On the other hand, the 680 yr periodicity between 10.0 and 8.0 kyr is consistent with a prominent 649 yr solar activity cycle, suggesting that solar activity affected EASM precipitation during the Hypsithermal, when orbital-scale solar insolation was at a maximum in the Northern Hemisphere.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5046900','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5046900"><span>Modelling the climatic niche of turtles: a deep-time perspective</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Schmidt, Daniela N.; Valdes, Paul J.; Holroyd, Patricia A.; Farnsworth, Alexander</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>Ectotherms have close physiological ties with the thermal environment; consequently, the impact of future climate change on their biogeographic distributions is of major interest. Here, we use the modern and deep-time fossil record of testudines (turtles, tortoises, and terrapins) to provide the first test of climate on the niche limits of both extant and extinct (Late Cretaceous, Maastrichtian) taxa. Ecological niche models are used to assess niche overlap in model projections for key testudine ecotypes and families. An ordination framework is applied to quantify metrics of niche change (stability, expansion, and unfilling) between the Maastrichtian and present day. Results indicate that niche stability over evolutionary timescales varies between testudine clades. Groups that originated in the Early Cretaceous show climatic niche stability, whereas those diversifying towards the end of the Cretaceous display larger niche expansion towards the modern. Temperature is the dominant driver of modern and past distributions, whereas precipitation is important for freshwater turtle ranges. Our findings demonstrate that testudines were able to occupy warmer climates than present day in the geological record. However, the projected rate and magnitude of future environmental change, in concert with other conservation threats, presents challenges for acclimation or adaptation. PMID:27655766</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4847867','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4847867"><span>Neandertal versus Modern Human Dietary Responses to Climatic Fluctuations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>El Zaatari, Sireen; Grine, Frederick E.; Ungar, Peter S.; Hublin, Jean-Jacques</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The Neandertal lineage developed successfully throughout western Eurasia and effectively survived the harsh and severely changing environments of the alternating glacial/interglacial cycles from the middle of the Pleistocene until Marine Isotope Stage 3. Yet, towards the end of this stage, at the time of deteriorating climatic conditions that eventually led to the Last Glacial Maximum, and soon after modern humans entered western Eurasia, the Neandertals disappeared. Western Eurasia was by then exclusively occupied by modern humans. We use occlusal molar microwear texture analysis to examine aspects of diet in western Eurasian Paleolithic hominins in relation to fluctuations in food supplies that resulted from the oscillating climatic conditions of the Pleistocene. There is demonstrable evidence for differences in behavior that distinguish Upper Paleolithic humans from members of the Neandertal lineage. Specifically, whereas the Neandertals altered their diets in response to changing paleoecological conditions, the diets of Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have been less affected by slight changes in vegetation/climatic conditions but were linked to changes in their technological complexes. The results of this study also indicate differences in resource exploitation strategies between these two hominin groups. We argue that these differences in subsistence strategies, if they had already been established at the time of the first contact between these two hominin taxa, may have given modern humans an advantage over the Neandertals, and may have contributed to the persistence of our species despite habitat-related changes in food availabilities associated with climate fluctuations. PMID:27119336</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27119336','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27119336"><span>Neandertal versus Modern Human Dietary Responses to Climatic Fluctuations.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>El Zaatari, Sireen; Grine, Frederick E; Ungar, Peter S; Hublin, Jean-Jacques</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The Neandertal lineage developed successfully throughout western Eurasia and effectively survived the harsh and severely changing environments of the alternating glacial/interglacial cycles from the middle of the Pleistocene until Marine Isotope Stage 3. Yet, towards the end of this stage, at the time of deteriorating climatic conditions that eventually led to the Last Glacial Maximum, and soon after modern humans entered western Eurasia, the Neandertals disappeared. Western Eurasia was by then exclusively occupied by modern humans. We use occlusal molar microwear texture analysis to examine aspects of diet in western Eurasian Paleolithic hominins in relation to fluctuations in food supplies that resulted from the oscillating climatic conditions of the Pleistocene. There is demonstrable evidence for differences in behavior that distinguish Upper Paleolithic humans from members of the Neandertal lineage. Specifically, whereas the Neandertals altered their diets in response to changing paleoecological conditions, the diets of Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have been less affected by slight changes in vegetation/climatic conditions but were linked to changes in their technological complexes. The results of this study also indicate differences in resource exploitation strategies between these two hominin groups. We argue that these differences in subsistence strategies, if they had already been established at the time of the first contact between these two hominin taxa, may have given modern humans an advantage over the Neandertals, and may have contributed to the persistence of our species despite habitat-related changes in food availabilities associated with climate fluctuations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41E..05D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41E..05D"><span>Relationship between annual precipitation variability and ENSO in Southern California for the Common Era (last 2,000 years)</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>DU, X.; Hendy, I. L.; Hinnov, L.; Brown, E. T.; Schimmelmann, A.; Pak, D. K.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has a major influence on Southern California's hydroclimate as demonstrated by both historical observations and model simulations. Santa Barbara Basin (SBB) off Southern California preserves a unique varved (i.e. annually laminated) marine sedimentary archive of modern and Holocene hydroclimate variability, notably including the transition from the regionally dry Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) to the wetter Little Ice Age (LIA). Here we present sub-annually resolved scanning XRF elemental counts for the last 2,000 years in SBB from core SPR0901-03KC. Titanium (associated with silicate minerals) is delivered more efficiently to SBB sediments during times of enhanced river flow and in the Mediterranean climate of Southern California, river flow only occurs after precipitation. The Ti record suggests that the precipitation frequency was reduced during the MCA except for a pluvial episode at CE 1075-1121, but increased during the LIA. Time series analysis of Ti counts indicates ENSO variability robustly increased during the intervals CE 450-520, 650-720, 980-1150, 1380-1550 and 1720-1750, and experienced relatively quiescent intervals between CE 50-150, 250-400, 550-650, 750-950, 1150-1280 and 1580-1620. Generally the LIA in Southern California is characterized by more active ENSO variability with long periodicities (4-7 yr) and multi-decadal variability (54 yr). MCA drought episodes were associated with less active ENSO. Active ENSO variability in Southern California during the last 2,000 years coincided with reconstructed southward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) suggesting the ITCZ may play a role in the waxing and waning of ENSO teleconnections between the central Pacific and the west coast of North America.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4354156','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4354156"><span>Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Ray, Deepak K.; Gerber, James S.; MacDonald, Graham K.; West, Paul C.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Many studies have examined the role of mean climate change in agriculture, but an understanding of the influence of inter-annual climate variations on crop yields in different regions remains elusive. We use detailed crop statistics time series for ~13,500 political units to examine how recent climate variability led to variations in maize, rice, wheat and soybean crop yields worldwide. While some areas show no significant influence of climate variability, in substantial areas of the global breadbaskets, >60% of the yield variability can be explained by climate variability. Globally, climate variability accounts for roughly a third (~32–39%) of the observed yield variability. Our study uniquely illustrates spatial patterns in the relationship between climate variability and crop yield variability, highlighting where variations in temperature, precipitation or their interaction explain yield variability. We discuss key drivers for the observed variations to target further research and policy interventions geared towards buffering future crop production from climate variability. PMID:25609225</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008GPC....61..242O','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008GPC....61..242O"><span>Biomization and quantitative climate reconstruction techniques in northwestern Mexico—With an application to four Holocene pollen sequences</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ortega-Rosas, C. I.; Guiot, J.; Peñalba, M. C.; Ortiz-Acosta, M. E.</p> <p>2008-04-01</p> <p>New paleovegetation and paleoclimatic reconstructions from the Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) in northwestern Mexico are presented. This work involves climate and biome reconstruction using Plant Functional Types (PFT) assigned to pollen taxa. We used fossil pollen data from four Holocene peat bogs located at different altitudes (1500-2000 m) at the border region of Sonora and Chihuahua at around 28° N latitude (Ortega-Rosas, C.I. 2003. Palinología de la Ciénega de Camilo: datos para la historia de la vegetación y el clima del Holoceno medio y superior en el NW de la Sierra Madre Occidental, Sonora, Mexico. Master Thesis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México D.F.; Ortega-Rosas, C.I., Peñalba, M.C., Guiot, J. Holocene altitudinal shifts in vegetation belts and environmental changes in the Sierra Madre Occidental, Northwestern Mexico. Submitted for publication of Palaeobotany and Palynology). The closest modern pollen data come from pollen analysis across an altitudinal transect from the Sonoran Desert towards the highlands of the temperate SMO at the same latitude (Ortega-Rosas, C.I. 2003. Palinología de la Ciénega de Camilo: datos para la historia de la vegetación y el clima del Holoceno medio y superior en el NW de la Sierra Madre Occidental, Sonora, Mexico. Master Thesis, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México D.F.). An additional modern pollen dataset of 400 sites across NW Mexico and the SW United States was compiled from different sources (Davis, O.K., 1995. Climate and vegetation pattern in surface samples from arid western U.S.A.: application to Holocene climatic reconstruction. Palynology 19, 95-119, North American Pollen Database, Latin-American Pollen Database, personal data, and different scientific papers). For the biomization method (Prentice, I.C., Guiot, J., Huntley, B., Jolly, D., Cheddadi, R., 1996. Reconstructing biomes from paleoecological data: a general method and its application to European pollen data at 0 and 6 ka. Climate Dynamics 12, 185-194), we modified the pollen-PFT and PFT-biomes assignation of Thompson and Anderson (Thompson, R.S., Anderson, K.H., 2000. Biomes of western North America at 18,000; 6000 and 0 14C yr BP reconstructed from pollen and packrat midden data. Journal of Biogeography 27, 555-584) for a better representation of the modern vegetation of NW Mexico. The biome reconstruction method was validated with the modern pollen sites and applied to the fossil sites. Our results show that, during the early Holocene, a cool conifer forest extended at least down to 1700 m, while today this biome is present above 2000 m in the Chihuahua state. The Younger Dryas event was recorded in one site with cold and dry conditions. The reconstructed annual temperature for this period was 3°-6 °C colder than today, and annual precipitation was 250 mm lower than at present (900 mm/yr). The middle Holocene after 9200 cal yr BP was marked by a warming trend, reaching temperatures 2 °C warmer than today at 7000 cal yr BP, and by the installation of a warm mixed forest, the present day biome, at 1700 m elevation, while at higher elevations (1900 m) the cool conifer forest was still present. Summer precipitation was 200 mm/yr above the early Holocene values, suggesting that monsoon-like conditions strengthened since 9200 cal yr BP at this region. During the last 4000 yr, the same warm mixed forest was reconstructed below 1700 m and a conifer forest above 1700 m. A great variability of vegetation and climate patterns was recorded for the last 3000 yr particularly at high elevation sites, where warming and cooling trends would be coeval of the Medieval warm period and Little Ice Age, likely related to ENSO variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70155870','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70155870"><span>Energy flow and the “grassification” of desert shrublands</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Betancourt, Julio L.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>In our directionally and continuously changing world, history still matters, and it does so in increasingly novel and important ways. Human adaptation to global change will rely heavily on robust baselines of historic environmental variability and detailed understanding of how both past and modern ecosystems have responded to both individual and multiple stressors. The question of global change has motivated an upsurge in paleoecological studies that span the late Quaternary and the modern era, and has inspired a growing consideration of time as a fundamental axis in ecology (1). A major challenge in developing pertinent ecological baselines remains how to fuse, into continuous time series, observations and experiments from living systems with paleoecological reconstructions from the same sites (2, 3). Tracing and disentangling complex responses to environmental stress from paleological to present-day communities is especially daunting; for example, how climate change; accelerated land use; and biological invasions are influencing the flows of water, nutrients, and energy. The paper by Terry and Rowe in PNAS (4) is a shining example of how modern ecology and paleoecology can be spliced together to decipher how ecological processes unfold over time scales inaccessible to direct observation or experimentation, and how they can be disrupted by human impacts.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011QSRv...30.2755D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011QSRv...30.2755D"><span>Human choices and environmental constraints: deciphering the variability of large game procurement from Mousterian to Aurignacian times (MIS 5-3) in southwestern France</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Discamps, Emmanuel; Jaubert, Jacques; Bachellerie, François</p> <p>2011-09-01</p> <p>The evolution in the selection of prey made by past humans, especially the Neandertals and the first anatomically modern humans, has been widely debated. Between Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5 and 3, the accuracy of absolute dating is still insufficient to precisely correlate paleoclimatic and archaeological data. It is often difficult, therefore, to estimate to what extent changes in species procurement are correlated with either climate fluctuations or deliberate cultural choices in terms of subsistence behavior. Here, the full development of archeostratigraphy and Bayesian statistical analysis of absolute dates allows the archeological and paleoclimatic chronologies to be compared. The variability in hunted fauna is investigated using multivariate statistical analysis of quantitative faunal lists of 148 assemblages from 39 archeological sequences from MIS 5 through MIS 3. Despite significant intra-technocomplex variability, it is possible to identify major shifts in the human diet during these stages. The integration of archeological data, paleoclimatic proxies and the ecological characteristics of the different species of prey shows that the shifts in large game hunting can be explained by an adaptation of the human groups to climatic fluctuations. However, even if Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic men adapted to changes in their environment and to contrasting landscapes, they ultimately belonged to the ecosystems of the past and were limited by environmental constraints.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMPP41B1511B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMPP41B1511B"><span>Development of the Wintertime Sr/Ca-SST Record from Red Sea Corals as a Proxy for the North Atlantic Oscillation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bernstein, W. N.; Hughen, K. A.</p> <p>2009-12-01</p> <p>The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is one of the most pronounced and influential patterns in winter atmospheric circulation variability. This meridional redistribution of atmospheric mass across the Atlantic Ocean produces large changes in the intensity, number and direction of storms generated within the basin, and the regional climate of surrounding continents. The NAO exerts a significant impact on society, through influences on agriculture, fisheries, water management, energy generation and coastal development. NAO effects on climate extend from eastern North America across Europe to the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Changes in NAO behavior during the late 20th century have been linked to global warming; yet despite its importance, the causes and long-term patterns of NAO variability in the past remain poorly understood. In order to better predict the influence of the NAO on climate in the future, it is critical to examine multi-century NAO variability. The Red Sea is an excellent location from which to generate long NAO records for two reasons. First, patterns of wintertime sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS) in the Red Sea are highly correlated with NAO variability (Visbeck et al. 2001; Hurrell et al. 2003). Second, the tropical/subtropical Red Sea region contains fast growing long-lived massive Porites spp. corals with annually banded skeletons. These corals are ideal for generating well-dated high-resolution paleoclimatic records that extend well beyond the instrumental period. Here we present a study of winter SST and NAO variability in the Red sea region based on coral Sr/Ca data. In 2008, we collected multiple drill cores ranging in length from 1 to 4.1 meters from Porites corals at six sites spanning a large SST gradient. Sr/Ca measurements from multiple corals will be regressed against 23 years of satellite SST data, expanding the SST range over which we calibrate. A sampling resolution of 0.5mm will yield greater than bi-weekly temporal resolution for downcore SST reconstructions over the past 140 years, which will be used to evaluate the ability of the coral proxies to capture instrumental NAO variability. We expect that this winter Sr/Ca record will exhibit coherence with the NAO similar to that evident between Red Sea instrumental SST and the NAO index. Future work will involve construction of an NAO record back ~400 years, using the multi-core Sr/Ca-SST calibration applied to a combination of new records from modern and fossil coral material. This record will be examined to identify changes in NAO behavior as a function of frequency, and to compare frequency-dependent NAO variability between periods of relatively warm and cold hemispheric climate. This analysis will allow us to test the hypothesized link between NAO behavior and mean climate conditions, and if confirmed, improve predictions regarding the role of the NAO in impending climate change. References Hurrell, J. et al., 2003, in The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climatic Significance and Environmental Impact, 1-36 (A.G.U., Washington, D.C.). Visbeck, M. et al., 2001, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 98, 12876-12877.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..19.4082V','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..19.4082V"><span>ICDP project DeepCHALLA: reconstructing East African climate change and environmental history over the past 250,000 years</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Verschuren, Dirk; Van Daele, Maarten; Wolff, Christian; Waldmann, Nicolas; Meyer, Inka; Ombori, Titus; Peterse, Francien; O'Grady, Ryan; Schnurrenberger, Doug; Olago, Daniel</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>Sediments on the bottom of Lake Challa, a 92-meter deep crater lake on the border of Kenya and Tanzania near Mt. Kilimanjaro, contain a uniquely long and continuous record of past climate and environmental change. The near-equatorial location and exceptional quality of this natural archive provide great opportunities to study tropical climate variability at both short (inter-annual to decadal) and long (glacial-interglacial) time scales; and the influence of this climate variability on the region's freshwater resources, the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, and the history of the East African landscape in which modern humans (our species, Homo sapiens) evolved and have lived ever since. Supported in part by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Programme (ICDP), the DeepCHALLA project has now recovered the sediment record of Lake Challa down to 214.8 meter below the lake floor, with almost certain 100% cover of the uppermost 121.3 meter (ca.150,000 year BP to present) and estimated 85% cover over the lower part of the sequence, down to the lowermost distinct reflector in the available seismic stratigraphy. This reflector represents a 2 meter thick layer of volcanic sand and silt deposited ca.250,000 years ago, and overlies still older silty lacustrine clays deposited during early lake development. Down-hole logging produced continuous profiles of in-situ sediment composition that confer an absolute depth scale to both the recovered cores and their three-dimensional representation in seismic stratigraphy. As readily observed through the transparent core liners, Lake Challa sediments are finely laminated throughout most of the recovered sequence. Combined with the great time span, the exquisite temporal resolution of these sediments promises to greatly increase our understanding of tropical climate and ecosystem dynamics, and create a long-awaited equatorial counterpart to the high-latitude climate records extracted from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19848193','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19848193"><span>[Constructing climate. From classical climatology to modern climate research].</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Heymann, Matthias</p> <p>2009-01-01</p> <p>Both climate researchers and historians of climate science have conceived climate as a stable and well defined category. This article argues that such a conception is flawed. In the course of the 19th and 20th century the very concept of climate changed considerably. Scientists came up with different definitions and concepts of climate, which implied different understandings, interests, and research approaches. Understanding climate shifted from a timeless, spatial concept at the end of the 19th century to a spaceless, temporal concept at the end of the 20th. Climatologists in the 19th and early 20th centuries considered climate as a set of atmospheric characteristics associated with specific places or regions. In this context, while the weather was subject to change, climate remained largely stable. Of particular interest was the impact of climate on human beings and the environment. In modern climate research at the close of the 20th century, the concept of climate lost its temporal stability. Instead, climate change has become a core feature of the understanding of climate and a focus of research interests. Climate has also lost its immediate association with specific geographical places and become global. The interest is now focused on the impact of human beings on climate. The paper attempts to investigate these conceptual shifts and their origins and impacts in order to provide a more comprehensive perspective on the history of climate research.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EnMan..57..976K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EnMan..57..976K"><span>Farmers' Perceptions of Climate Variability and Factors Influencing Adaptation: Evidence from Anhui and Jiangsu, China</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kibue, Grace Wanjiru; Liu, Xiaoyu; Zheng, Jufeng; zhang, Xuhui; Pan, Genxing; Li, Lianqing; Han, Xiaojun</p> <p>2016-05-01</p> <p>Impacts of climate variability and climate change are on the rise in China posing great threat to agriculture and rural livelihoods. Consequently, China is undertaking research to find solutions of confronting climate change and variability. However, most studies of climate change and variability in China largely fail to address farmers' perceptions of climate variability and adaptation. Yet, without an understanding of farmers' perceptions, strategies are unlikely to be effective. We conducted questionnaire surveys of farmers in two farming regions, Yifeng, Jiangsu and Qinxi, Anhui achieving 280 and 293 responses, respectively. Additionally, we used climatological data to corroborate the farmers' perceptions of climate variability. We found that farmers' were aware of climate variability such that were consistent with climate records. However, perceived impacts of climate variability differed between the two regions and were influenced by farmers' characteristics. In addition, the vast majorities of farmers were yet to make adjustments in their farming practices as a result of numerous challenges. These challenges included socioeconomic and socio-cultural barriers. Results of logit modeling showed that farmers are more likely to adapt to climate variability if contact with extension services, frequency of seeking information, household heads' education, and climate variability perceptions are improved. These results suggest the need for policy makers to understand farmers' perceptions of climate variability and change in order to formulate policies that foster adaptation, and ultimately protect China's agricultural assets.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26796698','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26796698"><span>Farmers' Perceptions of Climate Variability and Factors Influencing Adaptation: Evidence from Anhui and Jiangsu, China.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Kibue, Grace Wanjiru; Liu, Xiaoyu; Zheng, Jufeng; Zhang, Xuhui; Pan, Genxing; Li, Lianqing; Han, Xiaojun</p> <p>2016-05-01</p> <p>Impacts of climate variability and climate change are on the rise in China posing great threat to agriculture and rural livelihoods. Consequently, China is undertaking research to find solutions of confronting climate change and variability. However, most studies of climate change and variability in China largely fail to address farmers' perceptions of climate variability and adaptation. Yet, without an understanding of farmers' perceptions, strategies are unlikely to be effective. We conducted questionnaire surveys of farmers in two farming regions, Yifeng, Jiangsu and Qinxi, Anhui achieving 280 and 293 responses, respectively. Additionally, we used climatological data to corroborate the farmers' perceptions of climate variability. We found that farmers' were aware of climate variability such that were consistent with climate records. However, perceived impacts of climate variability differed between the two regions and were influenced by farmers' characteristics. In addition, the vast majorities of farmers were yet to make adjustments in their farming practices as a result of numerous challenges. These challenges included socioeconomic and socio-cultural barriers. Results of logit modeling showed that farmers are more likely to adapt to climate variability if contact with extension services, frequency of seeking information, household heads' education, and climate variability perceptions are improved. These results suggest the need for policy makers to understand farmers' perceptions of climate variability and change in order to formulate policies that foster adaptation, and ultimately protect China's agricultural assets.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EGUGA..15.9093W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EGUGA..15.9093W"><span>Recent changes in aquatic biota in subarctic Fennoscandia - the role of global and local environmental variables</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Weckström, Jan; Leppänen, Jaakko; Sorvari, Sanna; Kaukolehto, Marjut; Weckström, Kaarina; Korhola, Atte</p> <p>2013-04-01</p> <p>The Arctic, representing a fifth of the earth's surface, is highly sensitive to the predicted future warming and it has indeed been warming up faster than most other regions. This makes the region critically important and highlights the need to investigate the earliest signals of global warming and its impacts on the arctic and subarctic aquatic ecosystems and their biota. It has been demonstrated that many Arctic freshwater ecosystems have already experienced dramatic and unpreceded regime shifts during the last ca. 150 years, primarily driven by climate warming. However, despite the indisputable impact of climate-related variables on freshwater ecosystems other, especially local-scale catchment related variables (e.g. geology, vegetation, human activities) may override the climate signal and become the primary factor in shaping the structure of aquatic ecosystems. Although many studies have contributed to an improved understanding of limnological and hydrobiological features of Artic and subarctic lakes, much information is still needed especially on the interaction between the biotic and abiotic components, i.e. on factors controlling the food web dynamics in these sensitive aquatic ecosystems. This is of special importance as these lakes are of great value in water storage, flood prevention, and maintenance of biodiversity, in addition to which they are vital resources for settlement patterns, food production, recreation, and tourism. In this study we compare the pre-industrial sediment assemblages of primary producers (diatoms and Pediastrum) and primary consumers (cladoceran and chironomids) with their modern assemblages (a top-bottom approach) from 50 subarctic Fennoscandian lakes. We will evaluate the recent regional pattern of changes in aquatic assemblages, and assess how coherent the lakes' responses are across the subarctic area. Moreover, the impact of global (e.g. climate, precipitation) and local (e.g. lake and its catchment characteristics) scale environmental changes on the aquatic biota will be compared and discussed.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18..483K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18..483K"><span>Evaluation of GCMs in the context of regional predictive climate impact studies.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kokorev, Vasily; Anisimov, Oleg</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>Significant improvements in the structure, complexity, and general performance of earth system models (ESMs) have been made in the recent decade. Despite these efforts, the range of uncertainty in predicting regional climate impacts remains large. The problem is two-fold. Firstly, there is an intrinsic conflict between the local and regional scales of climate impacts and adaptation strategies, on one hand, and larger scales, at which ESMs demonstrate better performance, on the other. Secondly, there is a growing understanding that majority of the impacts involve thresholds, and are thus driven by extreme climate events, whereas accent in climate projections is conventionally made on gradual changes in means. In this study we assess the uncertainty in projecting extreme climatic events within a region-specific and process-oriented context by examining the skills and ranking of ESMs. We developed a synthetic regionalization of Northern Eurasia that accounts for the spatial features of modern climatic changes and major environmental and socio-economical impacts. Elements of such fragmentation could be considered as natural focus regions that bridge the gap between the spatial scales adopted in climate-impacts studies and patterns of climate change simulated by ESMs. In each focus region we selected several target meteorological variables that govern the key regional impacts, and examined the ability of the models to replicate their seasonal and annual means and trends by testing them against observations. We performed a similar evaluation with regard to extremes and statistics of the target variables. And lastly, we used the results of these analyses to select sets of models that demonstrate the best performance at selected focus regions with regard to selected sets of target meteorological parameters. Ultimately, we ranked the models according to their skills, identified top-end models that "better than average" reproduce the behavior of climatic parameters, and eliminated the outliers. Since the criteria of selecting the "best" models are somewhat loose, we constructed several regional ensembles consisting of different number of high-ranked models and compared results from these optimized ensembles with observations and with the ensemble of all models. We tested our approach in specific regional application of the terrestrial Russian Arctic, considering permafrost and Artic biomes as key regional climate-dependent systems, and temperature and precipitation characteristics governing their state as target meteorological parameters. Results of this case study are deposited on the web portal www.permafrost.su/gcms</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6094230-natural-energy-vernacular-architecture','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6094230-natural-energy-vernacular-architecture"><span>Natural energy and vernacular architecture</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Fathy, H.</p> <p>1986-01-01</p> <p>This volume presents insights into the indigenous architectural forms in hot arid climates. The author presents his extensive research on climate control, particularly in the Middle East, to demonstrate the advantages of many locally available building materials and traditional building methods. He suggests improved uses of natural energy that can bridge the gap between traditional achievements and modern needs. He argues that various architectural forms in these climates have evolved intuitively from scientifically valid concepts. Such forms combine comfort and beauty, social and physical functionality. He discusses that in substituting modern materials, architects sometimes have ignored the environmental context ofmore » traditional architecture. As a result, individuals may find themselves physically and psychologically uncomfortable in modern structures. His approach, informed by a sensitive humanism, demonstrates the ways in which traditional architectural forms can be of use in solving problems facing contemporary architecture, in particular the critical housing situation in the Third World.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28526288','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28526288"><span>The association between mid-facial morphology and climate in northeast Europe differs from that in north Asia: Implications for understanding the morphology of Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Evteev, Andrej A; Movsesian, Alla A; Grosheva, Alexandra N</p> <p>2017-06-01</p> <p>The climate of northeastern Europe is likely to resemble in many ways Late Pleistocene periglacial conditions in Europe, but there have been relatively few studies exploring the association between climate and morphology in the mid-face of modern northeastern European populations. To fill this gap, we sampled 540 male skulls from 22 European and Near Eastern groups, including 314 skulls from 11 populations from northeastern Europe, to test for possible climate-morphology association at the continental scale. Our results found a moderate and highly significant association (R = 0.48, p = 0.0013, Mantel test) between sets of 23 mid-facial measurements and eight climatic variables. A partial least squares analysis revealed this association to be mostly driven by differences between groups from northeastern Europe and populations from the Mediterranean and the Caucasus. Matrices of between-group genetic distances based on Y-chromosome and mtDNA markers, as well as cranial non-metric and geographic distance matrices, were used to control for the possible influence of shared population history. Irrespective of which measure of neutral between-population distances is taken into account, the association between cranial variables and climate remains significant. The pattern of association between climate and morphology of the mid-face in western Eurasia was then compared to that in east and north Asia. Although differences between the two were found, there were also similarities that support existing functional interpretations of morphology for the bony parts of the upper airways. Last, in a preliminary analysis using a reduced set of measurements, mid-facial morphology of several Upper Paleolithic European Homo sapiens specimens was found to be more similar to groups from northern and northeastern Europe than to southern European populations. Thus, the population of northeastern Europe rather than east and north Asian groups should be used as a model when studying climate-mediated mid-facial morphology of Upper Paleolithic European H. sapiens. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ERL.....9j4006S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014ERL.....9j4006S"><span>Robust features of future climate change impacts on sorghum yields in West Africa</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sultan, B.; Guan, K.; Kouressy, M.; Biasutti, M.; Piani, C.; Hammer, G. L.; McLean, G.; Lobell, D. B.</p> <p>2014-10-01</p> <p>West Africa is highly vulnerable to climate hazards and better quantification and understanding of the impact of climate change on crop yields are urgently needed. Here we provide an assessment of near-term climate change impacts on sorghum yields in West Africa and account for uncertainties both in future climate scenarios and in crop models. Towards this goal, we use simulations of nine bias-corrected CMIP5 climate models and two crop models (SARRA-H and APSIM) to evaluate the robustness of projected crop yield impacts in this area. In broad agreement with the full CMIP5 ensemble, our subset of bias-corrected climate models projects a mean warming of +2.8 °C in the decades of 2031-2060 compared to a baseline of 1961-1990 and a robust change in rainfall in West Africa with less rain in the Western part of the Sahel (Senegal, South-West Mali) and more rain in Central Sahel (Burkina Faso, South-West Niger). Projected rainfall deficits are concentrated in early monsoon season in the Western part of the Sahel while positive rainfall changes are found in late monsoon season all over the Sahel, suggesting a shift in the seasonality of the monsoon. In response to such climate change, but without accounting for direct crop responses to CO2, mean crop yield decreases by about 16-20% and year-to-year variability increases in the Western part of the Sahel, while the eastern domain sees much milder impacts. Such differences in climate and impacts projections between the Western and Eastern parts of the Sahel are highly consistent across the climate and crop models used in this study. We investigate the robustness of impacts for different choices of cultivars, nutrient treatments, and crop responses to CO2. Adverse impacts on mean yield and yield variability are lowest for modern cultivars, as their short and nearly fixed growth cycle appears to be more resilient to the seasonality shift of the monsoon, thus suggesting shorter season varieties could be considered a potential adaptation to ongoing climate changes. Easing nitrogen stress via increasing fertilizer inputs would increase absolute yields, but also make the crops more responsive to climate stresses, thus enhancing the negative impacts of climate change in a relative sense. Finally, CO2 fertilization would significantly offset the negative climate impacts on sorghum yields by about 10%, with drier regions experiencing the largest benefits, though the net impacts of climate change remain negative even after accounting for CO2.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AAS...22521506P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AAS...22521506P"><span>A Modern Update and Usage of Historical Variable Star Catalogs</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Pagnotta, Ashley; Graur, Or; Murray, Zachary; Kruk, Julia; Christie-Dervaux, Lucien; Chen, Dong Yi</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>One of the earliest modern variable star catalogs was constructed by Henrietta Swan Leavitt during her tenure at the Harvard College Observatory (HCO) in the early 1900s. Originally published in 1908, Leavitt's catalog listed 1777 variables in the Magellanic Clouds (MCs). The construction and analysis of this catalog allowed her to subsequently discover the Cepheid period-luminosity relationship, now known as the Leavitt Law. The MC variable star catalogs were updated and expanded by Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin in 1966 and 1971. Although newer studies of the MC variables have been performed since then, the new information has not always been correlated with the old due to a lack of modern descriptors of the stars listed in the Harvard MC catalogs. We will discuss the history of MC variable star catalogs, especially those compiled using the HCO plates, as well as our modernized version of the Leavitt and Payne-Gaposchkin catalogs. Our modern catalog can be used in conjunction with the archival plates (primarily via the Digital Access to a Sky Century @ Harvard scanning project) to study the secular behavior of the MC variable stars over the past century.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_12");'>12</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li class="active"><span>14</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_14 --> <div id="page_15" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li class="active"><span>15</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="281"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC41A1000H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC41A1000H"><span>Macroweather Predictions and Climate Projections using Scaling and Historical Observations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hébert, R.; Lovejoy, S.; Del Rio Amador, L.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>There are two fundamental time scales that are pertinent to decadal forecasts and multidecadal projections. The first is the lifetime of planetary scale structures, about 10 days (equal to the deterministic predictability limit), and the second is - in the anthropocene - the scale at which the forced anthropogenic variability exceeds the internal variability (around 16 - 18 years). These two time scales define three regimes of variability: weather, macroweather and climate that are respectively characterized by increasing, decreasing and then increasing varibility with scale.We discuss how macroweather temperature variability can be skilfully predicted to its theoretical stochastic predictability limits by exploiting its long-range memory with the Stochastic Seasonal and Interannual Prediction System (StocSIPS). At multi-decadal timescales, the temperature response to forcing is approximately linear and this can be exploited to make projections with a Green's function, or Climate Response Function (CRF). To make the problem tractable, we exploit the temporal scaling symmetry and restrict our attention to global mean forcing and temperature response using a scaling CRF characterized by the scaling exponent H and an inner scale of linearity τ. An aerosol linear scaling factor α and a non-linear volcanic damping exponent ν were introduced to account for the large uncertainty in these forcings. We estimate the model and forcing parameters by Bayesian inference using historical data and these allow us to analytically calculate a median (and likely 66% range) for the transient climate response, and for the equilibrium climate sensitivity: 1.6K ([1.5,1.8]K) and 2.4K ([1.9,3.4]K) respectively. Aerosol forcing typically has large uncertainty and we find a modern (2005) forcing very likely range (90%) of [-1.0, -0.3] Wm-2 with median at -0.7 Wm-2. Projecting to 2100, we find that to keep the warming below 1.5 K, future emissions must undergo cuts similar to Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 2.6 for which the probability to remain under 1.5 K is 48%. RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5-like futures overshoot with very high probability. This underscores that over the next century, the state of the environment will be strongly influenced by past, present and future economical policies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMGC24B..07T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMGC24B..07T"><span>Using Water Isotope Tracers to Investigate Past and Present Water Balance Conditions in the Old Crow Flats, Yukon Territory</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Turner, K.; Wolfe, B. B.; Edwards, T. W.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>The Old Crow Flats (OCF), Yukon Territory, is a wetland of international significance that comprises approximately 2700 shallow thermokarst lakes. Located near the northern limit of the boreal forest, the OCF provides vital habitat for abundant wildlife including waterfowl, moose, muskrat, and the Porcupine Caribou Herd, which support the traditional lifestyle of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. Thermokarst lakes, which occupy vast northern regions, are greatly influenced by climate conditions. In the OCF and other regions there have been observations of decreasing water levels and an increase in frequency of lake drainage events over recent decades. Though there is widespread concern that thermokarst landscape changes are accelerating as a result of ongoing climate change, there are few studies that have investigated current and past variability of lake water balances and climate interactions at the landscape scale. As part of a Government of Canada International Polar Year multidisciplinary project, the present and past hydrology of lakes spanning the OCF are being investigated using water isotope tracers and paleolimnological approaches. Water samples were obtained from 57 lakes three times over three ice-free seasons (2007-09) and analyzed for oxygen and hydrogen isotope composition in order to capture seasonal and interannual changes in water balance conditions. Results highlight strong diversity in the hydrology of lakes throughout the OCF. Based on patterns of isotopic evolution and calculations of input source compositions and evaporation-to-inflow ratios, we identified snowmelt-dominated, rainfall-dominated, groundwater-influenced, evaporation-dominated and drained lake types, which represent the dominant hydrological processes influencing lake water balances. Lake physical and catchment land cover characteristics influence dominant input type (rain or snow). Snowmelt-dominated catchments are large relative to lake surface areas and typically contain woodland or large willow land cover that allows for greater snowpack development in contrast to rainfall-dominated lakes, which have catchments dominated by tundra vegetation that are typically smaller relative to lake areas. Precipitation during the three-year study was highly variable and strongly influenced water balance conditions. For example, in years of reduced precipitation, many rainfall-dominated lakes are susceptible to becoming evaporation-dominated late in the ice-free season, whereas prolonged wet conditions can lead to increased thermokarst activity and subsequent lake drainage events. Approaches used in this modern water balance study are readily transferable to other northern thermokarst landscapes in order to develop greater insight into landscape-scale responses to ongoing climate change. Additionally, knowledge of modern water balance variability throughout the OCF provides the basis for interpretation of past limnological conditions, which are being determined through ongoing paleolimnological analyses. Key findings will be used to enhance our ability to anticipate how the water balance of lakes in the OCF will respond to future climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25386910','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25386910"><span>Timing of the departure of ocean biogeochemical cycles from the preindustrial state.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Christian, James R</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Changes in ocean chemistry and climate induced by anthropogenic CO2 affect a broad range of ocean biological and biogeochemical processes; these changes are already well underway. Direct effects of CO2 (e.g. on pH) are prominent among these, but climate model simulations with historical greenhouse gas forcing suggest that physical and biological processes only indirectly forced by CO2 (via the effect of atmospheric CO2 on climate) begin to show anthropogenically-induced trends as early as the 1920s. Dates of emergence of a number of representative ocean fields from the envelope of natural variability are calculated for global means and for spatial 'fingerprints' over a number of geographic regions. Emergence dates are consistent among these methods and insensitive to the exact choice of regions, but are generally earlier with more spatial information included. Emergence dates calculated for individual sampling stations are more variable and generally later, but means across stations are generally consistent with global emergence dates. The last sign reversal of linear trends calculated for periods of 20 or 30 years also functions as a diagnostic of emergence, and is generally consistent with other measures. The last sign reversal among 20 year trends is found to be a conservative measure (biased towards later emergence), while for 30 year trends it is found to have an early emergence bias, relative to emergence dates calculated by departure from the preindustrial mean. These results are largely independent of emission scenario, but the latest-emerging fields show a response to mitigation. A significant anthropogenic component of ocean variability has been present throughout the modern era of ocean observation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4227639','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4227639"><span>Timing of the Departure of Ocean Biogeochemical Cycles from the Preindustrial State</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Christian, James R.</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Changes in ocean chemistry and climate induced by anthropogenic CO2 affect a broad range of ocean biological and biogeochemical processes; these changes are already well underway. Direct effects of CO2 (e.g. on pH) are prominent among these, but climate model simulations with historical greenhouse gas forcing suggest that physical and biological processes only indirectly forced by CO2 (via the effect of atmospheric CO2 on climate) begin to show anthropogenically-induced trends as early as the 1920s. Dates of emergence of a number of representative ocean fields from the envelope of natural variability are calculated for global means and for spatial ‘fingerprints’ over a number of geographic regions. Emergence dates are consistent among these methods and insensitive to the exact choice of regions, but are generally earlier with more spatial information included. Emergence dates calculated for individual sampling stations are more variable and generally later, but means across stations are generally consistent with global emergence dates. The last sign reversal of linear trends calculated for periods of 20 or 30 years also functions as a diagnostic of emergence, and is generally consistent with other measures. The last sign reversal among 20 year trends is found to be a conservative measure (biased towards later emergence), while for 30 year trends it is found to have an early emergence bias, relative to emergence dates calculated by departure from the preindustrial mean. These results are largely independent of emission scenario, but the latest-emerging fields show a response to mitigation. A significant anthropogenic component of ocean variability has been present throughout the modern era of ocean observation. PMID:25386910</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC53C0895P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC53C0895P"><span>Measuring Holocene Indian Summer Monsoon Precipitation through Lake Sedimentary Proxies, Eastern Tibet</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Perello, M. M.; Bird, B. W.; Lei, Y.; Polissar, P. J.; Thompson, L. G.; Yao, T.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The Tibetan Plateau is the headwaters of several major river systems in South Asia, which serve as essential water resources for more than 40% of the world's population. The majority of regional precipitation that sustains these water resources is from the Indian summer monsoon (ISM), which can experience considerably variability in response to local and remote forcings and teleconnections. Despite the ISM's importance, its sensitivity to long term and abrupt changes in climatic boundary conditions is not well established with the modern instrumental record or the available body of paleoclimate data. Here, we present results from an ongoing study that utilizes lake sediment records to provide a longer record of relative levels of precipitation and lake level during the monsoon season. The sediments cores used in this study were collected from five lakes along an east-west transect in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau (87-95°E). Using these records, we assess temporal and spatial variability in the intensity of the ISM throughout the Holocene on decadal frequencies. Multiple proxies, including sedimentology, grain size, geochemistry, terrestrial and aquatic leaf wax isotopes, and diatom community assemblages, are used to assess paleo-precipitation and lake level. Preliminary records from our lakes indicate regional trends in monsoon strength, with higher lake levels in the Early Holocene, but with greater variability in the Late Holocene than in other regional paleoclimate records. We have also observed weak responses in our lakes to the Late Holocene events, the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. These paleoclimate reconstructions furthers our understanding of strong versus weak monsoon intensities and can be incorporated in climate models for predicting future monsoon conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012QuRes..78..513O','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012QuRes..78..513O"><span>Major hydrological regime change along the semiarid western coast of South America during the early Holocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ortega, Cristina; Vargas, Gabriel; Rutllant, José A.; Jackson, Donald; Méndez, César</p> <p>2012-11-01</p> <p>Water availability in the semiarid western coast of Chile (30-32°S) is conditioned by high interannual precipitation variability, reflecting the transition between arid subtropical and moist mid-latitude climates in the Southeastern Pacific Ocean. A paleoclimate reconstruction based on the latest Pleistocene-Holocene geological record from the Quebrada Santa Julia archeological site in Chile (31°50'S) and on modern meteorological mechanisms producing alluvial episodes in this region indicates a major change in the rainfall regime shortly after 8600 cal yr BP. This, together with other paleoclimate proxies along the west coast of South America (34°-14°S), suggests La Niña-like conditions 13,000-8600 cal yr BP. Based on sedimentological and geomorphologic evidence, we hypothesized that the absence of heavy rainfall events in northern Chile and the new hydrological regime that prevailed ca. 8600-5700 cal yr BP in north-central Chile resulted from an increase in the large-scale westerly flow over central Chile, as expected in near-neutral ENSO conditions. This atmospheric circulation anomaly is compatible with an equatorward shift of the influence of the Southeast Pacific Subtropical Anticyclone relative to the early Holocene, prior to the onset of modern ENSO variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28285853','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28285853"><span>Tracking climate change in oligotrophic mountain lakes: Recent hydrology and productivity synergies in Lago de Sanabria (NW Iberian Peninsula).</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Jambrina-Enríquez, Margarita; Recio, Clemente; Vega, José Carlos; Valero-Garcés, Blas</p> <p>2017-07-15</p> <p>Mountain lakes are particularly sensitive to global change as their oligotrophic conditions may be rapidly altered after reaching an ecological threshold, due to increasing human impact and climate change. Sanabria Lake, the largest mountain lake in the Iberian Peninsula and with a recent history of increased human impact in its watershed, provides an opportunity to investigate recent trends in an oligotrophic, hydrologically-open mountain lake, and their relationship with climate, hydrological variability and human pressure. We conducted the first systematic and detailed survey of stable isotope compositions of Sanabria Lake and Tera River together with limnological analyses during 2009-2011. δ 18 O lakewater and δD lakewater seasonal fluctuations are strongly linked to river discharges, and follow the monthly mean isotopic composition of precipitation, which is controlled by NAO dynamics. δ 13 C POM and δ 13 C DIC revealed higher contribution of allochthonous organic matter in winter and spring due to higher river inflow and lower primary productivity. Increased phytoplankton biomass in late summer correlated significantly with higher pH and Chl-a, and higher nutrient input and lower river inflow. However, the small δ 13 C POM seasonal amplitude underlines the stability of the oligotrophic conditions and the isotopic variation in POM and DIC reflect small seasonal fluctuations mostly as a consequence of strong throughflow. The stability of hydrology and productivity patterns is consistent with Holocene and last millennium reconstructions of past limnological changes in Sanabria Lake. The results of this study indicate that trophic state in this hydrologically-open mountain lake is strongly controlled by climate variability, but recent changes in human-land uses have increased sediment delivery and nutrients supply to the lake and have to be considered for management policies. Monitoring surveys including isotope techniques provide snapshots of modern isotope variability, and serve as a benchmark for assessing the environmental impacts of future developments and long-term climate changes in mountain lakes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3857548','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3857548"><span>A plant’s perspective of extremes: Terrestrial plant responses to changing climatic variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Reyer, C.; Leuzinger, S.; Rammig, A.; Wolf, A.; Bartholomeus, R. P.; Bonfante, A.; de Lorenzi, F.; Dury, M.; Gloning, P.; Abou Jaoudé, R.; Klein, T.; Kuster, T. M.; Martins, M.; Niedrist, G.; Riccardi, M.; Wohlfahrt, G.; de Angelis, P.; de Dato, G.; François, L.; Menzel, A.; Pereira, M.</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>We review observational, experimental and model results on how plants respond to extreme climatic conditions induced by changing climatic variability. Distinguishing between impacts of changing mean climatic conditions and changing climatic variability on terrestrial ecosystems is generally underrated in current studies. The goals of our review are thus (1) to identify plant processes that are vulnerable to changes in the variability of climatic variables rather than to changes in their mean, and (2) to depict/evaluate available study designs to quantify responses of plants to changing climatic variability. We find that phenology is largely affected by changing mean climate but also that impacts of climatic variability are much less studied but potentially damaging. We note that plant water relations seem to be very vulnerable to extremes driven by changes in temperature and precipitation and that heatwaves and flooding have stronger impacts on physiological processes than changing mean climate. Moreover, interacting phenological and physiological processes are likely to further complicate plant responses to changing climatic variability. Phenological and physiological processes and their interactions culminate in even more sophisticated responses to changing mean climate and climatic variability at the species and community level. Generally, observational studies are well suited to study plant responses to changing mean climate, but less suitable to gain a mechanistic understanding of plant responses to climatic variability. Experiments seem best suited to simulate extreme events. In models, temporal resolution and model structure are crucial to capture plant responses to changing climatic variability. We highlight that a combination of experimental, observational and /or modeling studies have the potential to overcome important caveats of the respective individual approaches. PMID:23504722</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4886260','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4886260"><span>Understanding cold bias: Variable response of skeletal Sr/Ca to seawater pCO2 in acclimated massive Porites corals</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Cole, Catherine; Finch, Adrian; Hintz, Christopher; Hintz, Kenneth; Allison, Nicola</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>Coral skeletal Sr/Ca is a palaeothermometer commonly used to produce high resolution seasonal sea surface temperature (SST) records and to investigate the amplitude and frequency of ENSO and interdecadal climate events. The proxy relationship is typically calibrated by matching seasonal SST and skeletal Sr/Ca maxima and minima in modern corals. Applying these calibrations to fossil corals assumes that the temperature sensitivity of skeletal Sr/Ca is conserved, despite substantial changes in seawater carbonate chemistry between the modern and glacial ocean. We present Sr/Ca analyses of 3 genotypes of massive Porites spp. corals (the genus most commonly used for palaeoclimate reconstruction), cultured under seawater pCO2 reflecting modern, future (year 2100) and last glacial maximum (LGM) conditions. Skeletal Sr/Ca is indistinguishable between duplicate colonies of the same genotype cultured under the same conditions, but varies significantly in response to seawater pCO2 in two genotypes of Porites lutea, whilst Porites murrayensis is unaffected. Within P. lutea, the response is not systematic: skeletal Sr/Ca increases significantly (by 2–4%) at high seawater pCO2 relative to modern in both genotypes, and also increases significantly (by 4%) at low seawater pCO2 in one genotype. This magnitude of variation equates to errors in reconstructed SST of up to −5 °C. PMID:27241795</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27241795','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27241795"><span>Understanding cold bias: Variable response of skeletal Sr/Ca to seawater pCO2 in acclimated massive Porites corals.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Cole, Catherine; Finch, Adrian; Hintz, Christopher; Hintz, Kenneth; Allison, Nicola</p> <p>2016-05-31</p> <p>Coral skeletal Sr/Ca is a palaeothermometer commonly used to produce high resolution seasonal sea surface temperature (SST) records and to investigate the amplitude and frequency of ENSO and interdecadal climate events. The proxy relationship is typically calibrated by matching seasonal SST and skeletal Sr/Ca maxima and minima in modern corals. Applying these calibrations to fossil corals assumes that the temperature sensitivity of skeletal Sr/Ca is conserved, despite substantial changes in seawater carbonate chemistry between the modern and glacial ocean. We present Sr/Ca analyses of 3 genotypes of massive Porites spp. corals (the genus most commonly used for palaeoclimate reconstruction), cultured under seawater pCO2 reflecting modern, future (year 2100) and last glacial maximum (LGM) conditions. Skeletal Sr/Ca is indistinguishable between duplicate colonies of the same genotype cultured under the same conditions, but varies significantly in response to seawater pCO2 in two genotypes of Porites lutea, whilst Porites murrayensis is unaffected. Within P. lutea, the response is not systematic: skeletal Sr/Ca increases significantly (by 2-4%) at high seawater pCO2 relative to modern in both genotypes, and also increases significantly (by 4%) at low seawater pCO2 in one genotype. This magnitude of variation equates to errors in reconstructed SST of up to -5 °C.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/srp/srp010/of2007-1047srp010_text.pdf','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1047/srp/srp010/of2007-1047srp010_text.pdf"><span>Holocene oceanographic and climatic variability of the Vega Drift deduced through foraminiferal interpretation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Szymcek, Phillip; Ishman, Scott E.; Domack, Eugene W.; Leventer, Amy</p> <p>2007-01-01</p> <p>fusiformis assemblages. Most agglutinated forms tend to decrease downcore, and comparisons to modern analogues imply post-depositional disintegration, while calcareous taxa indicate non-corrosive bottom waters. The lower to middle Holocene Vega Drift sediments are characterized by the calcareous S. fusiformis assemblage and glacial plume sediments. This assemblage is characterized by calcareous forms including Globocassidulina biora, G. subglobosa, and Nonionella iridea. The planktic species Neogloboquadrina pachyderma is associated with the S. fusiformis assemblage. The S. fusiformis assemblage is faunally similar to assemblages described in fjords of the western Antarctic Peninsula and indicates non-corrosive bottom water. Sediments of the mid to upper Holocene interval are characterized by the T. wiesneri and M. arenacea assemblages and indicate the presence of Hyper Saline Shelf Water. These assemblages are similar to modern assemblages directly to the south in the Prince Gustav Channel. The upper Holocene is marked by several small intervals with taxonomic characteristics similar to the S. fusiformis assemblage, indicating periodic introduction of non-corrosive bottom water to the Vega Drift</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP33A1316P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP33A1316P"><span>Fossil Coral Records of ENSO during the Last Glacial Period</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Partin, J. W.; Taylor, F. W.; Shen, C. C.; Edwards, R. L.; Quinn, T. M.; DiNezro, P.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Only a handful of paleoclimate records exist that can resolve interannual changes, and hence El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, during the last glacial period, a time of altered mean climate. The few existing data suggest reduced ENSO variability compared to the Holocene, possibly due to a weaker zonal sea surface temperature gradient across the tropical Pacific and/or a deeper thermocline in the eastern tropical Pacific. Our goal is to add crucial data to this extremely limited subset using sub-annually resolved fossil corals that grew during this time period to reconstruct ENSO. We seek to recover fossil corals from Vanuatu, SW Pacific (16°S, 167°E) with the objective of using coral δ18O to reconstruct changes in the ENSO during and near the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Modern δ18O coral records from Vanuatu show a high degree of skill in capturing ENSO variability, making it a suitable site for reconstructing ENSO variability. We have custom designed and are building a drill system that can rapidly core many 0-25 m holes resulting in much more meters of penetration than achieved by previous land-based reef drilling. As the new drill system is extremely portable and can be quickly relocated by workers without landing craft or vehicles, it is time and cost efficient. Because the proposed drilling sites have uplifted extremely fast, 7 mm/year, the LGM shoreline has been raised from 120-140 m depth to within a depth range of 10 below to 20 m above present sea level. This enables all the drilling to be within the time range of interest ( 15-25 ka). A last advantage is that the LGM corals either are still submersed in seawater or emerged only within the last 2000 years at the uplift rate of 7 mm/yr. This greatly reduces the chances of disruption of the original climate signal because sea water is less diagenetically damaging than meteoric water in the mixed, phreatic, or vadose zones. LGM coral records will enable us to compare the proxy variability to climate model simulations in order to elucidate the mechanisms driving the changes in ENSO. The proposed research activities will shed light on the sensitivity of ENSO to external forcings, a highly critical issue given that climate model projections used for future climate projection do not agree if ENSO will strengthen or weaken as the Earth warms.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EnMan..60..383O','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EnMan..60..383O"><span>Riparian Meadow Response to Modern Conservation Grazing Management</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Oles, Kristin M.; Weixelman, Dave A.; Lile, David F.; Tate, Kenneth W.; Snell, Laura K.; Roche, Leslie M.</p> <p>2017-09-01</p> <p>Riparian meadows occupy a small proportion of the public lands in the western United States but they provide numerous ecosystem services, including the production of high-quality forage for livestock grazing. Modern conservation management strategies (e.g., reductions in livestock stocking rates and adoption of new riparian grazing standards) have been implemented to better balance riparian conservation and livestock production objectives on publicly managed lands. We examined potential relationships between long-term changes in plant community, livestock grazing pressure and environmental conditions at two spatial scales in meadows grazed under conservation management strategies. Changes in plant community were not associated with either livestock stocking rate or precipitation at the grazing allotment (i.e., administrative) scale. Alternatively, both grazing pressure and precipitation had significant, albeit modest, associations with changes in plant community at the meadow (i.e., ecological site) scale. These results suggest that reductions in stocking rate have improved the balance between riparian conservation and livestock production goals. However, associations between elevation, site wetness, precipitation, and changes in plant community suggest that changing climate conditions (e.g., reduced snowpack and changes in timing of snowmelt) could trigger shifts in plant communities, potentially impacting both conservation and agricultural services (e.g., livestock and forage production). Therefore, adaptive, site-specific management strategies are required to meet grazing pressure limits and safeguard ecosystem services within individual meadows, especially under more variable climate conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMEP11B..06S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMEP11B..06S"><span>The threshold between storm overwash and inundation and the implication to paleo-storm records and climate signatures.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Smith, C. G.; Long, J.; Osterman, L. E.; Plant, N. G.; Marot, M. E.; Bernier, J.; Flocks, J. G.; Adams, C. S.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>In modern coastal systems, the sensitivity of a coastal site to erosion or deposition during storm conditions depends largely on the geomorphic configuration (e.g. dune or beach height and width) and the storm-induced oceanographic processes (surge and waves). Depending on the magnitude of these variables, coastal systems may be eroded, overwashed, breached, and/or inundated during the storm. To date, there has been no attempt to evaluate how these observable modern differences in storm-impact regimes might be utilized to interpret paleo-storm intensities and frequencies. Time-series of sediment texture, radioisotopic, and foraminiferal data from back-barrier environments along the Chandeleur Islands (Louisiana, USA) document the emplacement of a storm event deposit from Hurricane Isaac and we use this event to test paleo-storm intensity reconstruction methods. Water level reconstructed for the event layer using an advection (grain-size) settling model are 2 - 3 times greater than measured during the storm. The over-estimation is linked to the reconstruction model's assumptions concerning sediment transport during storms (i.e., overwash only), while actual processes included inundation as well. These contrasts may result in misidentification (i.e., presence/absence) and/or misclassification (i.e., intensity) of storms in the geologic record (e.g., low geomorphic conditions and high water levels) that would in turn affect the ability to link storm frequency or intensity to climatic drivers.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28577051','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28577051"><span>Riparian Meadow Response to Modern Conservation Grazing Management.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Oles, Kristin M; Weixelman, Dave A; Lile, David F; Tate, Kenneth W; Snell, Laura K; Roche, Leslie M</p> <p>2017-09-01</p> <p>Riparian meadows occupy a small proportion of the public lands in the western United States but they provide numerous ecosystem services, including the production of high-quality forage for livestock grazing. Modern conservation management strategies (e.g., reductions in livestock stocking rates and adoption of new riparian grazing standards) have been implemented to better balance riparian conservation and livestock production objectives on publicly managed lands. We examined potential relationships between long-term changes in plant community, livestock grazing pressure and environmental conditions at two spatial scales in meadows grazed under conservation management strategies. Changes in plant community were not associated with either livestock stocking rate or precipitation at the grazing allotment (i.e., administrative) scale. Alternatively, both grazing pressure and precipitation had significant, albeit modest, associations with changes in plant community at the meadow (i.e., ecological site) scale. These results suggest that reductions in stocking rate have improved the balance between riparian conservation and livestock production goals. However, associations between elevation, site wetness, precipitation, and changes in plant community suggest that changing climate conditions (e.g., reduced snowpack and changes in timing of snowmelt) could trigger shifts in plant communities, potentially impacting both conservation and agricultural services (e.g., livestock and forage production). Therefore, adaptive, site-specific management strategies are required to meet grazing pressure limits and safeguard ecosystem services within individual meadows, especially under more variable climate conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP51A2089X','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP51A2089X"><span>Reconstruction of deglacial Antarctic Intermediate Water variations in the subtropical North Atlantic</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Xie, R. C.; Marcantonio, F.; Schmidt, M. W.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>Understanding intermediate water circulation across the last deglaciation is critical in assessing the role of oceanic heat transport associated with Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) variability across abrupt climate events. Abrupt changes in the northward flow of Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW) associated with AMOC reduction during the Younger Dryas (YD) and Heinrich Event 1 (H1) have been hypothesized, suggesting a potential connection between the Southern Ocean and high-latitude North Atlantic climate change. However, controversy persists as to whether the northward flow of AAIW is stronger or weaker during these abrupt cold events. One school maintains that there is an increase in the northward penetration of AAIW associated with weaker AMOC during both the YD and H1 cold events (e.g., [1-2]). However, each of these previous studies analyzed sediment cores retrieved from depths deeper than the modern depth range of AAIW (500-1100 m in the tropical and subtropical North Atlantic). Another school comes to the opposite conclusion, namely that there is a weakening of AAIW at least during one of the deglacial events (e.g., [3-4]). Here, we reconstruct deglacial AAIW variations using authigenic Nd isotope ratios from sediment recovered from core VM12-107 (11.33°N, 66.63°W; 1079 m) in the Southern Caribbean Sea. VM12-107 lies at the boundary between modern AAIW and modern upper NADW and thus is ideal for investigating the shoaling/deepening of the competing water masses as well as the variations of AAIW across abrupt climate events during the last deglaciation. We measured authigenic Nd isotope compositions in three different fractions in core VM12-107: the Fe-Mn oxyhydroxide leachate of the bulk sediment, the uncleaned planktonic foraminifera (mixed species), and fish debris wherever possible. Preliminary authigenic Nd isotope results from the Fe-Mn leachate show little variability in the ɛNd values, ranging from -9.6 to -10.6, during the last deglaciation. No discernable long-term trend is suggested. The small variation in authigenic ɛNd values may suggest little change in the northward penetration of AAIW at our study site during the last deglaciation. On the other hand, shoaling of the glacial analogue of NADW (i.e., Glacial North Atlantic Intermediate Water), with a more radiogenic ɛNd signature during the YD and H1, can also explain our authigenic ɛNd record from the Fe-Mn leachates. Comparing our authigenic Nd isotope record with those recently published from the Florida Straits [4] and those from the Tobago Basin [1], we propose that sediment cores retrieved from depths below the modern AAIW depth range are not suitable in tracing deglacial AAIW variability. Because the Nd isotope record from authigenic Fe-Mn leachate fraction can be biased by excess leaching of the detrital fraction of the sediment, ɛNd values from uncleaned planktonic foraminifera (mixed species) and fish debris will be presented to test the Nd isotope record from authigenic Fe-Mn leachates. [1] Pahnke et al. (2008) Nature Geoscience 1, 870-874 [2] Thornalley et al. (2011) Science 331(6014), 202-205; [3] Came et al. (2008) Paleoceanography 23, PA1217; [4] Xie et al. (in press) Paleoceanography, doi:10.1029/2012PA002337</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25418656','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25418656"><span>[Environmental pollution, climate variability and climate change: a review of health impacts on the Peruvian population].</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Gonzales, Gustavo F; Zevallos, Alisson; Gonzales-Castañeda, Cynthia; Nuñez, Denisse; Gastañaga, Carmen; Cabezas, César; Naeher, Luke; Levy, Karen; Steenland, Kyle</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>This article is a review of the pollution of water, air and the effect of climate change on the health of the Peruvian population. A major air pollutant is particulate matter less than 2.5 μ (PM 2.5). In Lima, 2,300 premature deaths annually are attributable to this pollutant. Another problem is household air pollution by using stoves burning biomass fuels, where excessive indoor exposure to PM 2.5 inside the household is responsible for approximately 3,000 annual premature deaths among adults, with another unknown number of deaths among children due to respiratory infections. Water pollution is caused by sewage discharges into rivers, minerals (arsenic) from various sources, and failure of water treatment plants. In Peru, climate change may impact the frequency and severity of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which has been associated with an increase in cases of diseases such as cholera, malaria and dengue. Climate change increases the temperature and can extend the areas affected by vector-borne diseases, have impact on the availability of water and contamination of the air. In conclusion, Peru is going through a transition of environmental risk factors, where traditional and modern risks coexist and infectious and chronic problems remain, some of which are associated with problems of pollution of water and air.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70044490','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70044490"><span>Modern climate challenges and the geological record</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Cronin, Thomas M.</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Today's changing climate poses challenges about the influence of human activity, such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use changes, the natural variability of Earth's climate, and complex feedback processes. Ice core and instrumental records show that over the last century, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have risen to 390 parts per million volume (ppmv), about 40% above pre-Industrial Age concentrations of 280 ppmv and nearly twice those of the last glacial maximum about 22,000 years ago. Similar historical increases are recorded in atmospheric methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). There is general agreement that human activity is largely responsible for these trends. Substantial evidence also suggests that elevated greenhouse gas concentrations are responsible for much of the recent atmospheric and oceanic warming, rising sea level, declining Arctic sea-ice cover, retreating glaciers and small ice caps, decreased mass balance of the Greenland and parts of the Antarctic ice sheets, and decreasing ocean pH (ocean "acidification"). Elevated CO2 concentrations raise concern not only from observations of the climate system, but because feedbacks associated with reduced reflectivity from in land and sea ice, sea level, and land vegetation relatively slowly (centuries or longer) to elevated 2 levels. This means that additional human-induced climate change is expected even if the rate of CO2 emissions is reduced or concentrations immediately stabilized.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14572673','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14572673"><span>Chronomics of tree rings for chronoastrobiology and beyond.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Nintcheu-Fata, Sylvain; Katinas, George; Halberg, Franz; Cornélissen, Germaine; Tolstykh, Victor; Michael, Henry N; Otsuka, Kuniaki; Schwartzkopff, Othild; Bakken, Earl</p> <p>2003-10-01</p> <p>Gliding spectral windows illustrate the changes as a function of time in the relative prominence of signals in a given frequency range, viewed in 3D or as surface charts. As an example, the method is applied to a 2,189-year series of averages of ring measurements on 11 sequoia trees published by Douglass. Analyses of the original data and after filtering reveal, among others, components with periods of about 10.5 and 21 years similar to the Schwabe and Hale solar activity cycles. An alignment of gliding spectra with a global spectrum serves to define, by minima, the ranges of variability around the anticipated Schwabe and Hale cycles. This procedure may have more general applicability when dealing with ranges of only transiently synchronized, wobbly, and perhaps sometimes free-running periodicities. Solar activity is known to affect climate and changes in climate are reflected to some extent in tree growth. The spectral structure in tree rings could serve not only to check any relations of climate with sunspots, auroras and more modern measures of solar activity, but also to check any purely mathematical extrapolations from the much shorter available actual data on solar activity. With such extrapolated series and the data analyzed herein, the task remains to align physical and physiological variables to further study the influence of natural environmental factors near and far on biota, including international battles, which cover an even longer span of 2,556 years.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFMPP51A1132T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFMPP51A1132T"><span>The use of Sphagnum cellulose oxygen isotope ratios in ombrotrophic peatlands as a proxy for paleoclimate.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Taylor, M.; Pendall, E.; Jackson, S.; Booth, R. K.; Nichols, J. E.; Huang, Y.</p> <p>2006-12-01</p> <p>Developing proxies for discerning paleoclimate that are independent of the pollen record can provide insight into various aspects of climate variability and improve confidence in the interpretation of climate-vegetation interactions. To date, proxies including plant macrofossils, humification indices, testate amoebae, and ratios of n-alkane abundances have been used to infer past climate variability from temperate ombrotrophic peatlands in upper Midwestern North America. These proxies are used to infer past changes in surface-moisture conditions, which in ombrotrophic peatlands is primarily a function of precipitation and temperature. This study investigates the potential uses of stable oxygen isotopes to complement hydrologic proxies. δ18O of surface water and Sphagnum moss cellulose from bogs throughout North America indicates a correlation between average growing season temperatures and δ18O-values. The existence of a modern temperature signal in moss cellulose suggests that δ18O-derived records will not only complement paleohydrological records, but also help assess relative changes in precipitation and temperature. Humification and testate amoebae data from two cores taken from Minden and Irwin Smith Bogs in central and northeastern Michigan have recorded several extreme drought events during the Holocene, including one at 1000 YBP. Comparison of δ18O-values of picked Sphagnum remains to down-core humification and testate amoebae data suggest good temporal correspondence, with the δ18O-values around 1000 YBP indicating a warmer growing season.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_13");'>13</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li class="active"><span>15</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_15 --> <div id="page_16" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li class="active"><span>16</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="301"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013QSRv...70...63R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013QSRv...70...63R"><span>Quantitative assessment of glacial fluctuations in the level of Lake Lisan, Dead Sea rift</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rohling, Eelco J.</p> <p>2013-06-01</p> <p>A quantitative understanding of climatic variations in the Levant during the last glacial cycle is needed to support archaeologists in assessing the drivers behind hominin migrations and cultural developments in this key region at the intersection between Africa and Europe. It will also foster a better understanding of the region's natural variability as context to projections of modern climate change. Detailed documentation of variations in the level of Lake Lisan - the lake that occupied the Dead Sea rift during the last glacial cycle - provides crucial climatic information for this region. Existing reconstructions suggest that Lake Lisan highstands during cold intervals of the last glacial cycle represent relatively humid conditions in the region, but these interpretations have remained predominantly qualitative. Here, I evaluate realistic ranges of the key climatological parameters that controlled lake level, based on the observed timing and amplitudes of lake-level variability. I infer that a mean precipitation rate over the wider catchment area of about 500 mm y-1, as proposed in the literature, would be consistent with observed lake levels if there was a concomitant 15-50% increase in wind speed during cold glacial stadials. This lends quantitative support to previous inferences of a notable increase in the intensity of Mediterranean (winter) storms during glacial periods, which tracked eastward into the Levant. In contrast to highstands during ‘regular’ stadials, lake level dropped during Heinrich Events. I demonstrate that this likely indicates a further intensification of the winds during those times.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017CliPa..13.1285D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017CliPa..13.1285D"><span>Examining bias in pollen-based quantitative climate reconstructions induced by human impact on vegetation in China</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Ding, Wei; Xu, Qinghai; Tarasov, Pavel E.</p> <p>2017-09-01</p> <p>Human impact is a well-known confounder in pollen-based quantitative climate reconstructions as most terrestrial ecosystems have been artificially affected to varying degrees. In this paper, we use a <q>human-induced</q> pollen dataset (H-set) and a corresponding <q>natural</q> pollen dataset (N-set) to establish pollen-climate calibration sets for temperate eastern China (TEC). The two calibration sets, taking a weighted averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS) approach, are used to reconstruct past climate variables from a fossil record, which is located at the margin of the East Asian summer monsoon in north-central China and covers the late glacial Holocene from 14.7 ka BP (thousands of years before AD 1950). Ordination results suggest that mean annual precipitation (Pann) is the main explanatory variable of both pollen composition and percentage distributions in both datasets. The Pann reconstructions, based on the two calibration sets, demonstrate consistently similar patterns and general trends, suggesting a relatively strong climate impact on the regional vegetation and pollen spectra. However, our results also indicate that the human impact may obscure climate signals derived from fossil pollen assemblages. In a test with modern climate and pollen data, the Pann influence on pollen distribution decreases in the H-set, while the human influence index (HII) rises. Moreover, the relatively strong human impact reduces woody pollen taxa abundances, particularly in the subhumid forested areas. Consequently, this shifts their model-inferred Pann optima to the arid end of the gradient compared to Pann tolerances in the natural dataset and further produces distinct deviations when the total tree pollen percentages are high (i.e. about 40 % for the Gonghai area) in the fossil sequence. In summary, the calibration set with human impact used in our experiment can produce a reliable general pattern of past climate, but the human impact on vegetation affects the pollen-climate relationship and biases the pollen-based climate reconstruction. The extent of human-induced bias may be rather small for the entire late glacial and early Holocene interval when we use a reference set called natural. Nevertheless, this potential bias should be kept in mind when conducting quantitative reconstructions, especially for the recent 2 or 3 millennia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/60884','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/60884"><span>Shoreline and coastal wetland variability along the west shore of Green Bay, Marinette and Oconto counties, Wisconsin</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Shideler, Gerald L.</p> <p>1994-01-01</p> <p>Coastal wetland ecosystems along the Great Lakes shorelines are extremely valuable natural resources. They provide numerous environmental and recreational benefits, and they serve as critical habitats for fish and wildlife populations. In general terms, wetlands can be defined as lands transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems; they are characterized by periodic submergence or a water table at or near the surface and a predominance of hydric soils and hydrophytes. Changes in shoreline positions over time result in concomitant changes in the amount of adjacent coastal wetlands, frequently resulting in a permanent loss of these valuable resources. In the Great Lakes region, the main natural cause of shoreline changes are lake-level fluctuations that result from two interactive factors. One factor is the glacio-isostatic rebound of the lake basins, which has been occurring since the end of the late Wisconsin glaciation to the present. This crustal rebounding has slowly uplifted previous lake outlets, warped and tilted lake basins, and changed lake levels and shoreline positions. On the basis of historic lake-level gauge records, measured modern differential vertical uplift rates range from 0.26 ft/century in the southern part of the Great Lakes drainage basin to 1.74 ft/century in the northern part of the basin (Larsen, 1989). The second factor contributing to lake-level fluctuations is climate variability, which controls the amount of regional precipitation and evaporation, storm frequency, runoff, and resulting lake levels. Climate variability can occur over a wide spectrum of time scales; it can range from seasonal variations, to long-term trends of a few years or decades in duration, to trends lasting hundred of thousands of years. Climatic variations, in conjunction with glacio-isostatic rebound, have resulted in substantial temporal variability of the Great Lakes shorelines and associated wetland tracts during post-glacial times.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP54B..05C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP54B..05C"><span>Potential climatic mechanisms associated with the mega drought at 4200 cal yr BP: linking proxy data with modern climate analogues</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Carter, V.; Shinker, J. J.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Roughly 4200 years ago, a 150-year long mega drought occurred in the central Rocky Mountains, as indicated by pollen evidence from lake sediments from Long Lake, south-eastern Wyoming. However, pollen evidence does not record the climate mechanisms that caused the drought; they only provide evidence that the drought occurred. A modern climate analogue technique using North American Regional Reanalysis data was applied to the sedimentary data in order to identify possible synoptic and dynamic patterns that may have caused the mega drought at 4200 cal yr BP. Our results suggest warm and dry conditions were a result of anomalously higher-than-normal geopotential heights that were centred over the Great Plains beginning in the spring and persisting through the fall. Drought conditions during the growing seasons was the result of the anomalous high-pressure ridge, which suppressed moisture transport via the low level jet from the Gulf of Mexico, as well as brought in dry continental air from in the interior region of North America. The conditions associated with modern analogues offer a potential climate mechanism that caused the mega drought 4200 years ago, and likely led to the changes in vegetation composition as evidenced by the pollen record from Long Lake, Wyoming.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMEP41C0634P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMEP41C0634P"><span>Imprint of Late Quaternary Climate Change on the Mid-Atlantic Landscape</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Pavich, M.; Markewich, H.; Newell, W. L.; Litwin, R.; Smoot, J.; Brook, G.</p> <p>2009-12-01</p> <p>Recent geomorphic, lithostratigraphic, palynologic and chronostratigraphic investigations of the mid-Atlantic region show that much of the modern landscape flanking the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River is developed on late Quaternary sediments. These deposits, dated by OSL and 14C, include transgressive marine and estuarine sediments deposited between 120ka and 32ka, and parabolic dunes formed between 32ka and 15ka. The stacked estuarine units were deposited in a subsiding basin as eustatic sea level fell from +7m to -60m. The estuarine units contain pollen that provides evidence for millennial scale climate fluctuations. The dunes formed during the period of rapid expansion of the Laurentide Ice Sheet as sea level fell to -120m. Permafrost features such as frost wedges and periglacial “pots” formed during cold intervals associated with marine oxygen isotope stages 4 and 2. This periglacial climate, along with glacioisostatic adjustments to growth and decay of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, affected landscape processes at least as far south as the Potomac River valley. While many of these features were recognized in earlier mapping and stratigraphic investigations, OSL dating has greatly extended the range of available dates and significantly improved our understanding of the impacts of highly variable periglacial climate on this region.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1332379-modeling-precipitation-variability-east-asia-since-last-glacial-maximum-temperature-amount-effects-across-different-timescales','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1332379-modeling-precipitation-variability-east-asia-since-last-glacial-maximum-temperature-amount-effects-across-different-timescales"><span>Modeling precipitation δ 18O variability in East Asia since the Last Glacial Maximum: temperature and amount effects across different timescales</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Wen, Xinyu; Liu, Zhengyu; Chen, Zhongxiao</p> <p></p> <p>Water isotopes in precipitation have played a key role in the reconstruction of past climate on millennial timescales and longer. But, for midlatitude regions like East Asia with complex terrain, the reliability behind the basic assumptions of the temperature effect and amount effect is based on modern observational data and still remains unclear for past climate. In the present work, we reexamine the two basic effects on seasonal, interannual, and millennial timescales in a set of time slice experiments for the period 22–0 ka using an isotope-enabled atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). Our study confirms the robustness of the temperaturemore » and amount effects on the seasonal cycle over China in the present climatic conditions, with the temperature effect dominating in northern China and the amount effect dominating in the far south of China but no distinct effect in the transition region of central China. However, our analysis shows that neither temperature nor amount effect is significantly dominant over China on millennial and interannual timescales, which is a challenge to those classic assumptions in past climate reconstruction. This work helps shed light on the interpretation of the proxy record of δ 18O from a modeling point of view.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16.7984R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16.7984R"><span>Continuous methane record of abrupt climate change 10-68 ka: sighting Heinrich events in the ice core record</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rhodes, Rachael; Brook, Edward; Chiang, John; Blunier, Thomas; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R. Lawrence; Maselli, Olivia; McConnell, Joseph; Romanini, Daniele; Severinghaus, Jeffrey; Sowers, Todd; Stowasser, Christopher</p> <p>2014-05-01</p> <p>The Last Glacial period was punctuated by millennial scale abrupt climate changes - Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) cycles and Heinrich events. Controls on the magnitude and frequency of these climate perturbations, and how they may be inter-related, remain unclear. Specific problems include the difficulty of dating Heinrich sediment layers and local bias of key paleoclimate archives. We present a highly detailed and precise record of ice core methane (CH4), a globally integrated signal, which resolves climatic features in unprecedented resolution. Abrupt CH4 increases are resolved in Heinrich Stadials (HS) 1, 2, 4 and 5 where, in contrast to all D-O cycles, there are no concurrent abrupt changes in Greenland temperature. Using modern-day tropical rainfall variability as an analog, we propose that strong cooling in the North Atlantic severely restricted the northerly range of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), leading to an enhanced wet season over Southern Hemisphere tropical land areas, and consequently driving production of excess CH4 in tropical wetlands. Our findings place four Heinrich events firmly within ice core chronologies and suggest maximum durations of 778 to 1606 yr. CH4 anomalies are only associated with Heinrich events of Hudson Strait provenance, indicating that the tropical impacts of Heinrich events were not uniform.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27374975','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27374975"><span>Andean microrefugia: testing the Holocene to predict the Anthropocene.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Valencia, Bryan G; Matthews-Bird, Frazer; Urrego, Dunia H; Williams, Joseph J; Gosling, William D; Bush, Mark</p> <p>2016-10-01</p> <p>Microrefugia are important for supporting populations during periods of unfavourable climate change and in facilitating rapid migration as conditions ameliorate. With ongoing anthropogenic climate change, microrefugia could have an important conservation value; however, a simple tool has not been developed and tested to predict which settings are microrefugial. We provide a tool based on terrain ruggedness modelling of individual catchments to predict Andean microrefugia. We tested the predictions using nine Holocene Polylepis pollen records. We used the mid-Holocene dry event, a period of peak aridity for the last 100 000 yr, as an analogue climate scenario for the near future. The results suggest that sites with high terrain rugosity have the greatest chance of sustaining mesic conditions under drier-than-modern climates. Fire is a feature of all catchments; however, an increase in fire is only recorded in settings with low rugosity. Owing to rising temperatures and greater precipitation variability, Andean ecosystems are threatened by increasing moisture stress. Our results suggest that high terrain rugosity helps to create more resilient catchments by trapping moisture through orographic rainfall and providing firebreaks that shelter forest from fire. On this basis, conservation policy should target protection and management of catchments with high terrain rugosity. © 2016 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2016 New Phytologist Trust.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1332379-modeling-precipitation-variability-east-asia-since-last-glacial-maximum-temperature-amount-effects-across-different-timescales','SCIGOV-DOEP'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/pages/biblio/1332379-modeling-precipitation-variability-east-asia-since-last-glacial-maximum-temperature-amount-effects-across-different-timescales"><span>Modeling precipitation δ 18O variability in East Asia since the Last Glacial Maximum: temperature and amount effects across different timescales</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/pages">DOE PAGES</a></p> <p>Wen, Xinyu; Liu, Zhengyu; Chen, Zhongxiao; ...</p> <p>2016-11-06</p> <p>Water isotopes in precipitation have played a key role in the reconstruction of past climate on millennial timescales and longer. But, for midlatitude regions like East Asia with complex terrain, the reliability behind the basic assumptions of the temperature effect and amount effect is based on modern observational data and still remains unclear for past climate. In the present work, we reexamine the two basic effects on seasonal, interannual, and millennial timescales in a set of time slice experiments for the period 22–0 ka using an isotope-enabled atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). Our study confirms the robustness of the temperaturemore » and amount effects on the seasonal cycle over China in the present climatic conditions, with the temperature effect dominating in northern China and the amount effect dominating in the far south of China but no distinct effect in the transition region of central China. However, our analysis shows that neither temperature nor amount effect is significantly dominant over China on millennial and interannual timescales, which is a challenge to those classic assumptions in past climate reconstruction. This work helps shed light on the interpretation of the proxy record of δ 18O from a modeling point of view.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70159219','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70159219"><span>The changing strength and nature of fire-climate relationships in the northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A., 1902-2008</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Littell, Jeremy</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Time-varying fire-climate relationships may represent an important component of fire-regime variability, relevant for understanding the controls of fire and projecting fire activity under global-change scenarios. We used time-varying statistical models to evaluate if and how fire-climate relationships varied from 1902-2008, in one of the most flammable forested regions of the western U.S.A. Fire-danger and water-balance metrics yielded the best combination of calibration accuracy and predictive skill in modeling annual area burned. The strength of fire-climate relationships varied markedly at multi-decadal scales, with models explaining < 40% to 88% of the variation in annual area burned. The early 20th century (1902-1942) and the most recent two decades (1985-2008) exhibited strong fire-climate relationships, with weaker relationships for much of the mid 20th century (1943-1984), coincident with diminished burning, less fire-conducive climate, and the initiation of modern fire fighting. Area burned and the strength of fire-climate relationships increased sharply in the mid 1980s, associated with increased temperatures and longer potential fire seasons. Unlike decades with high burning in the early 20th century, models developed using fire-climate relationships from recent decades overpredicted area burned when applied to earlier periods. This amplified response of fire to climate is a signature of altered fire-climate-relationships, and it implicates non-climatic factors in this recent shift. Changes in fuel structure and availability following 40+ yr of unusually low fire activity, and possibly land use, may have resulted in increased fire vulnerability beyond expectations from climatic factors alone. Our results highlight the potential for non-climatic factors to alter fire-climate relationships, and the need to account for such dynamics, through adaptable statistical or processes-based models, for accurately predicting future fire activity.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4482589','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4482589"><span>The Changing Strength and Nature of Fire-Climate Relationships in the Northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A., 1902-2008</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Higuera, Philip E.; Abatzoglou, John T.; Littell, Jeremy S.; Morgan, Penelope</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Time-varying fire-climate relationships may represent an important component of fire-regime variability, relevant for understanding the controls of fire and projecting fire activity under global-change scenarios. We used time-varying statistical models to evaluate if and how fire-climate relationships varied from 1902-2008, in one of the most flammable forested regions of the western U.S.A. Fire-danger and water-balance metrics yielded the best combination of calibration accuracy and predictive skill in modeling annual area burned. The strength of fire-climate relationships varied markedly at multi-decadal scales, with models explaining < 40% to 88% of the variation in annual area burned. The early 20th century (1902-1942) and the most recent two decades (1985-2008) exhibited strong fire-climate relationships, with weaker relationships for much of the mid 20th century (1943-1984), coincident with diminished burning, less fire-conducive climate, and the initiation of modern fire fighting. Area burned and the strength of fire-climate relationships increased sharply in the mid 1980s, associated with increased temperatures and longer potential fire seasons. Unlike decades with high burning in the early 20th century, models developed using fire-climate relationships from recent decades overpredicted area burned when applied to earlier periods. This amplified response of fire to climate is a signature of altered fire-climate-relationships, and it implicates non-climatic factors in this recent shift. Changes in fuel structure and availability following 40+ yr of unusually low fire activity, and possibly land use, may have resulted in increased fire vulnerability beyond expectations from climatic factors alone. Our results highlight the potential for non-climatic factors to alter fire-climate relationships, and the need to account for such dynamics, through adaptable statistical or processes-based models, for accurately predicting future fire activity. PMID:26114580</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26114580','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26114580"><span>The Changing Strength and Nature of Fire-Climate Relationships in the Northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A., 1902-2008.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Higuera, Philip E; Abatzoglou, John T; Littell, Jeremy S; Morgan, Penelope</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Time-varying fire-climate relationships may represent an important component of fire-regime variability, relevant for understanding the controls of fire and projecting fire activity under global-change scenarios. We used time-varying statistical models to evaluate if and how fire-climate relationships varied from 1902-2008, in one of the most flammable forested regions of the western U.S.A. Fire-danger and water-balance metrics yielded the best combination of calibration accuracy and predictive skill in modeling annual area burned. The strength of fire-climate relationships varied markedly at multi-decadal scales, with models explaining < 40% to 88% of the variation in annual area burned. The early 20th century (1902-1942) and the most recent two decades (1985-2008) exhibited strong fire-climate relationships, with weaker relationships for much of the mid 20th century (1943-1984), coincident with diminished burning, less fire-conducive climate, and the initiation of modern fire fighting. Area burned and the strength of fire-climate relationships increased sharply in the mid 1980s, associated with increased temperatures and longer potential fire seasons. Unlike decades with high burning in the early 20th century, models developed using fire-climate relationships from recent decades overpredicted area burned when applied to earlier periods. This amplified response of fire to climate is a signature of altered fire-climate-relationships, and it implicates non-climatic factors in this recent shift. Changes in fuel structure and availability following 40+ yr of unusually low fire activity, and possibly land use, may have resulted in increased fire vulnerability beyond expectations from climatic factors alone. Our results highlight the potential for non-climatic factors to alter fire-climate relationships, and the need to account for such dynamics, through adaptable statistical or processes-based models, for accurately predicting future fire activity.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP33D..05C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP33D..05C"><span>Changing Groundwater and Lake Storage in the Americas from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Present Day</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Callaghan, K. L.; Wickert, A. D.; Michael, L.; Fan, Y.; Miguez-Macho, G.; Mitrovica, J. X.; Austermann, J.; Ng, G. H. C.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Groundwater accounts for 1.69% of the globe's water storage - nearly the same amount (1.74%) that is stored in ice caps and glaciers. The volume of water stored in this reservoir has changed over glacial-interglacial cycles as climate warms and cools, sea level rises and falls, ice sheets advance and retreat, surface topography isostatically adjusts, and patterns of moisture transport reorganize. During the last deglaciation, over the past 21000 years, all of these factors contributed to profound hydrologic change in the Americas. In North America, deglaciation generated proglacial lakes and wetlands along the isostatically-depressed margin of the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet, along with extensive pluvial lakes in the desert southwest. In South America, changing patterns of atmospheric circulation caused regional and time-varying wetting and drying that led to fluctuations in water table levels. Understanding how groundwater levels change in response to these factors can aid our understanding of the effects of modern climate change on groundwater resources. Using a model that incorporates temporally evolving climate, topography (driven by glacial isostatic adjustment), ice extent, sea level, and spatially varying soil properties, we present our estimates of changes in total groundwater storage in the Americas over the past 21000 years. We estimate depth to water table at 500-year intervals and at a 30-arcsecond resolution. This allows a comparative assessment of changing groundwater storage volumes through time. The model has already been applied to the present day and has proven successful in estimating modern groundwater depths at a broad scale (Fan et al., 2013). We also assess changing groundwater-fed lakes, and compare model-estimated lake sizes and locations to paleorecords of these lakes. Our data- and model-integrated look back at the terminal Pleistocene provides an estimate of groundwater variability under extreme climate change. Preliminary results show changes in groundwater storage within the Americas on the order of tens of centimetres in units of equivalent global sea-level change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018AMT....11.1193V','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018AMT....11.1193V"><span>Comparisons of the tropospheric specific humidity from GPS radio occultations with ERA-Interim, NASA MERRA, and AIRS data</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Vergados, Panagiotis; Mannucci, Anthony J.; Ao, Chi O.; Verkhoglyadova, Olga; Iijima, Byron</p> <p>2018-03-01</p> <p>We construct a 9-year data record (2007-2015) of the tropospheric specific humidity using Global Positioning System radio occultation (GPS RO) observations from the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC) mission. This record covers the ±40° latitude belt and includes estimates of the zonally averaged monthly mean specific humidity from 700 up to 400 hPa. It includes three major climate zones: (a) the deep tropics (±15°), (b) the trade winds belts (±15-30°), and (c) the subtropics (±30-40°). We find that the RO observations agree very well with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Re-Analysis Interim (ERA-Interim), the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), and the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) by capturing similar magnitudes and patterns of variability in the monthly zonal mean specific humidity and interannual anomaly over annual and interannual timescales. The JPL and UCAR specific humidity climatologies differ by less than 15 % (depending on location and pressure level), primarily due to differences in the retrieved refractivity. In the middle-to-upper troposphere, in all climate zones, JPL is the wettest of all data sets, AIRS is the driest of all data sets, and UCAR, ERA-Interim, and MERRA are in very good agreement, lying between the JPL and AIRS climatologies. In the lower-to-middle troposphere, we present a complex behavior of discrepancies, and we speculate that this might be due to convection and entrainment. Conclusively, the RO observations could potentially be used as a climate variable, but more thorough analysis is required to assess the structural uncertainty between centers and its origin.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP31A1250P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP31A1250P"><span>Varve-based Reconstruction of Seasonal Hydroclimate from Nar Gölü, Turkey over the last 2.6 ka BP</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Primmer, N.; Jones, M.; Metcalfe, S. E.; Eastwood, W.; Brauer, A.; Roberts, C. N.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>In south-west Asia, the wet-dry seasonality and semi-arid climatology increases societal vulnerability to drought. Long, continuous records of such droughts from the region are therefore important to put recent extremes in context, to benchmark natural variability in water availability. We present the longest annual record of south-west Asian climate to date, spanning the entirety of the Common Era. We reconstruct seasonal hydrological change from a climatically sensitive lake, Nar Gölü, Turkey over the past 2,589 years using varve sedimentology. Organic-calcareous varve deposition is driven by the climatic wet-dry seasonality, where varve microfacies analysis has developed an inter- and intra-annual record of the resultant limnological variability. Calibration using modern meteorological data identified that the March-May evaporation/precipitation ratio as the primary control on carbonate sublayer thickness. Combining these analyses with previous stable isotope, pollen and diatom records from the same cores further develops a holistic environmental record of palaeoseasonality able to gauge past and present hydrology, including drought severity. Two threshold hydrological changes to the spring growing season are well-dated at 535 and 1406 AD, thus coinciding with the onset of the Late Antiquity Little Ice Age (LALIA) and Little Ice Age (LIA) respectively. Carbonate mineralogy indicates generally fresher water conditions during the intermediary 871-year long period, with an inferred dry period at 850 AD possibly marking the start of regional, long-term aridification. By reconstructing high resolution hydroclimate, this well constrained annual record of past water availability provides a unique context for understanding climate change and its potential impact in this vulnerable region.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..17.3763V','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..17.3763V"><span>Fluvial Sediments as GeoArchives in the Tsauchab Valley, Namibia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Völkel, Jörg; Bens, Oliver; Eden, Marie; Heine, Klaus; Hürkamp, Kerstin</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>Understanding the history of how humans have interacted with the landscape can help clarify the options for managing our increasingly interconnected global system. In consequence of changing climate, major regional impacts on the human habitat is expected and must be addressed in modern land-use planning and management strategies which in turn has to rely on a diligent assessment of the nature of possible impacts on regional environments. In warm arid and semi-arid climatic zones, land use can result in landscape degradation, leading to enhanced activity of earth surface processes. Climatic changes can also be instrumental in producing landscape and ecosystem changes, similar to earth surface processes brought about by land-use change. However, predictions of the future behaviour of complex geo/bio-systems are limited, because these are open systems. Apart from modelling a promising approach to better understand the processes of environment responses is to learn lessons from past variability, i.e. searching for 'palaeo-analogue' situations. These are time intervals in the past with boundary conditions (e.g. sea-level changes, atmospheric circulation patterns) more similar to future scenarios than to the present day situation. Signals of these past climate and ecosystem changes are stored in a variety of natural continental and marine archives (sediments, biogens). These geoarchives have the potential for providing researchers with high-resolution data for the reconstruction of palaeo-ecosystems and their dynamics. The influence of key forcing variables and their effects extracted from the geoarchives will be cross-checked in order to validate and adjust models of present and future processes. This knowledge will help justify and calibrate prognostic scenarios in order to deliver proxy-data for southern-hemisphere records. - The project "GeoArchives" is funded by BMBF within the SPACES-Program.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMPP54A..04S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMPP54A..04S"><span>Lumped parameter, isotopic model simulations of closed-basin lake response to drought in the Pacific Northwest and implications for lake sediment oxygen isotope records.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Steinman, B. A.; Rosenmeier, M.; Abbott, M.</p> <p>2008-12-01</p> <p>The economy of the Pacific Northwest relies heavily on water resources from the drought-prone Columbia River and its tributaries, as well as the many lakes and reservoirs of the region. Proper management of these water resources requires a thorough understanding of local drought histories that extends well beyond the instrumental record of the twentieth century, a time frame too short to capture the full range of drought variability in the Pacific Northwest. Here we present a lumped parameter, mass-balance model that provides insight into the influence of hydroclimatological changes on two small, closed-basin systems located in north- central Washington. Steady state model simulations of lake water oxygen isotope ratios using modern climate and catchment parameter datasets demonstrate a strong sensitivity to both the amount and timing of precipitation, and to changes in summertime relative humidity, particularly at annual and decadal time scales. Model tests also suggest that basin hypsography can have a significant impact on lake water oxygen isotope variations, largely through surface area to volume and consequent evaporative flux to volume ratio changes in response to drought and pluvial sequences. Additional simulations using input parameters derived from both on-site and National Climatic Data Center historical climate datasets accurately approximate three years of continuous lake observations (seasonal water sampling and continuous lake level monitoring) and twentieth century oxygen isotope ratios in sediment core authigenic carbonate recovered from the lakes. Results from these model simulations suggest that small, closed-basin lakes in north-central Washington are highly sensitive to changes in the drought-related climate variables, and that long (8000 year), high resolution records of quantitative changes in precipitation and evaporation are obtainable from sediment cores recovered from water bodies of the Pacific Northwest.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.H11J1339C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.H11J1339C"><span>Improving seasonal forecasts of hydroclimatic variables through the state of multiple large-scale climate signals</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Castelletti, A.; Giuliani, M.; Block, P. J.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Increasingly uncertain hydrologic regimes combined with more frequent and intense extreme events are challenging water systems management worldwide, emphasizing the need of accurate medium- to long-term predictions to timely prompt anticipatory operations. Despite modern forecasts are skillful over short lead time (from hours to days), predictability generally tends to decrease on longer lead times. Global climate teleconnection, such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), may contribute in extending forecast lead times. However, ENSO teleconnection is well defined in some locations, such as Western USA and Australia, while there is no consensus on how it can be detected and used in other regions, particularly in Europe, Africa, and Asia. In this work, we generalize the Niño Index Phase Analysis (NIPA) framework by contributing the Multi Variate Niño Index Phase Analysis (MV-NIPA), which allows capturing the state of multiple large-scale climate signals (i.e. ENSO, North Atlantic Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, Indian Ocean Dipole) to forecast hydroclimatic variables on a seasonal time scale. Specifically, our approach distinguishes the different phases of the considered climate signals and, for each phase, identifies relevant anomalies in Sea Surface Temperature (SST) that influence the local hydrologic conditions. The potential of the MV-NIPA framework is demonstrated through an application to the Lake Como system, a regulated lake in northern Italy which is mainly operated for flood control and irrigation supply. Numerical results show high correlations between seasonal SST values and one season-ahead precipitation in the Lake Como basin. The skill of the resulting MV-NIPA forecast outperforms the one of ECMWF products. This information represents a valuable contribution to partially anticipate the summer water availability, especially during drought events, ultimately supporting the improvement of the Lake Como operations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41A1279B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP41A1279B"><span>High-resolution lake sediment archives of midcontinental atmospheric and hydroclimate variability during the Medieval Climate Anomaly and Little Ice Age</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bird, B. W.; Wilson, J. J.; Gilhooly, W., III; Steinman, B. A.; Stamps, L. G.; Ahmed, M. N.; Abbott, M. B.; Pompeani, D. P.; Hillman, A. L.; Finkenbinder, M. S.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Hydroclimate variability in the midcontinental United States (US) during the last 2000 years is not well characterized because there are few high-resolution paleoclimate records from the region. The majority of information about late Holocene midcontinental hydroclimate variability comes from scattered lake and bog sediment archives (primarily north of 42˚N) and gridded Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) data calculated from a network of tree-ring records. The density of tree-ring records is lowest in the midcontinent, however, and decreases precipitously with time. In order to address this midcontinental paleoclimate data gap, we are developing a series of new lake-sediment-based hydroclimate records spanning 85˚ to 98˚W and 38˚ to 45˚N. New results from the eastern and central portions of the study area indicate large hydroclimate changes during the last 2000 years. Specifically, the Ohio and central Mississippi River valleys were wetter during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; 950-1250 CE), but drier during the Little Ice Age (LIA; 1350-1850 CE) with an especially severe, multi-decadal drought between 1350-1450 CE. Comparison with western (west of 96˚W) drought and fire records supports the existence of a hydroclimate dipole, with opposite hydroclimate conditions west and east of 96˚W. Isotopic changes in precipitation during the MCA and LIA suggest hydroclimate anomalies during these events were associated with mean state atmospheric circulation changes that resemble modern Pacific North American Mode (PNA) variability. Midcontinental Native American populations appear to have responded to MCA and LIA hydroclimate variability, with the latter event contributing to midcontinental depopulation between 1350-1500 CE.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1081854.pdf','ERIC'); return false;" href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1081854.pdf"><span>International Peer Collaboration to Learn about Global Climate Changes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/extended.jsp?_pageLabel=advanced">ERIC Educational Resources Information Center</a></p> <p>Korsager, Majken; Slotta, James D.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Climate change is not local; it is global. This means that many environmental issues related to climate change are not geographically limited and hence concern humans in more than one location. There is a growing body of research indicating that today's increased climate change is caused by human activities and our modern lifestyle. Consequently,…</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_14");'>14</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li class="active"><span>16</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_16 --> <div id="page_17" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li class="active"><span>17</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="321"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://eric.ed.gov/?q=Change+AND+climate&pg=6&id=EJ1041277','ERIC'); return false;" href="https://eric.ed.gov/?q=Change+AND+climate&pg=6&id=EJ1041277"><span>What Is That Thing Called Climate Change? an Investigation into the Understanding of Climate Change by Seventh-Grade Students</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/extended.jsp?_pageLabel=advanced">ERIC Educational Resources Information Center</a></p> <p>Özdem, Yasemin; Dal, Burçkin; Öztürk, Nilay; Sönmez, Duygu; Alper, Umut</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>This paper presents findings from research on students' general environmental concerns, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, worldviews, values, and actions relating to climate change. Data was gathered from a sample of 646 seventh-grade students. The findings indicate that students identify climate change as a consequence of modern life. They…</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70031833','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70031833"><span>Quantitative estimation of bioclimatic parameters from presence/absence vegetation data in North America by the modern analog technique</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Thompson, R.S.; Anderson, K.H.; Bartlein, P.J.</p> <p>2008-01-01</p> <p>The method of modern analogs is widely used to obtain estimates of past climatic conditions from paleobiological assemblages, and despite its frequent use, this method involved so-far untested assumptions. We applied four analog approaches to a continental-scale set of bioclimatic and plant-distribution presence/absence data for North America to assess how well this method works under near-optimal modern conditions. For each point on the grid, we calculated the similarity between its vegetation assemblage and those of all other points on the grid (excluding nearby points). The climate of the points with the most similar vegetation was used to estimate the climate at the target grid point. Estimates based the use of the Jaccard similarity coefficient had smaller errors than those based on the use of a new similarity coefficient, although the latter may be more robust because it does not assume that the "fossil" assemblage is complete. The results of these analyses indicate that presence/absence vegetation assemblages provide a valid basis for estimating bioclimates on the continental scale. However, the accuracy of the estimates is strongly tied to the number of species in the target assemblage, and the analog method is necessarily constrained to produce estimates that fall within the range of observed values. We applied the four modern analog approaches and the mutual overlap (or "mutual climatic range") method to estimate bioclimatic conditions represented by the plant macrofossil assemblage from a packrat midden of Last Glacial Maximum age from southern Nevada. In general, the estimation approaches produced similar results in regard to moisture conditions, but there was a greater range of estimates for growing-degree days. Despite its limitations, the modern analog technique can provide paleoclimatic reconstructions that serve as the starting point to the interpretation of past climatic conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP11B2012B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFMPP11B2012B"><span>Re-assessing the role of plant community change and climate in the PETM n-alkane record</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bush, R. T.; Baczynski, A. A.; McInerney, F. A.; Chen, D.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>The terrestrial leaf wax n-alkane record of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, shows large excursions in both carbon isotope (δ13C) values and n-alkane average chain length (ACL). At the onset of the PETM, ACL values increase from ~28.5 to ~30.1 while the negative carbon isotope excursion (CIE) is 4-6‰ in magnitude and larger than δ13C records from other materials. It has been hypothesized previously that both the ACL excursion and the large magnitude of the CIE were caused by a concurrent turnover in the local flora from a mixed conifer/angiosperm community before the PETM to a different suite of angiosperm species during the PETM. Here, we present the results of a meta-analysis of data (>2000 data from 89 sources, both published and unpublished) on n-alkane amounts and chain length distributions in modern plants from around the world. We applied the data in two sets of comparisons: 1) within and among plant groups such as herbs and graminoids, and 2) between plants and climate, using reported collection locations for outdoor plants and climate values generated via GIS extraction of WorldClim modeled data. We show that angiosperms, as group, produce more n-alkanes than do gymnosperms by 1-2 orders of magnitude, and this means that the gymnosperm contribution to a mixed soil n-alkane pool would be negligible, even in an ecosystem where gymnosperms dominated (i.e. the pre/post-PETM ecosystems). The modern plant data also demonstrate that turnover of the plant community during the PETM, even among only the angiosperm species, is likely not the source of the observed ACL excursion. First, we constructed "representative" groups of PETM and pre/post-PETM communities using living relative species at the Chicago Botanic Garden and find no significant difference in chain length distributions between the two groups. Second and moreover, the modern plant data reveal that n-alkane chain length distributions are tremendously variable within large vascular plant groups--both functional groups such as woody plants or graminoids as well as phylogenetic groups at the family level or higher. This variability makes it difficult at best to use n-alkane chain lengths to distinguish one vascular group from another, as was previously suggested. Instead, our results suggest that chain length distributions and ACL are driven more by climate, especially temperature. Longer chain lengths, with their increased hydrophobicity, would likely experience favorable selection under warmer or drier conditions where leaf water loss is likely to be a greater stress. Thus, it may be that we can interpret the increase in ACL during the PETM as a direct response by the flora to increased temperature during the hyperthermal event, and n-alkane chain length distributions, properly constrained, may possibly serve as a qualitative paleotemperature proxy.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27609899','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27609899"><span>Social and economic impacts of climate.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Carleton, Tamma A; Hsiang, Solomon M</p> <p>2016-09-09</p> <p>For centuries, thinkers have considered whether and how climatic conditions-such as temperature, rainfall, and violent storms-influence the nature of societies and the performance of economies. A multidisciplinary renaissance of quantitative empirical research is illuminating important linkages in the coupled climate-human system. We highlight key methodological innovations and results describing effects of climate on health, economics, conflict, migration, and demographics. Because of persistent "adaptation gaps," current climate conditions continue to play a substantial role in shaping modern society, and future climate changes will likely have additional impact. For example, we compute that temperature depresses current U.S. maize yields by ~48%, warming since 1980 elevated conflict risk in Africa by ~11%, and future warming may slow global economic growth rates by ~0.28 percentage points per year. In general, we estimate that the economic and social burden of current climates tends to be comparable in magnitude to the additional projected impact caused by future anthropogenic climate changes. Overall, findings from this literature point to climate as an important influence on the historical evolution of the global economy, they should inform how we respond to modern climatic conditions, and they can guide how we predict the consequences of future climate changes. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018JAESc.155...35W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018JAESc.155...35W"><span>Terrestrial mollusk records from Chinese loess sequences and changes in the East Asian monsoonal environment</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Wu, Naiqin; Li, Fengjiang; Rousseau, Denis-Didier</p> <p>2018-04-01</p> <p>The terrestrial mollusk fossils found in Chinese loess strata have been studied for over one hundred years. However, the greatest progress in these studies has been made only in the last two decades. In this paper, we review the advancements, advantages and limitations of terrestrial mollusk studies in Chinese loess deposits. Improvements in research methods and approaches have allowed the extraction of more detailed paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic information from mollusk assemblages. The broadened research scope and content have yielded many new findings and results. The mollusk record has thus become one of the most important proxies in the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstruction of loess-paleosol sequences in China. The greatest progress in the studies of terrestrial mollusks in Chinese loess sequences can be summarized as follows: (1) modern mollusk assemblages can be classified into four ecotypes, based on their temperature and humidity requirements, including eurytopic, semi-aridiphilous and sub-humidiphilous, cold-aridiphilous, and thermo-humidiphilous types; (2) Quaternary mollusk assemblages can be modified into the following three ecological types: glacial loess, interglacial paleosol, and interstadial weakly-developed paleosol assemblages; (3) mollusk records successfully reveal long-term climatic and environmental changes reflective of the history of East Asian monsoonal variations since the Late Cenozoic, and the succession of mollusk species also indicate short-term environmental changes such as millennial climate variability during Last Glacial Maximum and unstable climatic fluctuations during glacial and interglacial periods; and (4) more recently, new analytical approaches have offered increased research potential in areas such as paleotemperature reconstruction using the isotopic compositions of modern and fossil mollusk shells, combined with higher accuracy 14C dating of Quaternary loess deposits, which will greatly improve future loess paleoenvironmental research.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20170001639&hterms=water&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D90%26Ntt%3Dwater','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20170001639&hterms=water&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D90%26Ntt%3Dwater"><span>Atmospheric Water Balance and Variability in the MERRA-2 Reanalysis</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Bosilovich, Michael G.; Robertson, Franklin R.; Takacs, Lawrence; Molod, Andrea; Mocko, David</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>Closing and balancing Earths global water cycle remains a challenge for the climate community. Observations are limited in duration, global coverage, and frequency, and not all water cycle terms are adequately observed. Reanalyses aim to fill the gaps through the assimilation of as many atmospheric water vapor observations as possible. Former generations of reanalyses have demonstrated a number of systematic problems that have limited their use in climate studies, especially regarding low-frequency trends. This study characterizes the NASA Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications version 2 (MERRA-2) water cycle relative to contemporary reanalyses and observations. MERRA-2 includes measures intended to minimize the spurious global variations related to in homogeneity in the observational record. The global balance and cycling of water from ocean to land is presented, with special attention given to the water vapor analysis increment and the effects of the changing observing system. While some systematic regional biases can be identified,MERRA-2 produces temporally consistent time series of total column water and transport of water from ocean to land. However, the interannual variability of ocean evaporation is affected by the changing surface-wind-observing system, and precipitation variability is closely related to the evaporation. The surface energy budget is also strongly influenced by the interannual variability of the ocean evaporation. Furthermore, evaluating the relationship of temperature and water vapor indicates that the variations of water vapor with temperature are weaker in satellite data reanalyses, not just MERRA-2, than determined by observations, atmospheric models, or reanalyses without water vapor assimilation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27665616','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27665616"><span>Farmers' Options to Address Water Scarcity in a Changing Climate: Case Studies from two Basins in Mediterranean Chile.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Roco, Lisandro; Poblete, David; Meza, Francisco; Kerrigan, George</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Irrigated agriculture in Mediterranean areas faces tremendous challenges because of its exposure to hydroclimatic variability, increasing competition for water from different sectors, and the possibility of a climatic change. In this context, efficient management of water resources emerges as a critical issue. This requires the adoption of technological innovations, investment in infrastructure, adequate institutional arrangements, and informed decision makers. To understand farmers' perceptions and their implementation of climate change adaptation strategies with regards to water management, primary information was captured in the Limarí and Maule river basins in Chile. Farmers identified stressors for agriculture; climate change, droughts, and lack of water appeared as the most relevant stressors compared to others productive, economic, and institutional factors; revealing a rising relevance of climate related factors. While most producers perceived climate changes in recent years (92.9 %), a significant proportion (61.1 %) claim to have experienced drought, whereas only a fraction (31.9 %) have implemented a strategy to deal with this situation. Identified actions were classified in four groups: investments for water accumulation, modernization of irrigation systems, rationalization of water use, and partnership activities. Using a multinomial logit model these strategies were related to socioeconomic and productive characteristics. Results show that gender and farm size are relevant for investments, implementation and improvement of irrigation systems. For all the strategies described, access to weather information was a relevant element. The study provides empirical evidence of a recent increase in the importance assigned to climate factors by producers and adaptation options that can be supported by agricultural policy.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19901326','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19901326"><span>Climate, carbon cycling, and deep-ocean ecosystems.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Smith, K L; Ruhl, H A; Bett, B J; Billett, D S M; Lampitt, R S; Kaufmann, R S</p> <p>2009-11-17</p> <p>Climate variation affects surface ocean processes and the production of organic carbon, which ultimately comprises the primary food supply to the deep-sea ecosystems that occupy approximately 60% of the Earth's surface. Warming trends in atmospheric and upper ocean temperatures, attributed to anthropogenic influence, have occurred over the past four decades. Changes in upper ocean temperature influence stratification and can affect the availability of nutrients for phytoplankton production. Global warming has been predicted to intensify stratification and reduce vertical mixing. Research also suggests that such reduced mixing will enhance variability in primary production and carbon export flux to the deep sea. The dependence of deep-sea communities on surface water production has raised important questions about how climate change will affect carbon cycling and deep-ocean ecosystem function. Recently, unprecedented time-series studies conducted over the past two decades in the North Pacific and the North Atlantic at >4,000-m depth have revealed unexpectedly large changes in deep-ocean ecosystems significantly correlated to climate-driven changes in the surface ocean that can impact the global carbon cycle. Climate-driven variation affects oceanic communities from surface waters to the much-overlooked deep sea and will have impacts on the global carbon cycle. Data from these two widely separated areas of the deep ocean provide compelling evidence that changes in climate can readily influence deep-sea processes. However, the limited geographic coverage of these existing time-series studies stresses the importance of developing a more global effort to monitor deep-sea ecosystems under modern conditions of rapidly changing climate.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29499543','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29499543"><span>Organic matter geochemical signatures (TOC, TN, C/N ratio, δ13C and δ15N) of surface sediment from lakes distributed along a climatological gradient on the western side of the southern Andes.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Contreras, Sergio; Werne, Josef P; Araneda, A; Urrutia, R; Conejero, C A</p> <p>2018-07-15</p> <p>Paleolimnological studies in western South America, where meteorological stations are scarce, are critical to obtain more realistic and reliable regional reconstructions of past climate and environmental changes, including vegetation and water budget variability. However, climate and environmental geochemical indicators must be tested before they can be applied with confidence. Here we present a survey of lacustrine surface sediment (core top, 0 to ~1cm) biogeochemical proxies (total organic carbon [TOC], total nitrogen [TN], carbon/nitrogen ratio [C/N ratio] and bulk organic δ 13 C and total δ 15 N) from a suite of 72 lakes spanning the transition from a Mediterranean climate with a patchwork of cultivated vegetation, pastureland, and conifers in central Chile to a rainy temperate climate dominated by broadleaf deciduous and evergreen forest further south. Sedimentary data are compared to the latitudinal and orographic climatic trends of the region based on the climatology (precipitation and temperature) produced with Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) data and the modern Southern Hemisphere Westerly Winds (SWW) location. The geochemical data show inflection points at ~42°S latitude and ~1500m elevation that are likely related to the northern limit of influence of the SWW and elevation of the snow line, respectively. Overall the organic proxies were able to mimic climatic trends (Mean Annual Precipitation [MAP] and temperature [MAT]), indicating that they are a useful tool to be included in paleoclimatological reconstruction of the region. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EnMan..58..958R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EnMan..58..958R"><span>Farmers' Options to Address Water Scarcity in a Changing Climate: Case Studies from two Basins in Mediterranean Chile</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Roco, Lisandro; Poblete, David; Meza, Francisco; Kerrigan, George</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Irrigated agriculture in Mediterranean areas faces tremendous challenges because of its exposure to hydroclimatic variability, increasing competition for water from different sectors, and the possibility of a climatic change. In this context, efficient management of water resources emerges as a critical issue. This requires the adoption of technological innovations, investment in infrastructure, adequate institutional arrangements, and informed decision makers. To understand farmers' perceptions and their implementation of climate change adaptation strategies with regards to water management, primary information was captured in the Limarí and Maule river basins in Chile. Farmers identified stressors for agriculture; climate change, droughts, and lack of water appeared as the most relevant stressors compared to others productive, economic, and institutional factors; revealing a rising relevance of climate related factors. While most producers perceived climate changes in recent years (92.9 %), a significant proportion (61.1 %) claim to have experienced drought, whereas only a fraction (31.9 %) have implemented a strategy to deal with this situation. Identified actions were classified in four groups: investments for water accumulation, modernization of irrigation systems, rationalization of water use, and partnership activities. Using a multinomial logit model these strategies were related to socioeconomic and productive characteristics. Results show that gender and farm size are relevant for investments, implementation and improvement of irrigation systems. For all the strategies described, access to weather information was a relevant element. The study provides empirical evidence of a recent increase in the importance assigned to climate factors by producers and adaptation options that can be supported by agricultural policy.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25602619','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25602619"><span>The bias and signal attenuation present in conventional pollen-based climate reconstructions as assessed by early climate data from Minnesota, USA.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>St Jacques, Jeannine-Marie; Cumming, Brian F; Sauchyn, David J; Smol, John P</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>The inference of past temperatures from a sedimentary pollen record depends upon the stationarity of the pollen-climate relationship. However, humans have altered vegetation independent of changes to climate, and consequently modern pollen deposition is a product of landscape disturbance and climate, which is different from the dominance of climate-derived processes in the past. This problem could cause serious signal distortion in pollen-based reconstructions. In the north-central United States, direct human impacts have strongly altered the modern vegetation and hence the pollen rain since Euro-American settlement in the mid-19th century. Using instrumental temperature data from the early 1800 s from Fort Snelling (Minnesota), we assessed the signal distortion and bias introduced by using the conventional method of inferring temperature from pollen assemblages in comparison to a calibration set from pre-settlement pollen assemblages and the earliest instrumental climate data. The early post-settlement calibration set provides more accurate reconstructions of the 19th century instrumental record, with less bias, than the modern set does. When both modern and pre-industrial calibration sets are used to reconstruct past temperatures since AD 1116 from pollen counts from a varve-dated record from Lake Mina, Minnesota, the conventional inference method produces significant low-frequency (centennial-scale) signal attenuation and positive bias of 0.8-1.7 °C, resulting in an overestimation of Little Ice Age temperature and likely an underestimation of the extent and rate of anthropogenic warming in this region. However, high-frequency (annual-scale) signal attenuation exists with both methods. Hence, we conclude that any past pollen spectra from before Euro-American settlement in this region should be interpreted using a pre-Euro-American settlement pollen set, paired to the earliest instrumental climate records. It remains to be explored how widespread this problem is when conventional pollen-based inference methods are used, and consequently how seriously regional manifestations of global warming have been underestimated with traditional pollen-based techniques.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120003515','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120003515"><span>The Aerosol-Monsoon Climate System of Asia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Lau, William K. M.; Kyu-Myong, Kim</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>In Asian monsoon countries such as China and India, human health and safety problems caused by air-pollution are worsening due to the increased loading of atmospheric pollutants stemming from rising energy demand associated with the rapid pace of industrialization and modernization. Meanwhile, uneven distribution of monsoon rain associated with flash flood or prolonged drought, has caused major loss of human lives, and damages in crop and properties with devastating societal impacts on Asian countries. Historically, air-pollution and monsoon research are treated as separate problems. However a growing number of recent studies have suggested that the two problems may be intrinsically intertwined and need to be studied jointly. Because of complexity of the dynamics of the monsoon systems, aerosol impacts on monsoons and vice versa must be studied and understood in the context of aerosol forcing in relationship to changes in fundamental driving forces of the monsoon climate system (e.g. sea surface temperature, land-sea contrast etc.) on time scales from intraseasonal variability (weeks) to climate change ( multi-decades). Indeed, because of the large contributions of aerosols to the global and regional energy balance of the atmosphere and earth surface, and possible effects of the microphysics of clouds and precipitation, a better understanding of the response to climate change in Asian monsoon regions requires that aerosols be considered as an integral component of a fully coupled aerosol-monsoon system on all time scales. In this paper, using observations and results from climate modeling, we will discuss the coherent variability of the coupled aerosol-monsoon climate system in South Asia and East Asia, including aerosol distribution and types, with respect to rainfall, moisture, winds, land-sea thermal contrast, heat sources and sink distributions in the atmosphere in seasonal, interannual to climate change time scales. We will show examples of how elevated absorbing aerosols (dust and black carbon) may interact with monsoon dynamics to produce feedback effects on the atmospheric water cycle, leading to in accelerated melting of snowpacks over the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, and subsequent changes in evolution of the pre-monsoon and peak monsoon rainfall, moisture and wind distributions in South Asia and East Asia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://eric.ed.gov/?q=consequences+AND+climate+AND+change&pg=3&id=EJ1124483','ERIC'); return false;" href="https://eric.ed.gov/?q=consequences+AND+climate+AND+change&pg=3&id=EJ1124483"><span>Christian Higher Education in a Changing Context: Shifting from Pillars to Practices</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/extended.jsp?_pageLabel=advanced">ERIC Educational Resources Information Center</a></p> <p>Broer, Nico A.; Hoogland, Jan; van der Stoep, Jan</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>The process of global modernization has reached a new phase. In many parts of the world, societies have become so complex that the logic that characterized first modernity no longer works. Simultaneously, societies are confronted by huge and complex side effects of modern rationality, such as climate change, migration influx, global inequality,…</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35736','DOTNTL'); return false;" href="https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35736"><span>LTPP Climate Tool [Tech Brief</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/index.do">DOT National Transportation Integrated Search</a></p> <p></p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>This Product Brief describes the Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Climate Tool (intended for use by infrastructure engineers) that provides convenient access to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Modern-Era Retrospective An...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22826222','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22826222"><span>Volcanic ash layers illuminate the resilience of Neanderthals and early modern humans to natural hazards.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Lowe, John; Barton, Nick; Blockley, Simon; Ramsey, Christopher Bronk; Cullen, Victoria L; Davies, William; Gamble, Clive; Grant, Katharine; Hardiman, Mark; Housley, Rupert; Lane, Christine S; Lee, Sharen; Lewis, Mark; MacLeod, Alison; Menzies, Martin; Müller, Wolfgang; Pollard, Mark; Price, Catherine; Roberts, Andrew P; Rohling, Eelco J; Satow, Chris; Smith, Victoria C; Stringer, Chris B; Tomlinson, Emma L; White, Dustin; Albert, Paul; Arienzo, Ilenia; Barker, Graeme; Boric, Dusan; Carandente, Antonio; Civetta, Lucia; Ferrier, Catherine; Guadelli, Jean-Luc; Karkanas, Panagiotis; Koumouzelis, Margarita; Müller, Ulrich C; Orsi, Giovanni; Pross, Jörg; Rosi, Mauro; Shalamanov-Korobar, Ljiljiana; Sirakov, Nikolay; Tzedakis, Polychronis C</p> <p>2012-08-21</p> <p>Marked changes in human dispersal and development during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition have been attributed to massive volcanic eruption and/or severe climatic deterioration. We test this concept using records of volcanic ash layers of the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption dated to ca. 40,000 y ago (40 ka B.P.). The distribution of the Campanian Ignimbrite has been enhanced by the discovery of cryptotephra deposits (volcanic ash layers that are not visible to the naked eye) in archaeological cave sequences. They enable us to synchronize archaeological and paleoclimatic records through the period of transition from Neanderthal to the earliest anatomically modern human populations in Europe. Our results confirm that the combined effects of a major volcanic eruption and severe climatic cooling failed to have lasting impacts on Neanderthals or early modern humans in Europe. We infer that modern humans proved a greater competitive threat to indigenous populations than natural disasters.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMED33B0560D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009AGUFMED33B0560D"><span>Making the climate part of the human world: Why addressing beliefs and biases is necessary part of effective climate change education</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Donner, S. D.</p> <p>2009-12-01</p> <p>Efforts to raise public awareness and understanding of the social, cultural and economic consequences of climate change often encounter skepticism. The primary causes of this skepticism, whether in the form of a mild rejection of proposed policy responses or an outright rejection of the basic scientific findings, is often cited to be the poor framing of issues by the scientific community, the quality of science education or public science literacy, disinformation campaigns by representatives of the coal and gas industry, individual resistance to behavioral change, and the hyperactive nature of the modern information culture. However, the root cause may be that the weather and climate, and by association climate change, is viewed as independent of the sphere of human influence in ancient and modern societies. In this presentation, I will outline how long-standing human beliefs in the separation between the earth and the sky and the modern framing of climate change as an “environmental” issue are limiting efforts to education the public about the causes, effects and possible response to climate change. First, sociological research in the Pacific Islands (Fiji, Kiribati, Tuvalu) finds strong evidence that beliefs in divine control of the weather and climate limit public acceptance of human-induced climate change. Second, media analysis and polling data from North America supports the role of belief and provides further evidence that climate change is viewed as a threat to an “other” labeled “the environment”, rather than a threat to people or society. The consequences of these mental models of the climate can be an outright reject of scientific theory related to climate change, a milder distrust of climate change predictions, a lack of urgency about mitigation, and an underestimate of the effort required to adapt to climate change. In order to be effective, public education about climate change needs to directly address the two, critical beliefs held by the majority of the audience. Proposed solutions include re-casting climate change as a broad societal concern, thus rejecting characterization of climate change as “environmental issue”, and clearly expressing to the audience the historical reasons why climate change may be hard to “believe”</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1115720.pdf','ERIC'); return false;" href="http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1115720.pdf"><span>Entrepreneurship Development and Business Climate of Kazakhstan</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/extended.jsp?_pageLabel=advanced">ERIC Educational Resources Information Center</a></p> <p>Kydyrova, Zhamilya Sh.; Satymbekova, Katira B.; Kerimbek, Galymzhan E.; Imanbayev?, Zauresh O.; Saparbayev?, Saule S.; Nurgalieva, Ainash A.; Ilyas, Akylbek A.; Zhalbinova, Saule K.; Jrauovai, Kuralay S.; Kanafina, Ainura T.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>The goal is to explore the state of development of entrepreneurship and business climate for the formation of a clear mechanism of state support for small and average business in conditions of economy modernization. A special science-based methodology was developed to monitor the condition of entrepreneurship development and business climate in…</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23996901','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23996901"><span>Reassessing regime shifts in the North Pacific: incremental climate change and commercial fishing are necessary for explaining decadal-scale biological variability.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Litzow, Michael A; Mueter, Franz J; Hobday, Alistair J</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>In areas of the North Pacific that are largely free of overfishing, climate regime shifts - abrupt changes in modes of low-frequency climate variability - are seen as the dominant drivers of decadal-scale ecological variability. We assessed the ability of leading modes of climate variability [Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO), Arctic Oscillation (AO), Pacific-North American Pattern (PNA), North Pacific Index (NPI), El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)] to explain decadal-scale (1965-2008) patterns of climatic and biological variability across two North Pacific ecosystems (Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea). Our response variables were the first principle component (PC1) of four regional climate parameters [sea surface temperature (SST), sea level pressure (SLP), freshwater input, ice cover], and PCs 1-2 of 36 biological time series [production or abundance for populations of salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), groundfish, herring (Clupea pallasii), shrimp, and jellyfish]. We found that the climate modes alone could not explain ecological variability in the study region. Both linear models (for climate PC1) and generalized additive models (for biology PC1-2) invoking only the climate modes produced residuals with significant temporal trends, indicating that the models failed to capture coherent patterns of ecological variability. However, when the residual climate trend and a time series of commercial fishery catches were used as additional candidate variables, resulting models of biology PC1-2 satisfied assumptions of independent residuals and out-performed models constructed from the climate modes alone in terms of predictive power. As measured by effect size and Akaike weights, the residual climate trend was the most important variable for explaining biology PC1 variability, and commercial catch the most important variable for biology PC2. Patterns of climate sensitivity and exploitation history for taxa strongly associated with biology PC1-2 suggest plausible mechanistic explanations for these modeling results. Our findings suggest that, even in the absence of overfishing and in areas strongly influenced by internal climate variability, climate regime shift effects can only be understood in the context of other ecosystem perturbations. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70034953','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70034953"><span>Climatic implications of reconstructed early - Mid Pliocene equilibrium-line altitudes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Krusic, A.G.; Prentice, M.L.; Licciardi, J.M.</p> <p>2009-01-01</p> <p>Early-mid Pliocene moraines in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, are more extensive than the present alpine glaciers in this region, indicating substantial climatic differences between the early-mid Pliocene and the present. To quantify this difference in the glacier-climate regime, we estimated the equilibrium-line altitude (ELA) change since the early-mid Pliocene by calculating the modern ELA and reconstructing the ELAs of four alpine glaciers in Wright and Taylor Valleys at their early-mid Pliocene maxima. The area-altitude balance ratio method was used on modern and reconstructed early-mid Pliocene hypsometry. In Wright and Victoria Valleys, mass-balance data identify present-day ELAs of 800-1600 m a.s.l. and an average balance ratio of 1.1. The estimated ELAs of the much larger early-mid Pliocene glaciers in Wright and Taylor Valleys range from 600 to 950 ?? 170 m a.s.l., and thus are 250-600 ??170 m lower than modern ELAs in these valleys. The depressed ELAs during the early-mid-Pliocene most likely indicate a wetter and therefore warmer climate in the Dry Valleys during this period than previous studies have recognized.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29728579','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29728579"><span>Climate deteriorations and Neanderthal demise in interior Iberia.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Wolf, D; Kolb, T; Alcaraz-Castaño, M; Heinrich, S; Baumgart, P; Calvo, R; Sánchez, J; Ryborz, K; Schäfer, I; Bliedtner, M; Zech, R; Zöller, L; Faust, D</p> <p>2018-05-04</p> <p>Time and circumstances for the disappearance of Neanderthals and its relationship with the advent of Modern Humans are not yet sufficiently resolved, especially in case of the Iberian Peninsula. Reconstructing palaeoenvironmental conditions during the last glacial period is crucial to clarifying whether climate deteriorations or competition and contacts with Modern Humans played the pivotal role in driving Neanderthals to extinction. A high-resolution loess record from the Upper Tagus Basin in central Spain demonstrates that the Neanderthal abandonment of inner Iberian territories 42 kyr ago coincided with the evolvement of hostile environmental conditions, while archaeological evidence testifies that this desertion took place regardless of modern humans' activities. According to stratigraphic findings and stable isotope analyses, this period corresponded to the driest environmental conditions of the last glacial apart from an even drier period linked to Heinrich Stadial 3. Our results show that during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 4 and 2 climate deteriorations in interior Iberia temporally coincided with northern hemisphere cold periods (Heinrich stadials). Solely during the middle MIS 3, in a period surrounding 42 kyr ago, this relation seems not straightforward, which may demonstrate the complexity of terrestrial climate conditions during glacial periods.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_15");'>15</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li class="active"><span>17</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_17 --> <div id="page_18" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li class="active"><span>18</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="341"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27436574','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27436574"><span>The abrupt onset of the modern South Asian Monsoon winds.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Betzler, Christian; Eberli, Gregor P; Kroon, Dick; Wright, James D; Swart, Peter K; Nath, Bejugam Nagender; Alvarez-Zarikian, Carlos A; Alonso-García, Montserrat; Bialik, Or M; Blättler, Clara L; Guo, Junhua Adam; Haffen, Sébastien; Horozal, Senay; Inoue, Mayuri; Jovane, Luigi; Lanci, Luca; Laya, Juan Carlos; Mee, Anna Ling Hui; Lüdmann, Thomas; Nakakuni, Masatoshi; Niino, Kaoru; Petruny, Loren M; Pratiwi, Santi D; Reijmer, John J G; Reolid, Jesús; Slagle, Angela L; Sloss, Craig R; Su, Xiang; Yao, Zhengquan; Young, Jeremy R</p> <p>2016-07-20</p> <p>The South Asian Monson (SAM) is one of the most intense climatic elements yet its initiation and variations are not well established. Dating the deposits of SAM wind-driven currents in IODP cores from the Maldives yields an age of 12. 9 Ma indicating an abrupt SAM onset, over a short period of 300 kyrs. This coincided with the Indian Ocean Oxygen Minimum Zone expansion as revealed by geochemical tracers and the onset of upwelling reflected by the sediment's content of particulate organic matter. A weaker 'proto-monsoon' existed between 12.9 and 25 Ma, as mirrored by the sedimentary signature of dust influx. Abrupt SAM initiation favors a strong influence of climate in addition to the tectonic control, and we propose that the post Miocene Climate Optimum cooling, together with increased continentalization and establishment of the bipolar ocean circulation, i.e. the beginning of the modern world, shifted the monsoon over a threshold towards the modern system.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3619483','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3619483"><span>Palaeo-precipitation is a major determinant of palm species richness patterns across Madagascar: a tropical biodiversity hotspot</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Rakotoarinivo, Mijoro; Blach-Overgaard, Anne; Baker, William J.; Dransfield, John; Moat, Justin; Svenning, Jens-Christian</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>The distribution of rainforest in many regions across the Earth was strongly affected by Pleistocene ice ages. However, the extent to which these dynamics are still important for modern-day biodiversity patterns within tropical biodiversity hotspots has not been assessed. We employ a comprehensive dataset of Madagascan palms (Arecaceae) and climate reconstructions from the last glacial maximum (LGM; 21 000 years ago) to assess the relative role of modern environment and LGM climate in explaining geographical species richness patterns in this major tropical biodiversity hotspot. We found that palaeoclimate exerted a strong influence on palm species richness patterns, with richness peaking in areas with higher LGM precipitation relative to present-day even after controlling for modern environment, in particular in northeastern Madagascar, consistent with the persistence of tropical rainforest during the LGM primarily in this region. Our results provide evidence that diversity patterns in the World's most biodiverse regions may be shaped by long-term climate history as well as contemporary environment. PMID:23427173</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1636537','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1636537"><span>Modern Quaternary plant lineages promote diversity through facilitation of ancient Tertiary lineages</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Valiente-Banuet, Alfonso; Rumebe, Adolfo Vital; Verdú, Miguel; Callaway, Ragan M.</p> <p>2006-01-01</p> <p>One of the most important floristic sorting periods to affect modern plant communities occurred during the shift from the wet Tertiary period to the unusually dry Quaternary, when most global deserts developed. During this time, a wave of new plant species emerged, presumably in response to the new climate. Interestingly, most Tertiary species that have been tracked through the fossil record did not disappear but remained relatively abundant despite the development of a much more unfavorable climate for species adapted to moist conditions. Here we find, by integrating paleobotanical, ecological, and phylogenetic analyses, that a large number of ancient Tertiary species in Mediterranean-climate ecosystems appear to have been preserved by the facilitative or “nurse” effects of modern Quaternary species. Our results indicate that these interdependent relationships among plants have played a central role in the preservation of the global biodiversity and provided a mechanism for stabilizing selection and the conservation of ecological traits over evolutionary time scales. PMID:17068126</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/35188','TREESEARCH'); return false;" href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/35188"><span>A climatic and taxonomic comparison between leaf litter and standing vegetation from a Florida swamp woodland</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/">Treesearch</a></p> <p>David L. Dilcher; Elizabeth A. Kowalski; Michael C. Wiemann; Luis Felipe Hinojosa; Terry A. Lott</p> <p>2009-01-01</p> <p>One method to determine past climate has been the use of leaf morphological characteristics of fossil leaves quantified using modern climate and canopy leaf characteristics. Fossil assemblages are composed of abscised leaves, and climate may be more accurately determined by using leaves from leaf litter instead of the canopy. To better understand whether taphonomic...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMIN11A0026K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMIN11A0026K"><span>Using "CONNected objECT (CONNECT)" Algorithm to Explore Intense Global Water Vapor Transport to Investigate Impacts of Climate Variability and Change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kawzenuk, B.; Sellars, S. L.; Nguyen, P.; Ralph, F. M.; Sorooshian, S.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The CONNected objECT (CONNECT) algorithm is applied to Integrated Water Vapor Transport (IVT) data from the NASA's Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications - Version 2 reanalysis product for the period 1980 to 2016 to study water vapor transport globally. The algorithm generates life-cycle records as statistical objects for the time and space location of the evolving strong vapor transport events. Global statistics are presented and used to investigate how climate variability impacts the events' location and frequency. Results show distinct water vapor object frequency and seasonal peaks during NH and SH Winter. Moreover, a positive linear trend in the annual number of objects is reported, increasing by 3.58 objects year-over-year (with 95% confidence, +/- 1.39). In addition, we show five distinct regions where these events typically exist (southeastern United States, eastern China, South Pacific south of 25°S, eastern South America and off the southern tip of South Africa), and where they rarely exist (eastern South Pacific Ocean and central southern Atlantic Ocean between 5°N-25°S). In addition, the event frequency and geographical location are also shown to be related to the Arctic Oscillation, Pacific North American Pattern, and the Quasi-Biennial Oscillation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.A21O..04P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.A21O..04P"><span>Exploring the potential of machine learning to break deadlock in convection parameterization</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Pritchard, M. S.; Gentine, P.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>We explore the potential of modern machine learning tools (via TensorFlow) to replace parameterization of deep convection in climate models. Our strategy begins by generating a large ( 1 Tb) training dataset from time-step level (30-min) output harvested from a one-year integration of a zonally symmetric, uniform-SST aquaplanet integration of the SuperParameterized Community Atmosphere Model (SPCAM). We harvest the inputs and outputs connecting each of SPCAM's 8,192 embedded cloud-resolving model (CRM) arrays to its host climate model's arterial thermodynamic state variables to afford 143M independent training instances. We demonstrate that this dataset is sufficiently large to induce preliminary convergence for neural network prediction of desired outputs of SP, i.e. CRM-mean convective heating and moistening profiles. Sensitivity of the machine learning convergence to the nuances of the TensorFlow implementation are discussed, as well as results from pilot tests from the neural network operating inline within the SPCAM as a replacement to the (super)parameterization of convection.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018QSRv..191..229T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018QSRv..191..229T"><span>Impact of Arctic shelf summer stratification on Holocene climate variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Thibodeau, Benoit; Bauch, Henning A.; Knies, Jochen</p> <p>2018-07-01</p> <p>Understanding the dynamic of freshwater and sea-ice export from the Arctic is crucial to better comprehend the potential near-future climate change consequences. Here, we report nitrogen isotope data of a core from the Laptev Sea to shed light on the impact of the Holocene Siberian transgression on the summer stratification of the Laptev Sea. Our data suggest that the oceanographic setting was less favourable to sea-ice formation in the Laptev Sea during the early to mid-Holocene. It is only after the sea level reached a standstill at around 4 ka that the water column structure in the Laptev Sea became more stable. Modern-day conditions, often described as "sea-ice factory", were reached about 2 ka ago, after the development of a strong summer stratification. These results are consistent with sea-ice reconstruction along the Transpolar Drift, highlighting the potential contribution of the Laptev Sea to the export of freshwater from the Arctic Ocean.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017CliPa..13.1851H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017CliPa..13.1851H"><span>Comparing proxy and model estimates of hydroclimate variability and change over the Common Era</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hydro2k Consortium, Pages</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Water availability is fundamental to societies and ecosystems, but our understanding of variations in hydroclimate (including extreme events, flooding, and decadal periods of drought) is limited because of a paucity of modern instrumental observations that are distributed unevenly across the globe and only span parts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Such data coverage is insufficient for characterizing hydroclimate and its associated dynamics because of its multidecadal to centennial variability and highly regionalized spatial signature. High-resolution (seasonal to decadal) hydroclimatic proxies that span all or parts of the Common Era (CE) and paleoclimate simulations from climate models are therefore important tools for augmenting our understanding of hydroclimate variability. In particular, the comparison of the two sources of information is critical for addressing the uncertainties and limitations of both while enriching each of their interpretations. We review the principal proxy data available for hydroclimatic reconstructions over the CE and highlight the contemporary understanding of how these proxies are interpreted as hydroclimate indicators. We also review the available last-millennium simulations from fully coupled climate models and discuss several outstanding challenges associated with simulating hydroclimate variability and change over the CE. A specific review of simulated hydroclimatic changes forced by volcanic events is provided, as is a discussion of expected improvements in estimated radiative forcings, models, and their implementation in the future. Our review of hydroclimatic proxies and last-millennium model simulations is used as the basis for articulating a variety of considerations and best practices for how to perform proxy-model comparisons of CE hydroclimate. This discussion provides a framework for how best to evaluate hydroclimate variability and its associated dynamics using these comparisons and how they can better inform interpretations of both proxy data and model simulations. We subsequently explore means of using proxy-model comparisons to better constrain and characterize future hydroclimate risks. This is explored specifically in the context of several examples that demonstrate how proxy-model comparisons can be used to quantitatively constrain future hydroclimatic risks as estimated from climate model projections.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20180000565&hterms=centennials&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D20%26Ntt%3Dcentennials','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20180000565&hterms=centennials&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D20%26Ntt%3Dcentennials"><span>Comparing Proxy and Model Estimates of Hydroclimate Variability and Change over the Common Era</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Smerdon, Jason E.; Luterbacher, Jurg; Phipps, Steven J.; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.; Ault, Toby; Coats, Sloan; Cobb, Kim M.; Cook, Benjamin I.; Colose, Chris; Felis, Thomas; <a style="text-decoration: none; " href="javascript:void(0); " onClick="displayelement('author_20180000565'); toggleEditAbsImage('author_20180000565_show'); toggleEditAbsImage('author_20180000565_hide'); "> <img style="display:inline; width:12px; height:12px; " src="images/arrow-up.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" alt="hide" id="author_20180000565_show"> <img style="width:12px; height:12px; display:none; " src="images/arrow-down.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" alt="hide" id="author_20180000565_hide"></p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>Water availability is fundamental to societies and ecosystems, but our understanding of variations in hydroclimate (including extreme events, flooding, and decadal periods of drought) is limited because of a paucity of modern instrumental observations that are distributed unevenly across the globe and only span parts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Such data coverage is insufficient for characterizing hydroclimate and its associated dynamics because of its multidecadal to centennial variability and highly regionalized spatial signature. High-resolution (seasonal to decadal) hydroclimatic proxies that span all or parts of the Common Era (CE) and paleoclimate simulations from climate models are therefore important tools for augmenting our understanding of hydroclimate variability. In particular, the comparison of the two sources of information is critical for addressing the uncertainties and limitations of both while enriching each of their interpretations. We review the principal proxy data available for hydroclimatic reconstructions over the CE and highlight the contemporary understanding of how these proxies are interpreted as hydroclimate indicators. We also review the available last-millennium simulations from fully coupled climate models and discuss several outstanding challenges associated with simulating hydroclimate variability and change over the CE. A specific review of simulated hydroclimatic changes forced by volcanic events is provided, as is a discussion of expected improvements in estimated radiative forcings, models, and their implementation in the future. Our review of hydroclimatic proxies and last-millennium model simulations is used as the basis for articulating a variety of considerations and best practices for how to perform proxy-model comparisons of CE hydroclimate. This discussion provides a framework for how best to evaluate hydroclimate variability and its associated dynamics using these comparisons and how they can better inform interpretations of both proxy data and model simulations.We subsequently explore means of using proxy-model comparisons to better constrain and characterize future hydroclimate risks. This is explored specifically in the context of several examples that demonstrate how proxy-model comparisons can be used to quantitatively constrain future hydroclimatic risks as estimated from climate model projections.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFM.A33E3237M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFM.A33E3237M"><span>Southern Ocean Convection and tropical telleconnections</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Marinov, I.; Cabre, A.; Gnanadesikan, A.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>We show that Southern Ocean (SO) temperatures in the latest generation of Earth System Models exhibit two major modes of variation, one driven by deep convection, the other by tropical variability. We perform a CMIP5 model intercomparison to understand why different climate models represent SO variability so differently in long, control simulations. We show that multiyear variability in Southern Ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) can in turn influence oceanic and atmospheric conditions in the tropics on short (atmospheric) time-scales. We argue that the strength and pattern of SO-tropical teleconnections depends on the intensity of SO deep convection. Periodic convection in the SO is a feature of most CMIP5 models under preindustrial forcing (deLavergne et al., 2014). Models show a wide distribution in the spatial extent, periodicity and intensity of their SO convection, with some models convecting most of the time, and some showing very little convection. In a highly convective coupled model, we find that multidecadal variability in SO and global SSTs, as well as SO heat storage are driven by Weddell Sea convective variability, with convective decades relatively warm due to the heat released from the deep southern ocean and non-convective decades cold due to the subsurface storage of heat. Furthermore, pulses of SO convection drive SST and sea ice variations, influencing absorbed shortwave and emitted longwave radiation, wind, cloud and precipitation patterns, with climatic implications for the low latitudes via fast atmospheric teleconnections. We suggest that these high-low latitude teleconnection mechanisms are relevant for understanding hiatus decades. Additionally, Southern Ocean deep convection varied significantly during past, natural climate changes such as during the last deglaciation. Weddell Sea open convection was recently weakened, likely as a consequence of anthropogenic forcing and the resulting surface freshening. Our study opens up the tantalizing possibility that such large-scale changes in SO deep convection might have tropical and indeed global implications via atmospheric teleconnections. We advocate the collection of both paleo and modern proxies that can verify these model-derived mechanisms and global teleconnections.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP33B2313C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP33B2313C"><span>Fish Productivity in Open-Ocean Gyre Systems in the Late Oligocene and Miocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Cuevas, J. M.; Sibert, E. C.; Norris, R. D.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Understanding how marine ecosystems respond to climate change is very important as we continue to warm the climate. Fish represent a critical protein source for a significant portion of the global population, and as such, an understanding of fish production and its interactions with climate change may help better prepare for the future. Ichthyoliths, fossil fish teeth and shark scales, are a novel fossil group which can be used as an indicator for fish productivity. Several important climate events occurred during the Miocene (7 to 23 Ma), including the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum. Here we reconstruct fish production from across the Miocene from Pacific and Atlantic Ocean gyres. South Atlantic samples, from Deep Sea Drilling Program (DSDP) Site 522 spanning from 30 to 20 Ma, show fairly variable numbers in the Oligocene (ranging from 100 to 800 ich/cm2/yr), but stabilization in the Early Miocene (around 400 ich/cm2/yr), suggesting that the beginning of the Miocene brought consistent conditions for fish production. In the North Pacific, our record from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 886 shows a distinct crash in fish productivity at 11 Ma, from 3500 ich/cm2/yr to a steady decline around 100 ich/cm2/yr for the next million years. This crash is followed by a marked increase in the presence of diatoms and biogenous opal. This is somewhat surprising, since in modern oceanic systems, an increase in diatoms and other large-celled phytoplankton is associated with shorter, more efficient food chains and higher levels of fish. It is also interesting to note that denticles remain consistently low at both sites, indicating consistently low shark populations through this time period. Together, these results suggest that the Late Oligocene and Miocene was a time of variable fish production and provide a window into understanding of dynamic ecosystem changes through the Miocene in open-ocean gyre ecosystems.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP22A..02R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP22A..02R"><span>Impacts of weather versus climate and driver uncertainty on multi-centennial ecosystem model simulations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rollinson, C.; Simkins, J.; Fer, I.; Desai, A. R.; Dietze, M.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Simulations of ecosystem dynamics and comparisons with empirical data require accurate, continuous, and often sub-daily meteorology records that are spatially aligned to the scale of the empirical data. A wealth of meteorology data for the past, present, and future is available through site-specific observations, modern reanalysis products, and gridded GCM simulations. However, these products are mismatched in spatial and temporal resolution, often with both different means and seasonal patterns. We have designed and implemented a two-step meteorological downscaling and ensemble generation method that combines multiple meteorology data products through debiasing and temporal downscaling protocols. Our methodology is designed to preserve the covariance among seven meteorological variables for use as drivers in ecosystem model simulations: temperature, precipitation, short- and longwave radiation, surface pressure, humidity, and wind. Furthermore, our method propagates uncertainty through the downscaling process and results in ensembles of meteorology that can be compared to paleoclimate reconstructions and used to analyze the effects of both high- and low-frequency climate anomalies on ecosystem dynamics. Using a multiple linear regression approach, we have combined hourly, 0.125-degree gridded data from the NLDAS (1980-present) with CRUNCEP (1901-2010) and CMIP5 historical (1850-2005), past millennium (850-1849), and future (1950-2100) GCM simulations. This has resulted in an ensemble of continuous, hourly-resolved meteorology from from the paleo era into the future with variability in weather events as well as low-frequency climatic changes. We investigate the influence of extreme sub-daily weather phenomena versus long-term climatic changes in an ensemble of ecosystem models that range in atmospheric and biological complexity. Through data assimilation with paleoclimate reconstructions of past climate, we can improve data-model comparisons using observations of vegetation change from the past 1200 years. Accounting for driver uncertainty in model evaluation can help determine the relative influence of structural versus parameterization errors in ecosystem modelings.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70034863','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70034863"><span>Historical and modern disturbance regimes, stand structures, and landscape dynamics in piñon-juniper vegetation of the western United States</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Romme, William H.; Allen, Craig D.; Bailey, John D.; Baker, William L.; Bestelmeyer, Brandon T.; Brown, Peter M.; Eisenhart, Karen S.; Floyd, M. Lisa; Huffman, David W.; Jacobs, Brian F.; Miller, Richard F.; Muldavin, Esteban H.; Swetnam, Thomas W.; Tausch, Robin J.; Weisberg, Peter J.</p> <p>2009-01-01</p> <p>Piñon–juniper is a major vegetation type in western North America. Effective management of these ecosystems has been hindered by inadequate understanding of 1) the variability in ecosystem structure and ecological processes that exists among the diverse combinations of piñons, junipers, and associated shrubs, herbs, and soil organisms; 2) the prehistoric and historic disturbance regimes; and 3) the mechanisms driving changes in vegetation structure and composition during the past 150 yr. This article summarizes what we know (and don't know) about three fundamentally different kinds of piñon–juniper vegetation. Persistent woodlands are found where local soils, climate, and disturbance regimes are favorable for piñon, juniper, or a mix of both; fires have always been infrequent in these woodlands. Piñon–juniper savannas are found where local soils and climate are suitable for both trees and grasses; it is logical that low-severity fires may have maintained low tree densities before disruption of fire regimes following Euro-American settlement, but information is insufficient to support any confident statements about historical disturbance regimes in these savannas. Wooded shrublands are found where local soils and climate support a shrub community, but trees can increase during moist climatic conditions and periods without disturbance and decrease during droughts and following disturbance. Dramatic increases in tree density have occurred in portions of all three types of piñon–juniper vegetation, although equally dramatic mortality events have also occurred in some areas. The potential mechanisms driving increases in tree density—such as recovery from past disturbance, natural range expansion, livestock grazing, fire exclusion, climatic variability, and CO2 fertilization—generally have not received enough empirical or experimental investigation to predict which is most important in any given location. The intent of this synthesis is 1) to provide a source of information for managers and policy makers; and 2) to stimulate researchers to address the most important unanswered questions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18459334','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18459334"><span>Multi-season climate synchronized historical fires in dry forests (1650-1900), northern Rockies, U.S.A.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Heyerdahl, Emily K; Morgan, Penelope; Riser, James P</p> <p>2008-03-01</p> <p>Our objective was to infer the climate drivers of regionally synchronous fire years in dry forests of the U.S. northern Rockies in Idaho and western Montana. During our analysis period (1650-1900), we reconstructed fires from 9245 fire scars on 576 trees (mostly ponderosa pine, Pinus ponderosa P. & C. Lawson) at 21 sites and compared them to existing tree-ring reconstructions of climate (temperature and the Palmer Drought Severity Index [PDSI]) and large-scale climate patterns that affect modern spring climate in this region (El Niño Southern Oscillation [ENSO] and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO]). We identified 32 regional-fire years as those with five or more sites with fire. Fires were remarkably widespread during such years, including one year (1748) in which fires were recorded at 10 sites across what are today seven national forests plus one site on state land. During regional-fire years, spring-summers were significantly warm and summers were significantly warm-dry whereas the opposite conditions prevailed during the 99 years when no fires were recorded at any of our sites (no-fire years). Climate in prior years was not significantly associated with regional- or no-fire years. Years when fire was recorded at only a few of our sites occurred under a broad range of climate conditions, highlighting the fact that the regional climate drivers of fire are most evident when fires are synchronized across a large area. No-fire years tended to occur during La Niña years, which tend to have anomalously deep snowpacks in this region. However, ENSO was not a significant driver of regional-fire years, consistent with the greater influence of La Niña than El Niño conditions on the spring climate of this region. PDO was not a significant driver of past fire, despite being a strong driver of modern spring climate and modern regional-fire years in the northern Rockies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23722925','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23722925"><span>Modeling climate effects on hip fracture rate by the multivariate GARCH model in Montreal region, Canada.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Modarres, Reza; Ouarda, Taha B M J; Vanasse, Alain; Orzanco, Maria Gabriela; Gosselin, Pierre</p> <p>2014-07-01</p> <p>Changes in extreme meteorological variables and the demographic shift towards an older population have made it important to investigate the association of climate variables and hip fracture by advanced methods in order to determine the climate variables that most affect hip fracture incidence. The nonlinear autoregressive moving average with exogenous variable-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARMAX-GARCH) and multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) time series approaches were applied to investigate the nonlinear association between hip fracture rate in female and male patients aged 40-74 and 75+ years and climate variables in the period of 1993-2004, in Montreal, Canada. The models describe 50-56% of daily variation in hip fracture rate and identify snow depth, air temperature, day length and air pressure as the influencing variables on the time-varying mean and variance of the hip fracture rate. The conditional covariance between climate variables and hip fracture rate is increasing exponentially, showing that the effect of climate variables on hip fracture rate is most acute when rates are high and climate conditions are at their worst. In Montreal, climate variables, particularly snow depth and air temperature, appear to be important predictors of hip fracture incidence. The association of climate variables and hip fracture does not seem to change linearly with time, but increases exponentially under harsh climate conditions. The results of this study can be used to provide an adaptive climate-related public health program and ti guide allocation of services for avoiding hip fracture risk.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014IJBm...58..921M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014IJBm...58..921M"><span>Modeling climate effects on hip fracture rate by the multivariate GARCH model in Montreal region, Canada</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Modarres, Reza; Ouarda, Taha B. M. J.; Vanasse, Alain; Orzanco, Maria Gabriela; Gosselin, Pierre</p> <p>2014-07-01</p> <p>Changes in extreme meteorological variables and the demographic shift towards an older population have made it important to investigate the association of climate variables and hip fracture by advanced methods in order to determine the climate variables that most affect hip fracture incidence. The nonlinear autoregressive moving average with exogenous variable-generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARMA X-GARCH) and multivariate GARCH (MGARCH) time series approaches were applied to investigate the nonlinear association between hip fracture rate in female and male patients aged 40-74 and 75+ years and climate variables in the period of 1993-2004, in Montreal, Canada. The models describe 50-56 % of daily variation in hip fracture rate and identify snow depth, air temperature, day length and air pressure as the influencing variables on the time-varying mean and variance of the hip fracture rate. The conditional covariance between climate variables and hip fracture rate is increasing exponentially, showing that the effect of climate variables on hip fracture rate is most acute when rates are high and climate conditions are at their worst. In Montreal, climate variables, particularly snow depth and air temperature, appear to be important predictors of hip fracture incidence. The association of climate variables and hip fracture does not seem to change linearly with time, but increases exponentially under harsh climate conditions. The results of this study can be used to provide an adaptive climate-related public health program and ti guide allocation of services for avoiding hip fracture risk.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015QSRv..121..120M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015QSRv..121..120M"><span>Transient coupling relationships of the Holocene Australian monsoon</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>McRobie, F. H.; Stemler, T.; Wyrwoll, K.-H.</p> <p>2015-08-01</p> <p>The northwest Australian summer monsoon owes a notable degree of its interannual variability to interactions with other regional monsoon systems. Therefore, changes in the nature of these relationships may contribute to variability in monsoon strength over longer time scales. Previous attempts to evaluate how proxy records from the Indonesian-Australian monsoon region correspond to other records from the Indian and East Asian monsoon regions, as well as to El Niño-related proxy records, have been qualitative, relying on 'curve-fitting' methods. Here, we seek a quantitative approach for identifying coupling relationships between paleoclimate proxy records, employing statistical techniques to compute the interdependence of two paleoclimate time series. We verify the use of complex networks to identify coupling relationships between modern climate indices. This method is then extended to a set of paleoclimate proxy records from the Asian, Australasian and South American regions spanning the past 9000 years. The resulting networks demonstrate the existence of coupling relationships between regional monsoon systems on millennial time scales, but also highlight the transient nature of teleconnections during this period. In the context of the northwest Australian summer monsoon, we recognise a shift in coupling relationships from strong interhemispheric links with East Asian and ITCZ-related proxy records in the mid-Holocene to significantly weaker coupling in the later Holocene. Although the identified links cannot explain the underlying physical processes leading to coupling between regional monsoon systems, this method provides a step towards understanding the role that changes in teleconnections play in millennial-to orbital-scale climate variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1764156','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1764156"><span>Assessment of Human Health Vulnerability to Climate Variability and Change in Cuba</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Bultó, Paulo Lázaro Ortíz; Rodríguez, Antonio Pérez; Valencia, Alina Rivero; Vega, Nicolás León; Gonzalez, Manuel Díaz; Carrera, Alina Pérez</p> <p>2006-01-01</p> <p>In this study we assessed the potential effects of climate variability and change on population health in Cuba. We describe the climate of Cuba as well as the patterns of climate-sensitive diseases of primary concern, particularly dengue fever. Analyses of the associations between climatic anomalies and disease patterns highlight current vulnerability to climate variability. We describe current adaptations, including the application of climate predictions to prevent disease outbreaks. Finally, we present the potential economic costs associated with future impacts due to climate change. The tools used in this study can be useful in the development of appropriate and effective adaptation options to address the increased climate variability associated with climate change. PMID:17185289</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/53945','TREESEARCH'); return false;" href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/53945"><span>Climate variability drives population cycling and synchrony</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/">Treesearch</a></p> <p>Lars Y. Pomara; Benjamin Zuckerberg</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>Aim There is mounting concern that climate change will lead to the collapse of cyclic population dynamics, yet the influence of climate variability on population cycling remains poorly understood. We hypothesized that variability in survival and fecundity, driven by climate variability at different points in the life cycle, scales up from...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70028197','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70028197"><span>Modern pollen data from North America and Greenland for multi-scale paleoenvironmental applications</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Whitmore, J.; Gajewski, K.; Sawada, M.; Williams, J.W.; Shuman, B.; Bartlein, P.J.; Minckley, T.; Viau, A.E.; Webb, T.; Shafer, S.; Anderson, P.; Brubaker, L.</p> <p>2005-01-01</p> <p>The modern pollen network in North America and Greenland is presented as a database for use in quantitative calibration studies and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. The georeferenced database includes 4634 samples from all regions of the continent and 134 pollen taxa that range from ubiquitous to regionally diagnostic taxa. Climate data and vegetation characteristics were assigned to every site. Automated and manual procedures were used to verify the accuracy of geographic coordinates and identify duplicate records among datasets, incomplete pollen sums, and other potential errors. Data are currently available for almost all of North America, with variable density. Pollen taxonomic diversity, as measured by the Shannon-Weiner coefficient, varies as a function of location, as some vegetation regions are dominated by one or two major pollen producers, while other regions have a more even composition of pollen taxa. Squared-chord distances computed between samples show that most modern pollen samples find analogues within their own vegetation zone. Both temperature and precipitation inferred from best analogues are highly correlated with observed values but temperature exhibits the strongest relation. Maps of the contemporary distribution of several pollen types in relation to the range of the plant taxon illustrate the correspondence between plant and pollen ranges. ?? 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_16");'>16</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li class="active"><span>18</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_18 --> <div id="page_19" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li class="active"><span>19</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="361"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA473826','DTIC-ST'); return false;" href="http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA473826"><span>The Age of Consequences: The Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.dtic.mil/">DTIC Science & Technology</a></p> <p></p> <p>2007-11-01</p> <p>Climate skeptics The climate change-conflict nexus has its fair share of skeptics. Many observers remain unconvinced that climate change, whether due...implications of climate change remain specula- tive. In addition, they observe that none of the consequences forecast in the authoritative reports of the...modern practices and relocate to the few remaining habitable regions at the extreme north- ern and southern hemispheres.33 Essam El Hinnawi first</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PhDT........71P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017PhDT........71P"><span>Sources and Impacts of Modeled and Observed Low-Frequency Climate Variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Parsons, Luke Alexander</p> <p></p> <p>Here we analyze climate variability using instrumental, paleoclimate (proxy), and the latest climate model data to understand more about the sources and impacts of low-frequency climate variability. Understanding the drivers of climate variability at interannual to century timescales is important for studies of climate change, including analyses of detection and attribution of climate change impacts. Additionally, correctly modeling the sources and impacts of variability is key to the simulation of abrupt change (Alley et al., 2003) and extended drought (Seager et al., 2005; Pelletier and Turcotte, 1997; Ault et al., 2014). In Appendix A, we employ an Earth system model (GFDL-ESM2M) simulation to study the impacts of a weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) on the climate of the American Tropics. The AMOC drives some degree of local and global internal low-frequency climate variability (Manabe and Stouffer, 1995; Thornalley et al., 2009) and helps control the position of the tropical rainfall belt (Zhang and Delworth, 2005). We find that a major weakening of the AMOC can cause large-scale temperature, precipitation, and carbon storage changes in Central and South America. Our results suggest that possible future changes in AMOC strength alone will not be sufficient to drive a large-scale dieback of the Amazonian forest, but this key natural ecosystem is sensitive to dry-season length and timing of rainfall (Parsons et al., 2014). In Appendix B, we compare a paleoclimate record of precipitation variability in the Peruvian Amazon to climate model precipitation variability. The paleoclimate (Lake Limon) record indicates that precipitation variability in western Amazonia is 'red' (i.e., increasing variability with timescale). By contrast, most state-of-the-art climate models indicate precipitation variability in this region is nearly 'white' (i.e., equally variability across timescales). This paleo-model disagreement in the overall structure of the variance spectrum has important consequences for the probability of multi-year drought. Our lake record suggests there is a significant background threat of multi-year, and even decade-length, drought in western Amazonia, whereas climate model simulations indicate most droughts likely last no longer than one to three years. These findings suggest climate models may underestimate the future risk of extended drought in this important region. In Appendix C, we expand our analysis of climate variability beyond South America. We use observations, well-constrained tropical paleoclimate, and Earth system model data to examine the overall shape of the climate spectrum across interannual to century frequencies. We find a general agreement among observations and models that temperature variability increases with timescale across most of the globe outside the tropics. However, as compared to paleoclimate records, climate models generate too little low-frequency variability in the tropics (e.g., Laepple and Huybers, 2014). When we compare the shape of the simulated climate spectrum to the spectrum of a simple autoregressive process, we find much of the modeled surface temperature variability in the tropics could be explained by ocean smoothing of weather noise. Importantly, modeled precipitation tends to be similar to white noise across much of the globe. By contrast, paleoclimate records of various types from around the globe indicate that both temperature and precipitation variability should experience much more low-frequency variability than a simple autoregressive or white-noise process. In summary, state-of-the-art climate models generate some degree of dynamically driven low-frequency climate variability, especially at high latitudes. However, the latest climate models, observations, and paleoclimate data provide us with drastically different pictures of the background climate system and its associated risks. This research has important consequences for improving how we simulate climate extremes as we enter a warmer (and often drier) world in the coming centuries; if climate models underestimate low-frequency variability, we will underestimate the risk of future abrupt change and extreme events, such as megadroughts.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150021055','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20150021055"><span>Interactions of Mean Climate Change and Climate Variability on Food Security Extremes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Ruane, Alexander C.; McDermid, Sonali; Mavromatis, Theodoros; Hudson, Nicholas; Morales, Monica; Simmons, John; Prabodha, Agalawatte; Ahmad, Ashfaq; Ahmad, Shakeel; Ahuja, Laj R.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Recognizing that climate change will affect agricultural systems both through mean changes and through shifts in climate variability and associated extreme events, we present preliminary analyses of climate impacts from a network of 1137 crop modeling sites contributed to the AgMIP Coordinated Climate-Crop Modeling Project (C3MP). At each site sensitivity tests were run according to a common protocol, which enables the fitting of crop model emulators across a range of carbon dioxide, temperature, and water (CTW) changes. C3MP can elucidate several aspects of these changes and quantify crop responses across a wide diversity of farming systems. Here we test the hypothesis that climate change and variability interact in three main ways. First, mean climate changes can affect yields across an entire time period. Second, extreme events (when they do occur) may be more sensitive to climate changes than a year with normal climate. Third, mean climate changes can alter the likelihood of climate extremes, leading to more frequent seasons with anomalies outside of the expected conditions for which management was designed. In this way, shifts in climate variability can result in an increase or reduction of mean yield, as extreme climate events tend to have lower yield than years with normal climate.C3MP maize simulations across 126 farms reveal a clear indication and quantification (as response functions) of mean climate impacts on mean yield and clearly show that mean climate changes will directly affect the variability of yield. Yield reductions from increased climate variability are not as clear as crop models tend to be less sensitive to dangers on the cool and wet extremes of climate variability, likely underestimating losses from water-logging, floods, and frosts.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1164294','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1164294"><span>Collaborative Research: Process-Resolving Decomposition of the Global Temperature Response to Modes of Low Frequency Variability in a Changing Climate</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Deng, Yi</p> <p>2014-11-24</p> <p>DOE-GTRC-05596 11/24/2104 Collaborative Research: Process-Resolving Decomposition of the Global Temperature Response to Modes of Low Frequency Variability in a Changing Climate PI: Dr. Yi Deng (PI) School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology 404-385-1821, yi.deng@eas.gatech.edu El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Annular Modes (AMs) represent respectively the most important modes of low frequency variability in the tropical and extratropical circulations. The projection of future changes in the ENSO and AM variability, however, remains highly uncertain with the state-of-the-science climate models. This project conducted a process-resolving, quantitative evaluations of the ENSO and AM variability in the modern reanalysis observationsmore » and in climate model simulations. The goal is to identify and understand the sources of uncertainty and biases in models’ representation of ENSO and AM variability. Using a feedback analysis method originally formulated by one of the collaborative PIs, we partitioned the 3D atmospheric temperature anomalies and surface temperature anomalies associated with ENSO and AM variability into components linked to 1) radiation-related thermodynamic processes such as cloud and water vapor feedbacks, 2) local dynamical processes including convection and turbulent/diffusive energy transfer and 3) non-local dynamical processes such as the horizontal energy transport in the oceans and atmosphere. In the past 4 years, the research conducted at Georgia Tech under the support of this project has led to 15 peer-reviewed publications and 9 conference/workshop presentations. Two graduate students and one postdoctoral fellow also received research training through participating the project activities. This final technical report summarizes key scientific discoveries we made and provides also a list of all publications and conference presentations resulted from research activities at Georgia Tech. The main findings include: 1) the distinctly different roles played by atmospheric dynamical processes in establishing surface temperature response to ENSO at tropics and extratropics (i.e., atmospheric dynamics disperses energy out of tropics during ENSO warm events and modulate surface temperature at mid-, high-latitudes through controlling downward longwave radiation); 2) the representations of ENSO-related temperature response in climate models fail to converge at the process-level particularly over extratropics (i.e., models produce the right temperature responses to ENSO but with wrong reasons); 3) water vapor feedback contributes substantially to the temperature anomalies found over U.S. during different phases of the Northern Annular Mode (NAM), which adds new insight to the traditional picture that cold/warm advective processes are the main drivers of local temperature responses to the NAM; 4) the overall land surface temperature biases in the latest NCAR model (CESM1) are caused by biases in surface albedo while the surface temperature biases over ocean are related to multiple factors including biases in model albedo, cloud and oceanic dynamics, and the temperature biases over different ocean basins are also induced by different process biases. These results provide a detailed guidance for process-level model turning and improvement, and thus contribute directly to the overall goal of reducing model uncertainty in projecting future changes in the Earth’s climate system, especially in the ENSO and AM variability.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110005667','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110005667"><span>Climatic Effects of Regional Nuclear War</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Oman, Luke D.</p> <p>2011-01-01</p> <p>We use a modern climate model and new estimates of smoke generated by fires in contemporary cities to calculate the response of the climate system to a regional nuclear war between emerging third world nuclear powers using 100 Hiroshima-size bombs (less than 0.03% of the explosive yield of the current global nuclear arsenal) on cities in the subtropics. We find significant cooling and reductions of precipitation lasting years, which would impact the global food supply. The climate changes are large and longlasting because the fuel loadings in modern cities are quite high and the subtropical solar insolation heats the resulting smoke cloud and lofts it into the high stratosphere, where removal mechanisms are slow. While the climate changes are less dramatic than found in previous "nuclear winter" simulations of a massive nuclear exchange between the superpowers, because less smoke is emitted, the changes seem to be more persistent because of improvements in representing aerosol processes and microphysical/dynamical interactions, including radiative heating effects, in newer global climate system models. The assumptions and calculations that go into these conclusions will be described.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMEP54A..05G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMEP54A..05G"><span>Cenozoic North American Drainage Basin Evolution, Sediment Yield, and Accumulation in the Gulf of Mexico Basin</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Galloway, W.; Ganey-Curry, P. E.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>The Cenozoic fill of the Gulf of Mexico basin contains a continuous record of sediment supply from the North American continental interior for the past 65 million years. Regional mapping of unit thickness and paleogeography for 18 depositional episodes defines patterns of shifting entry points of continental fluvial systems and quantifies the total volume of sediment supplied during each episode. Eight fluvio-deltaic depocenters, named for geographic similarities to entry points and drainage basins of modern rivers, are present. From southwest to northeast, they are the Rio Bravo, Rio Grande, Guadalupe, Colorado, Houston-Brazos, Red, Mississippi, and Tennessee axes. Sediment volume was calculated from hand-contoured unit thickness maps compiled from basin-wide well and seismic control. Using a GIS algorithm to sum volumes within polygons bounding interpreted North American river contribution, the total extant volume was then calculated. General compaction factors were used to convert modern volume to quantitative approximations of total grain volume. Grain volume rate of supply for each depositional episode was then calculated. Values vary by more than an order of magnitude. Supply rate has commonly varied by two-fold or more between successive depositional episodes. Sediment supply is a significant, independent variable in development of stratigraphic sequences within the Gulf basin. Paleogeographic maps of the continental interior for eleven Cenozoic time intervals display the evolving and complex interplay of intracontinental tectonism, climate change, and drainage basin evolution. Five tectono-climatic eras are differentiated: Paleocene late Laramide era; early to middle Eocene terminal Laramide era; middle Cenozoic (Late Eocene—Early Miocene) dry, volcanogenic era; middle Neogene (Middle—Late Miocene) arid, extensional era; and late Neogene (Plio—Pleistocene) monsoonal, epeirogenic uplift era. Sediment supply to the GOM reflects the interplay of (1) areal extent of river drainage basins, (2) source area relief, (3) climate of the source areas and tributary systems, (4) source lithology, and (5) sediment storage within the upper drainage basin. Climate has played an important and complex role in modulating supply. In wet tropical to temperate climate regimes, abundant runoff efficiently removed entrained sediment. Arid climate limited runoff; resultant transport-limited tributaries and trunk streams deposited aggradational alluvial aprons, storing sediment in the drainage basin even in the absence of a structural depression. Eolian deposition commonly accompanied such alluvial aggradation. In contrast, seasonality and consequent runoff variability favored erosion and efficient sediment evacuation from the upper parts of drainage basins. Tectonism has played a prominent but equally complex role. Elevation of uplands by compression, crustal heating, or extrusive volcanism created primary loci of erosion and high sediment yield. At the same time, accompanying subsidence sometimes created long-lived sediment repositories that intercepted and sequestered sediment adjacent to sources. Regional patterns of uplift and subsidence relocated drainage divides and redirected trunk stream paths to the Gulf margin.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.A13C0341S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.A13C0341S"><span>Evaluation and inter-comparison of modern day reanalysis datasets over Africa and the Middle East</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Shukla, S.; Arsenault, K. R.; Hobbins, M.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Verdin, J. P.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Reanalysis datasets are potentially very valuable for otherwise data-sparse regions such as Africa and the Middle East. They are potentially useful for long-term climate and hydrologic analyses and, given their availability in real-time, they are particularity attractive for real-time hydrologic monitoring purposes (e.g. to monitor flood and drought events). Generally in data-sparse regions, reanalysis variables such as precipitation, temperature, radiation and humidity are used in conjunction with in-situ and/or satellite-based datasets to generate long-term gridded atmospheric forcing datasets. These atmospheric forcing datasets are used to drive offline land surface models and simulate soil moisture and runoff, which are natural indicators of hydrologic conditions. Therefore, any uncertainty or bias in the reanalysis datasets contributes to uncertainties in hydrologic monitoring estimates. In this presentation, we report on a comprehensive analysis that evaluates several modern-day reanalysis products (such as NASA's MERRA-1 and -2, ECMWF's ERA-Interim and NCEP's CFS Reanalysis) over Africa and the Middle East region. We compare the precipitation and temperature from the reanalysis products with other independent gridded datasets such as GPCC, CRU, and USGS/UCSB's CHIRPS precipitation datasets, and CRU's temperature datasets. The evaluations are conducted at a monthly time scale, since some of these independent datasets are only available at this temporal resolution. The evaluations range from the comparison of the monthly mean climatology to inter-annual variability and long-term changes. Finally, we also present the results of inter-comparisons of radiation and humidity variables from the different reanalysis datasets.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19910003143','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19910003143"><span>Climate Impact of Solar Variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Schatten, Kenneth H. (Editor); Arking, Albert (Editor)</p> <p>1990-01-01</p> <p>The conference on The Climate Impact of Solar Variability, was held at Goddard Space Flight Center from April 24 to 27, 1990. In recent years they developed a renewed interest in the potential effects of increasing greenhouse gases on climate. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and the chlorofluorocarbons have been increasing at rates that could significantly change climate. There is considerable uncertainty over the magnitude of this anthropogenic change. The climate system is very complex, with feedback processes that are not fully understood. Moreover, there are two sources of natural climate variability (volcanic aerosols and solar variability) added to the anthropogenic changes which may confuse our interpretation of the observed temperature record. Thus, if we could understand the climatic impact of the natural variability, it would aid our interpretation and understanding of man-made climate changes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4258067','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4258067"><span>Climate variability and vulnerability to climate change: a review</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Thornton, Philip K; Ericksen, Polly J; Herrero, Mario; Challinor, Andrew J</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>The focus of the great majority of climate change impact studies is on changes in mean climate. In terms of climate model output, these changes are more robust than changes in climate variability. By concentrating on changes in climate means, the full impacts of climate change on biological and human systems are probably being seriously underestimated. Here, we briefly review the possible impacts of changes in climate variability and the frequency of extreme events on biological and food systems, with a focus on the developing world. We present new analysis that tentatively links increases in climate variability with increasing food insecurity in the future. We consider the ways in which people deal with climate variability and extremes and how they may adapt in the future. Key knowledge and data gaps are highlighted. These include the timing and interactions of different climatic stresses on plant growth and development, particularly at higher temperatures, and the impacts on crops, livestock and farming systems of changes in climate variability and extreme events on pest-weed-disease complexes. We highlight the need to reframe research questions in such a way that they can provide decision makers throughout the food system with actionable answers, and the need for investment in climate and environmental monitoring. Improved understanding of the full range of impacts of climate change on biological and food systems is a critical step in being able to address effectively the effects of climate variability and extreme events on human vulnerability and food security, particularly in agriculturally based developing countries facing the challenge of having to feed rapidly growing populations in the coming decades. PMID:24668802</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4354264','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4354264"><span>Development of Middle Stone Age innovation linked to rapid climate change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Ziegler, Martin; Simon, Margit H.; Hall, Ian R.; Barker, Stephen; Stringer, Chris; Zahn, Rainer</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>The development of modernity in early human populations has been linked to pulsed phases of technological and behavioural innovation within the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. However, the trigger for these intermittent pulses of technological innovation is an enigma. Here we show that, contrary to some previous studies, the occurrence of innovation was tightly linked to abrupt climate change. Major innovational pulses occurred at times when South African climate changed rapidly towards more humid conditions, while northern sub-Saharan Africa experienced widespread droughts, as the Northern Hemisphere entered phases of extreme cooling. These millennial-scale teleconnections resulted from the bipolar seesaw behaviour of the Atlantic Ocean related to changes in the ocean circulation. These conditions led to humid pulses in South Africa and potentially to the creation of favourable environmental conditions. This strongly implies that innovational pulses of early modern human behaviour were climatically influenced and linked to the adoption of refugia. PMID:23695699</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23695699','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23695699"><span>Development of Middle Stone Age innovation linked to rapid climate change.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Ziegler, Martin; Simon, Margit H; Hall, Ian R; Barker, Stephen; Stringer, Chris; Zahn, Rainer</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>The development of modernity in early human populations has been linked to pulsed phases of technological and behavioural innovation within the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. However, the trigger for these intermittent pulses of technological innovation is an enigma. Here we show that, contrary to some previous studies, the occurrence of innovation was tightly linked to abrupt climate change. Major innovational pulses occurred at times when South African climate changed rapidly towards more humid conditions, while northern sub-Saharan Africa experienced widespread droughts, as the Northern Hemisphere entered phases of extreme cooling. These millennial-scale teleconnections resulted from the bipolar seesaw behaviour of the Atlantic Ocean related to changes in the ocean circulation. These conditions led to humid pulses in South Africa and potentially to the creation of favourable environmental conditions. This strongly implies that innovational pulses of early modern human behaviour were climatically influenced and linked to the adoption of refugia.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018NatGe..11..392B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018NatGe..11..392B"><span>Global energetics and local physics as drivers of past, present and future monsoons</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Biasutti, Michela; Voigt, Aiko; Boos, William R.; Braconnot, Pascale; Hargreaves, Julia C.; Harrison, Sandy P.; Kang, Sarah M.; Mapes, Brian E.; Scheff, Jacob; Schumacher, Courtney; Sobel, Adam H.; Xie, Shang-Ping</p> <p>2018-06-01</p> <p>Global constraints on momentum and energy govern the variability of the rainfall belt in the intertropical convergence zone and the structure of the zonal mean tropical circulation. The continental-scale monsoon systems are also facets of a momentum- and energy-constrained global circulation, but their modern and palaeo variability deviates substantially from that of the intertropical convergence zone. The mechanisms underlying deviations from expectations based on the longitudinal mean budgets are neither fully understood nor simulated accurately. We argue that a framework grounded in global constraints on energy and momentum yet encompassing the complexities of monsoon dynamics is needed to identify the causes of the mismatch between theory, models and observations, and ultimately to improve regional climate projections. In a first step towards this goal, disparate regional processes must be distilled into gross measures of energy flow in and out of continents and between the surface and the tropopause, so that monsoon dynamics may be coherently diagnosed across modern and palaeo observations and across idealized and comprehensive simulations. Accounting for zonal asymmetries in the circulation, land/ocean differences in surface fluxes, and the character of convective systems, such a monsoon framework would integrate our understanding at all relevant scales: from the fine details of how moisture and energy are lifted in the updrafts of thunderclouds, up to the global circulations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ERL....12a4008B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ERL....12a4008B"><span>Fine-scale modeling of bristlecone pine treeline position in the Great Basin, USA</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Bruening, Jamis M.; Tran, Tyler J.; Bunn, Andrew G.; Weiss, Stuart B.; Salzer, Matthew W.</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) and foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) are valuable paleoclimate resources due to their longevity and climatic sensitivity of their annually-resolved rings. Treeline research has shown that growing season temperatures limit tree growth at and just below the upper treeline. In the Great Basin, the presence of precisely dated remnant wood above modern treeline shows that the treeline ecotone shifts at centennial timescales tracking long-term changes in climate; in some areas during the Holocene climatic optimum treeline was 100 meters higher than at present. Regional treeline position models built exclusively from climate data may identify characteristics specific to Great Basin treelines and inform future physiological studies, providing a measure of climate sensitivity specific to bristlecone and foxtail pine treelines. This study implements a topoclimatic analysis—using topographic variables to explain patterns in surface temperatures across diverse mountainous terrain—to model the treeline position of three semi-arid bristlecone and/or foxtail pine treelines in the Great Basin as a function of growing season length and mean temperature calculated from in situ measurements. Results indicate: (1) the treeline sites used in this study are similar to other treelines globally, and require a growing season length of between 147-153 days and average temperature ranging from 5.5°C-7.2°C, (2) site-specific treeline position models may be improved through topoclimatic analysis and (3) treeline position in the Great Basin is likely out of equilibrium with the current climate, indicating a possible future upslope shift in treeline position.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23504848','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23504848"><span>Modern maize hybrids in Northeast China exhibit increased yield potential and resource use efficiency despite adverse climate change.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Chen, Xiaochao; Chen, Fanjun; Chen, Yanling; Gao, Qiang; Yang, Xiaoli; Yuan, Lixing; Zhang, Fusuo; Mi, Guohua</p> <p>2013-03-01</p> <p>The impact of global changes on food security is of serious concern. Breeding novel crop cultivars adaptable to climate change is one potential solution, but this approach requires an understanding of complex adaptive traits for climate-change conditions. In this study, plant growth, nitrogen (N) uptake, and yield in relation to climatic resource use efficiency of nine representative maize cultivars released between 1973 and 2000 in China were investigated in a 2-year field experiment under three N applications. The Hybrid-Maize model was used to simulate maize yield potential in the period from 1973 to 2011. During the past four decades, the total thermal time (growing degree days) increased whereas the total precipitation and sunshine hours decreased. This climate change led to a reduction of maize potential yield by an average of 12.9% across different hybrids. However, the potential yield of individual hybrids increased by 118.5 kg ha(-1)  yr(-1) with increasing year of release. From 1973 to 2000, the use efficiency of sunshine hours, thermal time, and precipitation resources increased by 37%, 40%, and 41%, respectively. The late developed hybrids showed less reduction in yield potential in current climate conditions than old cultivars, indicating some adaptation to new conditions. Since the mid-1990s, however, the yield impact of climate change exhibited little change, and even a slight worsening for new cultivars. Modern breeding increased ear fertility and grain-filling rate, and delayed leaf senescence without modification in net photosynthetic rate. The trade-off associated with delayed leaf senescence was decreased grain N concentration rather than increased plant N uptake, therefore N agronomic efficiency increased simultaneously. It is concluded that modern maize hybrids tolerate the climatic changes mainly by constitutively optimizing plant productivity. Maize breeding programs in the future should pay more attention to cope with the limiting climate factors specifically. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP43D..03M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMPP43D..03M"><span>Paleoceanographic insights on oxygen minimum zone expansion: Lessons from the most recent deglaciation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Moffitt, S. E.; Moffitt, R.; Sauthoff, W.; Davis, C. V.; Hewett, K.; Hill, T. M.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>The expansion of low oxygen hydrographic zones in the modern ocean, known as Oxygen Minimum Zones (OMZ), has the potential to deteriorate ecosystems, alter ocean nutrient cycling and inflict mass mortality events upon benthic and pelagic communities. During the last deglaciation (18-10 ka), large, climate-driven changes in the oxygen content of the upper ocean occurred. We propose that previous climate-driven OMZ expansions are data-rich events with which to characterize the spatial scales of OMZ hydrographic perturbation, and the temporal scales of natural OMZ variability. Here we synthesize a global compilation of marine sediment records from modern OMZ regions to investigate deglacial changes in the vertical extent, intensity, and surface area impingements of hypoxic waters upon continental margins. We surveyed sediment core records within water depths of 183-3,296 meters below sea level (mbsl) and took advantage of cores with geochemical, sedimentary or microfossil oxygenation proxies to reconstruct the timing, depth and intensity of seafloor hypoxia. OMZ maximum vertical extent during the deglaciation was variable by region: Subarctic Pacific (~600-2,900 mbsl), California Current (~330-1,500 mbsl), Baja and Mexico (~330-830 mbsl), and Equatorial Pacific and Humboldt Current (~110-3,100 mbsl). Expansion timing is regionally coherent but not globally synchronous, such that Subarctic Pacific and California Current marginal areas exhibit tight correlation and oxygenation reversals with Northern Hemisphere deglacial events (Termination 1A, Bølling-Allerød, Younger Dryas and Termination 1B). Southern regions (Baja and Mexico, and the Equatorial Pacific and Humboldt Current) exhibit hypoxia expansion prior to Termination 1A (~16 ka), and no oxygenation reversals. Our analysis provides new evidence for the geospatially coherent and temporally rapid expansion of OMZs during the last deglaciation, and reveals the extreme shallowness of the upper hypoxic boundary in coastal waters during events of global-scale warming.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26ES..107a2045Z','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26ES..107a2045Z"><span>Impact of climate changes on population vital activities in Russia in the early 21st century</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Zolotokrylin, A. N.; Vinogradova, V. V.; Titkova, T. B.; Cherenkova, E. A.; Bokuchava, D. D.; Sokolov, I. A.; Vinogradov, A. V.; Babina, E. D.</p> <p>2018-01-01</p> <p>The study substantiates the approach to the assessment of impact of climate change on vital activities of population in Russia in the face of increasing climate extremes. The obtained results reveal the occurrence of the essential climate extreme events over the period 1991-2013 in Russia that are vital for population activities. Annual amounts of interdiurnal temperature differences and pressure were calculated. Propagation of heat and cold waves, trends and frequencies of daily precipitation extremes were evaluated. The map “Zoning the territory of the Russian Federation by natural living conditions of the population” adapted for modern climate (2001-2010), illustrates the climate changes in the early 21st century. The modern warming of climate has led to a significant easing of discomfort in the territory of Russia. The steady decline of the absolutely unfavorable zone resulted from the expansion of less unfavorable areas is observed, especially in the Northern and Arctic regions. In the south the boundary of unfavorable territories shifts toward the north. It results in the expansion of the conditionally unfavorable area in West Siberia and in the south of East Siberia. In European Russia the favorable area expands and shifts far to the northern regions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.U13B..12D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.U13B..12D"><span>Does Climate Care about Land?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Dawson, E.; Lague, M. M.; Swann, A. L. S.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Everyone knows that plants are influenced by the climate they live in. However, the reverse is also true: plants can influence climate both locally and globally by changing atmospheric circulation. Uncovering the role that plants play in climate has been challenging—the interactions are complex and vary greatly in different regions of the world. We lack a systematic understanding of the role of vegetation in the climate system. Using a new simplified land model coupled to a modern Earth System Model (ESM), we are able to separate the individual influences of the land system in the context of modern ESMs. For example, with our model we are able to test how the capacity of the land to hold water influences the atmosphere. If less water is able to evaporate, this could lead to substantial warming, and could even influence clouds. Understanding specifically where and how the atmosphere is influenced by the land surface improves our understanding of how future changes in the land surface will in turn feedback on climate, and how that will impact people. This improved understanding also advances our knowledge of the key role biology plays in driving the global climate system.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015PNAS..11215568L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015PNAS..11215568L"><span>Continuous 1.3-million-year record of East African hydroclimate, and implications for patterns of evolution and biodiversity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lyons, Robert P.; Scholz, Christopher A.; Cohen, Andrew S.; King, John W.; Brown, Erik T.; Ivory, Sarah J.; Johnson, Thomas C.; Deino, Alan L.; Reinthal, Peter N.; McGlue, Michael M.; Blome, Margaret W.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>The transport of moisture in the tropics is a critical process for the global energy budget and on geologic timescales, has markedly influenced continental landscapes, migratory pathways, and biological evolution. Here we present a continuous, first-of-its-kind 1.3-My record of continental hydroclimate and lake-level variability derived from drill core data from Lake Malawi, East Africa (9-15° S). Over the Quaternary, we observe dramatic shifts in effective moisture, resulting in large-scale changes in one of the world's largest lakes and most diverse freshwater ecosystems. Results show evidence for 24 lake level drops of more than 200 m during the Late Quaternary, including 15 lowstands when water levels were more than 400 m lower than modern. A dramatic shift is observed at the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), consistent with far-field climate forcing, which separates vastly different hydroclimate regimes before and after ∼800,000 years ago. Before 800 ka, lake levels were lower, indicating a climate drier than today, and water levels changed frequently. Following the MPT high-amplitude lake level variations dominate the record. From 800 to 100 ka, a deep, often overfilled lake occupied the basin, indicating a wetter climate, but these highstands were interrupted by prolonged intervals of extreme drought. Periods of high lake level are observed during times of high eccentricity. The extreme hydroclimate variability exerted a profound influence on the Lake Malawi endemic cichlid fish species flock; the geographically extensive habitat reconfiguration provided novel ecological opportunities, enabling new populations to differentiate rapidly to distinct species.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4697375','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4697375"><span>Continuous 1.3-million-year record of East African hydroclimate, and implications for patterns of evolution and biodiversity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Lyons, Robert P.; Scholz, Christopher A.; Cohen, Andrew S.; King, John W.; Brown, Erik T.; Ivory, Sarah J.; Johnson, Thomas C.; Deino, Alan L.; Reinthal, Peter N.; McGlue, Michael M.; Blome, Margaret W.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>The transport of moisture in the tropics is a critical process for the global energy budget and on geologic timescales, has markedly influenced continental landscapes, migratory pathways, and biological evolution. Here we present a continuous, first-of-its-kind 1.3-My record of continental hydroclimate and lake-level variability derived from drill core data from Lake Malawi, East Africa (9–15° S). Over the Quaternary, we observe dramatic shifts in effective moisture, resulting in large-scale changes in one of the world’s largest lakes and most diverse freshwater ecosystems. Results show evidence for 24 lake level drops of more than 200 m during the Late Quaternary, including 15 lowstands when water levels were more than 400 m lower than modern. A dramatic shift is observed at the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), consistent with far-field climate forcing, which separates vastly different hydroclimate regimes before and after ∼800,000 years ago. Before 800 ka, lake levels were lower, indicating a climate drier than today, and water levels changed frequently. Following the MPT high-amplitude lake level variations dominate the record. From 800 to 100 ka, a deep, often overfilled lake occupied the basin, indicating a wetter climate, but these highstands were interrupted by prolonged intervals of extreme drought. Periods of high lake level are observed during times of high eccentricity. The extreme hydroclimate variability exerted a profound influence on the Lake Malawi endemic cichlid fish species flock; the geographically extensive habitat reconfiguration provided novel ecological opportunities, enabling new populations to differentiate rapidly to distinct species. PMID:26644580</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19554616','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19554616"><span>Relationship of cranial robusticity to cranial form, geography and climate in Homo sapiens.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Baab, Karen L; Freidline, Sarah E; Wang, Steven L; Hanson, Timothy</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Variation in cranial robusticity among modern human populations is widely acknowledged but not well-understood. While the use of "robust" cranial traits in hominin systematics and phylogeny suggests that these characters are strongly heritable, this hypothesis has not been tested. Alternatively, cranial robusticity may be a response to differences in diet/mastication or it may be an adaptation to cold, harsh environments. This study quantifies the distribution of cranial robusticity in 14 geographically widespread human populations, and correlates this variation with climatic variables, neutral genetic distances, cranial size, and cranial shape. With the exception of the occipital torus region, all traits were positively correlated with each other, suggesting that they should not be treated as individual characters. While males are more robust than females within each of the populations, among the independent variables (cranial shape, size, climate, and neutral genetic distances), only shape is significantly correlated with inter-population differences in robusticity. Two-block partial least-squares analysis was used to explore the relationship between cranial shape (captured by three-dimensional landmark data) and robusticity across individuals. Weak support was found for the hypothesis that robusticity was related to mastication as the shape associated with greater robusticity was similar to that described for groups that ate harder-to-process diets. Specifically, crania with more prognathic faces, expanded glabellar and occipital regions, and (slightly) longer skulls were more robust than those with rounder vaults and more orthognathic faces. However, groups with more mechanically demanding diets (hunter-gatherers) were not always more robust than groups practicing some form of agriculture.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_17");'>17</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li class="active"><span>19</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_19 --> <div id="page_20" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li class="active"><span>20</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="381"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26644580','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26644580"><span>Continuous 1.3-million-year record of East African hydroclimate, and implications for patterns of evolution and biodiversity.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Lyons, Robert P; Scholz, Christopher A; Cohen, Andrew S; King, John W; Brown, Erik T; Ivory, Sarah J; Johnson, Thomas C; Deino, Alan L; Reinthal, Peter N; McGlue, Michael M; Blome, Margaret W</p> <p>2015-12-22</p> <p>The transport of moisture in the tropics is a critical process for the global energy budget and on geologic timescales, has markedly influenced continental landscapes, migratory pathways, and biological evolution. Here we present a continuous, first-of-its-kind 1.3-My record of continental hydroclimate and lake-level variability derived from drill core data from Lake Malawi, East Africa (9-15° S). Over the Quaternary, we observe dramatic shifts in effective moisture, resulting in large-scale changes in one of the world's largest lakes and most diverse freshwater ecosystems. Results show evidence for 24 lake level drops of more than 200 m during the Late Quaternary, including 15 lowstands when water levels were more than 400 m lower than modern. A dramatic shift is observed at the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT), consistent with far-field climate forcing, which separates vastly different hydroclimate regimes before and after ∼800,000 years ago. Before 800 ka, lake levels were lower, indicating a climate drier than today, and water levels changed frequently. Following the MPT high-amplitude lake level variations dominate the record. From 800 to 100 ka, a deep, often overfilled lake occupied the basin, indicating a wetter climate, but these highstands were interrupted by prolonged intervals of extreme drought. Periods of high lake level are observed during times of high eccentricity. The extreme hydroclimate variability exerted a profound influence on the Lake Malawi endemic cichlid fish species flock; the geographically extensive habitat reconfiguration provided novel ecological opportunities, enabling new populations to differentiate rapidly to distinct species.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26PSL.493...82D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018E%26PSL.493...82D"><span>Ocean and atmosphere teleconnections modulate east tropical Pacific productivity at late to middle Pleistocene terminations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Diz, Paula; Hernández-Almeida, Iván; Bernárdez, Patricia; Pérez-Arlucea, Marta; Hall, Ian R.</p> <p>2018-07-01</p> <p>The modern Eastern Equatorial Pacific (EEP) is a key oceanographic region for regulating the Earth's climate system, accounting for between 5-10% of global marine production whilst also representing a major source of carbon dioxide efflux to the atmosphere. Changes in ocean dynamics linked to the nutrient supply from the Southern Ocean have been suggested to have played a dominant role in regulating EEP productivity over glacial-interglacial timescales of the past 500 ka. Yet, the full extent of the climate and oceanic teleconnections and the mechanisms promoting the observed increase of productivity occurring at glacial terminations remain poorly understood. Here we present multi-proxy, micropaleontological, geochemical and sedimentological records from the easternmost EEP to infer changes in atmospheric patterns and oceanic processes potentially influencing regional primary productivity over glacial-interglacial cycles of the mid-late Pleistocene (∼0-650 ka). These proxy data support a leading role for the north-south migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in shaping past productivity variability in the EEP. Productivity increases during glacial periods and notably peaks at major and "extra" glacial terminations (those occurring 1-2 precession cycles after some major terminations) coincident with the inferred southernmost position of the ITCZ. The comparison of our reconstructions with proxy records of climate variability suggests the intensification of related extratropical atmospheric and oceanic teleconnections during deglaciation events. These processes may have re-activated the supply of southern sourced nutrients to the EEP, potentially contributing to enhanced productivity in the EEP and thus counterbalancing the oceanic carbon dioxide outgassing at glacial terminations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27279167','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27279167"><span>Climate-driven vital rates do not always mean climate-driven population.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Tavecchia, Giacomo; Tenan, Simone; Pradel, Roger; Igual, José-Manuel; Genovart, Meritxell; Oro, Daniel</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Current climatic changes have increased the need to forecast population responses to climate variability. A common approach to address this question is through models that project current population state using the functional relationship between demographic rates and climatic variables. We argue that this approach can lead to erroneous conclusions when interpopulation dispersal is not considered. We found that immigration can release the population from climate-driven trajectories even when local vital rates are climate dependent. We illustrated this using individual-based data on a trans-equatorial migratory seabird, the Scopoli's shearwater Calonectris diomedea, in which the variation of vital rates has been associated with large-scale climatic indices. We compared the population annual growth rate λ i , estimated using local climate-driven parameters with ρ i , a population growth rate directly estimated from individual information and that accounts for immigration. While λ i varied as a function of climatic variables, reflecting the climate-dependent parameters, ρ i did not, indicating that dispersal decouples the relationship between population growth and climate variables from that between climatic variables and vital rates. Our results suggest caution when assessing demographic effects of climatic variability especially in open populations for very mobile organisms such as fish, marine mammals, bats, or birds. When a population model cannot be validated or it is not detailed enough, ignoring immigration might lead to misleading climate-driven projections. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMPP21A1553F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFMPP21A1553F"><span>Geochemical and Sedimentological Records of Late Quaternary Climate Change, Lake Tanganyika, Tropical East Africa</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Felton, A. A.; Russell, J. M.; Cohen, A. S.; Baker, M. E.; McGlue, M. M.; Lezzar, K. E.</p> <p>2005-12-01</p> <p>We have analyzed piston core records from Lake Tanganyika (western Tanzania, East African Rift Valley) to investigate possible signals of tropical paleoclimate change during the Late Quaternary. Long paleoclimate records from East Africa are of importance for understanding climatic processes such as the role of solar variability in regulating tropical climates at Milankovitch time scales, and the relationship between abrupt climate changes, migration of Intertropical Convergence Zone, and regional climate variability (Nicholson, 2000). However, records of pre-Holocene climate variability from tropical African lakes (>25ka) are still quite rare. Long records from Lake Tanganyika are of particular interest given the lake's antiquity and its demonstrated potential for producing high resolution (frequently annually laminated) sedimentary records (Cohen et al., 1993). We analyzed physical properties, grain size, total organic carbon, major, minor and trace element variability, and biogenic silica data for a 7.75 m core from the Kalya slope and horst region of central Lake Tanganyika at 640m water depth. Nine 14C dates provide an age model for the core, which spans ~62 cal kyr. Elemental concentrations preserved in Lake Tanganyika sediments record variability in deposition and runoff into the lake basin. Under conditions of rapid erosion, exposure and rapid weathering of bedrock has been shown to generate high concentrations of original silicate minerals enriched in soluble cations such as sodium and potassium, elements that are also biologically conservative. Prior to 40ka cal yr. core sediments are characterized by high magnetic susceptibility, intermediate levels of organic carbon, low to intermediate levels of biogenic silica, and fine grain size, indicative of relatively high precipitation. There is a profound decrease in magnetic susceptibility, a decrease in organic carbon and an increase in grain size at 40ka cal yr, which persists until ~16ka cal yr. Seismic reflection profiles demonstrate the existence of paleodeltas at ~360m below modern lake level that may have formed during this period, although it is unclear whether this deposit represents a Late Quaternary (OIS 2) or earlier (OIS 6) event. Maximum aridity occurred at about 20-20.5ka cal yr, consist with earlier interpretations of lake lowstands (Gasse et al., 1989, Scholz et al., 1997). The late Pleistocene and earliest Holocene sediments in our record are characterized by generally rising magnetic susceptibility, declining organic carbon and biogenic silica, and finer grain size. However during this period there are marked fluctuations in magnetic susceptibility and biogenic silica at millennial time-scales. These indicate intervals of fluctuating precipitation, productivity, and possibly windiness and are particularly prominent during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Massive clays, rising magnetic susceptibility, low biogenic silica and low organic carbon mark the early Holocene, indicative of increased rainfall during a regionally wet interval. These sediments are capped by a laminated ooze, indicative of drier conditions and a more stratified water body.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..17.9963S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..17.9963S"><span>How resilient are ecosystems in adapting to climate variability</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Savenije, Hubert H. G.</p> <p>2015-04-01</p> <p>The conclusion often drawn in the media is that ecosystems may perish as a result of climate change. Although climatic trends may indeed lead to shifts in ecosystem composition, the challenge to adjust to climatic variability - even if there is no trend - is larger, particularly in semi-arid or topical climates where climatic variability is large compared to temperate climates. How do ecosystems buffer for climatic variability? The most powerful mechanism is to invest in root zone storage capacity, so as to guarantee access to water and nutrients during period of drought. This investment comes at a cost of having less energy available to invest in growth or formation of fruits. Ecosystems are expected to create sufficient buffer to overcome critical periods of drought, but not more than is necessary to survive or reproduce. Based on this concept, a methodology has been developed to estimate ecosystem root zone storage capacity at local, regional and global scale. These estimates correspond well with estimates made by combining soil and ecosystem information, but are more accurate and more detailed. The methodology shows that ecosystems have intrinsic capacity to adjust to climatic variability and hence have a high resilience to both climatic variability and climatic trends.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1812613V','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..1812613V"><span>Holocene river history of the Danube: human-environment interactions on its islands in Hungary</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Viczián, István; Balogh, János; Kis, Éva; Szeberényi, József</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>A change in the frequency and magnitude of floods is the main response of river systems to climatic change. Natural floods are highly sensitive to even modest changes of climate. The discharge and the characteristics of floods basically determine the floodplain evolution and the feasibility of human land use and inhabitation on the islands and floodplains. The study revealed that those small islands of large rivers which have the surface rising only some meters above the river are particularly suitable research objects of Holocene climate variability as they are exposed to floods, react sensitively to environmental changes and their evolution may be paralleled with human history. The research area covers the islands of the Danube along the river between Komárom and Paks in Hungary, which is about 250 km, includes more than 50 smaller or formerly existing islands and two extensive islands: the Szentendre Island and Csepel Island. Data gathered from 570 archaeological sites of those islands from Neolithic to Modern Ages were analysed and interpreted in accordance with climate history and floodplain evolution. Nevertheless, the study is not only about river and its environmental history but it demonstrates the role of river and climatic variability in the history of mankind. The environment of the floodplain, the river hydrology, the sedimentation, the formation of islands and the incision and aggradation of surrounding riverbeds, the frequency of devastating floods have significantly changed through the historical time periods, which is reflected in the number and locations of archaeological sites on the islands. Their occupation history reflects the changes in discharge, climate, geomorphology, floods and human impacts and indicates historical periods with low or high probability of inundation. The most favourable periods for an island's occupation concerning the flood risk of its surfaces - and consequently of the banks along the river - are the first parts of a stable, warmer and drier period after a humid period, which is usually linked with revolutionary development of cultures and societies. The Middle Neolithic, the Late Copper Age, the Early and Late Bronze Ages, the Late Iron Age and the first part of the Roman Period, the High Middle Age are among the favourable periods, while the periods in between are characterised by frequent floods, higher water level and unfavourable environmental conditions. Archaeological sites known on small islands are found exactly from the above mentioned periods. The aim of the study was to present the Holocene river history of the Danube, improve a climatic-geomorphological model and reveal the variability of fluvial dynamics and geomorphological processes primarily affected by climate changes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16...61S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16...61S"><span>Phase Variability of the Recent Climate in the North Atlantic Region</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Serykh, Ilya; Anisimov, Mikhail; Byshev, Vladimir; Neiman, Victor; Romanov, Juri; Sidorova, Alexandra</p> <p>2014-05-01</p> <p>The atmospheric pressure and near-surface temperature differences between the Azores High and the Icelandic Low for the period of 1900-2012 within the spatial-temporal average-out (20º latitude, 20º longitude and 12 years) were considered. The secular term of phase states of the system under consideration was found to divide into three non-intersecting subsets. Each of that was put in consequence with one of three climatic scenarios related to the periods of 1905-1935 (relatively warm phase), 1940-1970 (colder phase) and 1980-2000 (warmer phase). A life time of such a scenario lasted about 20-35 years, and the transition from one scenario to another covered 4-6 years, i.e. it run comparatively quickly. The revealed non-overlapping sub-aggregates of the thermodynamic indices related to each particular climate scenario gave an idea to follow the circulation peculiarities and the interrelated temperature differences within the limits of the Northern Atlantic ocean-atmosphere regional system. The results of this analysis bear evidence that the most probable intermittent strengthening and weakening of Hadley and Ferrell circulations occurred there in coincided phase. The analogous character of the climate system behavior was also detected in some other regional atmospheric activity centers that can be considered as a witness on the global nature of the detected phase type of modern climate inter-decadal variability. Hence, we have the grounds to suppose that mentioned above the short-period inter-decadal excitations of the modern climate have a global nature and appears everywhere. Finally, the attention was paid to the fact that at the early XXI century the thermodynamic state of the Northern Atlantic regional climate system has shown a tendency to face towards the situation, similar to the cooler scenario of the 1940-1970. We used the heat content of upper 700m Atlantic Ocean layer data from NODC to calculate its anomalies for the periods of 1955-1970, 1980-2000 and 2000-2012. The results shown that during the 1980-2000 period the heat content in the region (50º-60ºN; 60º-30ºW) was lower than in the 1955-1970, but higher in (30º-40ºN; 60º-30ºW) region. The data on sea water temperature, obtained as a result of numerical calculations based on the Ocean General Circulation Model (INM RAS), were used for estimate of ocean specific heat. The model is based on a complete system of nonlinear (primitive) equations describing ocean hydro- and thermodynamics in the Boussinesq approximation and written in a spherical σ-coordinate system. Numerical calculations were carried out with horizontal resolution (0.25ºx0.25º) and time step 1 hour. Boundary conditions on surface were taken from data array of CORE. Anomalies of specific heat relative to the mean annual variation in the layer from ocean surface up to 700m depth in North Atlantic region, calculated on model data and averaged for each period of (1959-1974), (1975-1999), (2000-2006), are in very close accordance with the results based on the accepted Levitus' data.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ClDy...44.3449Z','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ClDy...44.3449Z"><span>AMOC response to global warming: dependence on the background climate and response timescale</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Zhu, Jiang; Liu, Zhengyu; Zhang, Jiaxu; Liu, Wei</p> <p>2015-06-01</p> <p>This paper investigates the response of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) to a sudden doubling of atmospheric CO2 in the National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Climate System Model version 3, with a focus on differences under different background climates. The findings reveal that the evolution of the AMOC differs significantly between the modern climate and the last glacial maximum (LGM). In the modern climate, the AMOC decreases (by 25 %, 4 Sv) in the first 100 years and then recovers slowly (by 6 %, 1 Sv) by the end of the 1,500-year simulation. At the LGM, the AMOC also weakens (by 8 %, 1 Sv) in the initial 90 years, but then recovers, first rapidly (by 30 %, 4 Sv) over the following 300 years, and then slowly (by 13 %, 1.6 Sv) during the remainder of the integration. These results suggest that the responses of the AMOC under both climates have a similar initial rapid weakening period of ~100 years and a final slow strengthening period over 1,000 years long. However, additional intermediate period of ~300 years does occur for the LGM, with rapid intensification in the AMOC. Analyses suggest that the rapid intensification is triggered and sustained primarily by a coupled sea ice-ocean feedback: the reduction of meltwater flux in the northern North Atlantic—associated with the remarkable sea-ice retreat at the LGM—intensifies the AMOC and northward heat transport, which, in turn, causes further sea-ice retreat and more reduction of meltwater. These processes are insignificant under modern conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.A34C..04S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.A34C..04S"><span>Error Estimation of Pathfinder Version 5.3 SST Level 3C Using Three-way Error Analysis</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Saha, K.; Dash, P.; Zhao, X.; Zhang, H. M.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>One of the essential climate variables for monitoring as well as detecting and attributing climate change, is Sea Surface Temperature (SST). A long-term record of global SSTs are available with observations obtained from ships in the early days to the more modern observation based on in-situ as well as space-based sensors (satellite/aircraft). There are inaccuracies associated with satellite derived SSTs which can be attributed to the errors associated with spacecraft navigation, sensor calibrations, sensor noise, retrieval algorithms, and leakages due to residual clouds. Thus it is important to estimate accurate errors in satellite derived SST products to have desired results in its applications.Generally for validation purposes satellite derived SST products are compared against the in-situ SSTs which have inaccuracies due to spatio/temporal inhomogeneity between in-situ and satellite measurements. A standard deviation in their difference fields usually have contributions from both satellite as well as the in-situ measurements. A real validation of any geophysical variable must require the knowledge of the "true" value of the said variable. Therefore a one-to-one comparison of satellite based SST with in-situ data does not truly provide us the real error in the satellite SST and there will be ambiguity due to errors in the in-situ measurements and their collocation differences. A Triple collocation (TC) or three-way error analysis using 3 mutually independent error-prone measurements, can be used to estimate root-mean square error (RMSE) associated with each of the measurements with high level of accuracy without treating any one system a perfectly-observed "truth". In this study we are estimating the absolute random errors associated with Pathfinder Version 5.3 Level-3C SST product Climate Data record. Along with the in-situ SST data, the third source of dataset used for this analysis is the AATSR reprocessing of climate (ARC) dataset for the corresponding period. All three SST observations are collocated, and statistics of difference between each pair is estimated. Instead of using a traditional TC analysis we have implemented the Extended Triple Collocation (ETC) approach to estimate the correlation coefficient of each measurement system w.r.t. the unknown target variable along with their RMSE.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27070009','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27070009"><span>Global weather and local butterflies: variable responses to a large-scale climate pattern along an elevational gradient.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Pardikes, Nicholas A; Shapiro, Arthur M; Dyer, Lee A; Forister, Matthew L</p> <p>2015-11-01</p> <p>Understanding the spatial and temporal scales at which environmental variation affects populations of plants and animals is an important goal for modern population biology, especially in the context of shifting climatic conditions. The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) generates climatic extremes of interannual variation, and has been shown to have significant effects on the diversity and abundance of a variety of terrestrial taxa. However, studies that have investigated the influence of such large-scale climate phenomena have often been limited in spatial and taxonomic scope. We used 23 years (1988-2010) of a long-term butterfly monitoring data set to explore associations between variation in population abundance of 28 butterfly species and variation in ENSO-derived sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) across 10 sites that encompass an elevational range of 2750 m in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. Our analysis detected a positive, regional effect of increased SSTA on butterfly abundance (wetter and warmer years predict more butterfly observations), yet the influence of SSTA on butterfly abundances varied along the elevational gradient, and also differed greatly among the 28 species. Migratory species had the strongest relationships with ENSO-derived SSTA, suggesting that large-scale climate indices are particularly valuable for understanding biotic-abiotic relationships of the most mobile species. In general, however, the ecological effects of large-scale climatic factors are context dependent between sites and species. Our results illustrate the power of long-term data sets for revealing pervasive yet subtle climatic effects, but also caution against expectations derived from exemplar species or single locations in the study of biotic-abiotic interactions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120001510','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120001510"><span>The Effect of Satellite Observing System Changes on MERRA Water and Energy Fluxes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Robertson, Franklin R.; Bosilovich, M. G.; Chen, J.; Miller, T. L.</p> <p>2011-01-01</p> <p>Because reanalysis data sets offer state variables and fluxes at regular space / time intervals, atmospheric reanalyses have become a mainstay of the climate community for diagnostic purposes and for driving offline ocean and land models. Although one weakness of these data sets is the susceptibility of the flux products to uncertainties because of shortcomings in parameterized model physics, another issue, perhaps less appreciated, is the fact that continual but discreet changes in the evolving observational system, particularly from satellite sensors, may also introduce artifacts in the time series of quantities. In this paper we examine the ability of the NASA MERRA (Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) and other recent reanalyses to determine variability in the climate system over the satellite record (approx. the last 30 years). In particular we highlight the effect on the reanalysis of discontinuities at the junctures of the onset of passive microwave imaging (Special Sensor Microwave Imager) in late 1987 and, more prominently, with improved sounding and imaging with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, AMSU-A, in 1998. We first examine MERRA fluxes from the perspective of how physical modes of variability (e.g. ENSO events, Pacific Decadal Variability) are contained by artificial step-like trends induced by the onset of new moisture data these two satellite observing systems. Secondly, we show how Redundancy Analysis, a statistical regression methodology, is effective in relating these artifact signals in the moisture and temperature analysis increments to their presence in the physical flux terms (e.g. precipitation, radiation). This procedure is shown to be effective greatly reducing the artificial trends in the flux quantities.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29643484','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29643484"><span>Anomalously weak Labrador Sea convection and Atlantic overturning during the past 150 years.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Thornalley, David J R; Oppo, Delia W; Ortega, Pablo; Robson, Jon I; Brierley, Chris M; Davis, Renee; Hall, Ian R; Moffa-Sanchez, Paola; Rose, Neil L; Spooner, Peter T; Yashayaev, Igor; Keigwin, Lloyd D</p> <p>2018-04-01</p> <p>The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is a system of ocean currents that has an essential role in Earth's climate, redistributing heat and influencing the carbon cycle 1, 2 . The AMOC has been shown to be weakening in recent years 1 ; this decline may reflect decadal-scale variability in convection in the Labrador Sea, but short observational datasets preclude a longer-term perspective on the modern state and variability of Labrador Sea convection and the AMOC 1, 3-5 . Here we provide several lines of palaeo-oceanographic evidence that Labrador Sea deep convection and the AMOC have been anomalously weak over the past 150 years or so (since the end of the Little Ice Age, LIA, approximately AD 1850) compared with the preceding 1,500 years. Our palaeoclimate reconstructions indicate that the transition occurred either as a predominantly abrupt shift towards the end of the LIA, or as a more gradual, continued decline over the past 150 years; this ambiguity probably arises from non-AMOC influences on the various proxies or from the different sensitivities of these proxies to individual components of the AMOC. We suggest that enhanced freshwater fluxes from the Arctic and Nordic seas towards the end of the LIA-sourced from melting glaciers and thickened sea ice that developed earlier in the LIA-weakened Labrador Sea convection and the AMOC. The lack of a subsequent recovery may have resulted from hysteresis or from twentieth-century melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet 6 . Our results suggest that recent decadal variability in Labrador Sea convection and the AMOC has occurred during an atypical, weak background state. Future work should aim to constrain the roles of internal climate variability and early anthropogenic forcing in the AMOC weakening described here.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110007266','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20110007266"><span>The Effect of Satellite Observing System Changes on MERRA Water and Energy Fluxes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Robertson, Franklin R.; Bosilovich, M. G.; Chen, J.; Miller, t. L.</p> <p>2010-01-01</p> <p>Because reanalysis data sets offer state variables and fluxes at regular space / time intervals, atmospheric reanalyses have become a mainstay of the climate community for diagnostic purposes and for driving offline ocean and land models. Although one weakness of these data sets is the susceptibility of the flux products to uncertainties because of shortcomings in parameterized model physics, another issue, perhaps less appreciated, is the fact that continual but discreet changes in the evolving observational system, particularly from satellite sensors, may also introduce artifacts in the time series of quantities. In this paper we examine the ability of the NASA MERRA (Modern Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications) and other recent reanalyses to determine variability in the climate system over the satellite record (approximately the last 30 years). In particular we highlight the effect on the reanalysis of discontinuities at the junctures of the onset of passive microwave imaging (Special Sensor Microwave Imager) in late 1987 as well as improved sounding and imaging with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, AMSU-A, in 1998. We first examine MERRA fluxes from the perspective of how physical modes of variability (e.g. ENSO events, Pacific Decadal Variability) are contaminated by artificial step-like trends induced by the onset of new moisture data these two satellite observing systems. Secondly, we show how Redundancy Analysis, a statistical regression methodology, is effective in relating these artifact signals in the moisture and temperature analysis increments to their presence in the physical flux terms (e.g. precipitation, radiation). This procedure is shown to be effective greatly reducing the artificial trends in the flux quantities.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4639351','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4639351"><span>THE REGRESSION MODEL OF IRAN LIBRARIES ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Jahani, Mohammad Ali; Yaminfirooz, Mousa; Siamian, Hasan</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Background: The purpose of this study was to drawing a regression model of organizational climate of central libraries of Iran’s universities. Methods: This study is an applied research. The statistical population of this study consisted of 96 employees of the central libraries of Iran’s public universities selected among the 117 universities affiliated to the Ministry of Health by Stratified Sampling method (510 people). Climate Qual localized questionnaire was used as research tools. For predicting the organizational climate pattern of the libraries is used from the multivariate linear regression and track diagram. Results: of the 9 variables affecting organizational climate, 5 variables of innovation, teamwork, customer service, psychological safety and deep diversity play a major role in prediction of the organizational climate of Iran’s libraries. The results also indicate that each of these variables with different coefficient have the power to predict organizational climate but the climate score of psychological safety (0.94) plays a very crucial role in predicting the organizational climate. Track diagram showed that five variables of teamwork, customer service, psychological safety, deep diversity and innovation directly effects on the organizational climate variable that contribution of the team work from this influence is more than any other variables. Conclusions: Of the indicator of the organizational climate of climateQual, the contribution of the team work from this influence is more than any other variables that reinforcement of teamwork in academic libraries can be more effective in improving the organizational climate of this type libraries. PMID:26622203</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26622203','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26622203"><span>THE REGRESSION MODEL OF IRAN LIBRARIES ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Jahani, Mohammad Ali; Yaminfirooz, Mousa; Siamian, Hasan</p> <p>2015-10-01</p> <p>The purpose of this study was to drawing a regression model of organizational climate of central libraries of Iran's universities. This study is an applied research. The statistical population of this study consisted of 96 employees of the central libraries of Iran's public universities selected among the 117 universities affiliated to the Ministry of Health by Stratified Sampling method (510 people). Climate Qual localized questionnaire was used as research tools. For predicting the organizational climate pattern of the libraries is used from the multivariate linear regression and track diagram. of the 9 variables affecting organizational climate, 5 variables of innovation, teamwork, customer service, psychological safety and deep diversity play a major role in prediction of the organizational climate of Iran's libraries. The results also indicate that each of these variables with different coefficient have the power to predict organizational climate but the climate score of psychological safety (0.94) plays a very crucial role in predicting the organizational climate. Track diagram showed that five variables of teamwork, customer service, psychological safety, deep diversity and innovation directly effects on the organizational climate variable that contribution of the team work from this influence is more than any other variables. Of the indicator of the organizational climate of climateQual, the contribution of the team work from this influence is more than any other variables that reinforcement of teamwork in academic libraries can be more effective in improving the organizational climate of this type libraries.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27042332','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27042332"><span>An exceptionally preserved Eocene shark and the rise of modern predator-prey interactions in the coral reef food web.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Fanti, Federico; Minelli, Daniela; Conte, Gabriele Larocca; Miyashita, Tetsuto</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>Following extreme climatic warming events, Eocene Lagerstätten document aquatic and terrestrial vertebrate faunas surprisingly similar to modern counterparts. This transition in marine systems is best documented in the earliest teleost-dominated coral reef assemblage of Pesciara di Bolca, northern Italy, from near the end of the Eocene Climatic Optimum. Its rich fauna shows similarities with that of the modern Great Barrier Reef in niche exploitation by and morphological disparity among teleost primary consumers. However, such paleoecological understanding has not transcended trophic levels above primary consumers, particularly in carcharhiniform sharks. We report an exceptionally preserved fossil school shark (Galeorhinus cuvieri) from Pesciara di Bolca. In addition to the spectacular preservation of soft tissues, including brain, muscles, and claspers, this male juvenile shark has stomach contents clearly identifiable as a sphyraenid acanthomorph (barracuda). This association provides evidence that a predator-prey relationship between Galeorhinus and Sphyraena in the modern coral reefs has roots in the Eocene. A growth curve of the living species of Galeorhinus fitted to G. cuvieri suggests that all specimens of G. cuvieri from the lagoonal deposits of Bolca represent sexually and somatically immature juveniles. The modern trophic association between higher-degree consumers (Galeorhinus and Sphyraena) has a counterpart in the Eocene Bolca, just as Bolca and the Great Barrier Reef show parallels among teleost primary consumers. Given the age of Bolca, trophic networks among consumers observed in modern coral reefs arose by the exit from the Climatic Optimum. The biased representation of juveniles suggests that the Bolca Lagerstätte served as a nursery habitat for G. cuvieri. Ultraviolet photography may be useful in probing for exceptional soft tissue preservation before common acid preparation methods.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907262','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27907262"><span>Potential breeding distributions of U.S. birds predicted with both short-term variability and long-term average climate data.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Bateman, Brooke L; Pidgeon, Anna M; Radeloff, Volker C; Flather, Curtis H; VanDerWal, Jeremy; Akçakaya, H Resit; Thogmartin, Wayne E; Albright, Thomas P; Vavrus, Stephen J; Heglund, Patricia J</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Climate conditions, such as temperature or precipitation, averaged over several decades strongly affect species distributions, as evidenced by experimental results and a plethora of models demonstrating statistical relations between species occurrences and long-term climate averages. However, long-term averages can conceal climate changes that have occurred in recent decades and may not capture actual species occurrence well because the distributions of species, especially at the edges of their range, are typically dynamic and may respond strongly to short-term climate variability. Our goal here was to test whether bird occurrence models can be predicted by either covariates based on short-term climate variability or on long-term climate averages. We parameterized species distribution models (SDMs) based on either short-term variability or long-term average climate covariates for 320 bird species in the conterminous USA and tested whether any life-history trait-based guilds were particularly sensitive to short-term conditions. Models including short-term climate variability performed well based on their cross-validated area-under-the-curve AUC score (0.85), as did models based on long-term climate averages (0.84). Similarly, both models performed well compared to independent presence/absence data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey (independent AUC of 0.89 and 0.90, respectively). However, models based on short-term variability covariates more accurately classified true absences for most species (73% of true absences classified within the lowest quarter of environmental suitability vs. 68%). In addition, they have the advantage that they can reveal the dynamic relationship between species and their environment because they capture the spatial fluctuations of species potential breeding distributions. With this information, we can identify which species and guilds are sensitive to climate variability, identify sites of high conservation value where climate variability is low, and assess how species' potential distributions may have already shifted due recent climate change. However, long-term climate averages require less data and processing time and may be more readily available for some areas of interest. Where data on short-term climate variability are not available, long-term climate information is a sufficient predictor of species distributions in many cases. However, short-term climate variability data may provide information not captured with long-term climate data for use in SDMs. © 2016 by the Ecological Society of America.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMED43A0849S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMED43A0849S"><span>Exploring and Analyzing Climate Variations Online by Using MERRA-2 data at GES DISC</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Shen, S.; Ostrenga, D.; Vollmer, B.; Kempler, S.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>NASA Giovanni (Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure) (http://giovanni.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/) is a web-based data visualization and analysis system developed by the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). Current data analysis functions include Lat-Lon map, time series, scatter plot, correlation map, difference, cross-section, vertical profile, and animation etc. The system enables basic statistical analysis and comparisons of multiple variables. This web-based tool facilitates data discovery, exploration and analysis of large amount of global and regional remote sensing and model data sets from a number of NASA data centers. Recently, long term global assimilated atmospheric, land, and ocean data have been integrated into the system that enables quick exploration and analysis of climate data without downloading, and preprocessing the data. Example data include climate reanalysis from NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) which provides data beginning 1980 to present; land data from NASA Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) which assimilates data from 1948 to 2012; as well as ocean biological data from NASA Ocean Biogeochemical Model (NOBM) which assimilates data from 1998 to 2012. This presentation, using surface air temperature, precipitation, ozone, and aerosol, etc. from MERRA-2, demonstrates climate variation analysis with Giovanni at selected regions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20160014815','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20160014815"><span>Exploring and Analyzing Climate Variations Online by Using NASA MERRA-2 Data at GES DISC</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Shen, Suhung; Ostrenga, Dana M.; Vollmer, Bruce E.; Kempler, Steven J.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>NASA Giovanni (Goddard Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure) (http:giovanni.sci.gsfc.nasa.govgiovanni) is a web-based data visualization and analysis system developed by the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). Current data analysis functions include Lat-Lon map, time series, scatter plot, correlation map, difference, cross-section, vertical profile, and animation etc. The system enables basic statistical analysis and comparisons of multiple variables. This web-based tool facilitates data discovery, exploration and analysis of large amount of global and regional remote sensing and model data sets from a number of NASA data centers. Long term global assimilated atmospheric, land, and ocean data have been integrated into the system that enables quick exploration and analysis of climate data without downloading, preprocessing, and learning data. Example data include climate reanalysis data from NASA Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) which provides data beginning in 1980 to present; land data from NASA Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS), which assimilates data from 1948 to 2012; as well as ocean biological data from NASA Ocean Biogeochemical Model (NOBM), which provides data from 1998 to 2012. This presentation, using surface air temperature, precipitation, ozone, and aerosol, etc. from MERRA-2, demonstrates climate variation analysis with Giovanni at selected regions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMED53B3476S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMED53B3476S"><span>Hands-on Approach to Prepare Specialists in Climate Changes Modeling and Analysis Using an Information-Computational Web-GIS Portal "Climate"</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Shulgina, T. M.; Gordova, Y. E.; Martynova, Y. V.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>A problem of making education relevant to the workplace tasks is a key problem of higher education in the professional field of environmental sciences. To answer this challenge several new courses for students of "Climatology" and "Meteorology" specialties were developed and implemented at the Tomsk State University, which comprises theoretical knowledge from up-to-date environmental sciences with computational tasks. To organize the educational process we use an open-source course management system Moodle (www.moodle.org). It gave us an opportunity to combine text and multimedia in a theoretical part of educational courses. The hands-on approach is realized through development of innovative trainings which are performed within the information-computational web GIS platform "Climate" (http://climate.scert.ru/). The platform has a set of tools and data bases allowing a researcher to perform climate changes analysis on the selected territory. The tools are also used for students' trainings, which contain practical tasks on climate modeling and climate changes assessment and analysis. Laboratory exercises are covering three topics: "Analysis of regional climate changes"; "Analysis of climate extreme indices on the regional scale"; and "Analysis of future climate". They designed to consolidate students' knowledge of discipline, to instill in them the skills to work independently with large amounts of geophysical data using modern processing and analysis tools of web-GIS platform "Climate" and to train them to present results obtained on laboratory work as reports with the statement of the problem, the results of calculations and logically justified conclusion. Thus, students are engaged in n the use of modern tools of the geophysical data analysis and it cultivates dynamic of their professional learning. The approach can help us to fill in this gap because it is the only approach that offers experience, increases students involvement, advance the use of modern information and communication tools. Financial support for this research from the RFBR (13-05-12034, 14-05-00502), SB RAS project VIII.80.2.1 and grant of the President of RF (№ 181) is acknowledged.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_18");'>18</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li class="active"><span>20</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_20 --> <div id="page_21" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li class="active"><span>21</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="401"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/45280','TREESEARCH'); return false;" href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/45280"><span>An overview of some concepts, potentials, issues, and realities of assisted migration for climate change adaptation in forests</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/">Treesearch</a></p> <p>Louis R. Iverson; Matthew P. Peters; Stephen Matthews; Anantha Prasad</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>The climate has always been changing, but the rapid rate of climate change, as projected by the IPCC (2007) will likely place unique stresses on plant communities. In addition, anthropogenic barriers (e.g., fragmented land use) present a significant modern constraint that will limit the ability of species migration in responses to a changing climate. As such, managers...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.A22B..01D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.A22B..01D"><span>New Perspectives on the Role of Internal Variability in Regional Climate Change and Climate Model Evaluation</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Deser, C.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Natural climate variability occurs over a wide range of time and space scales as a result of processes intrinsic to the atmosphere, the ocean, and their coupled interactions. Such internally generated climate fluctuations pose significant challenges for the identification of externally forced climate signals such as those driven by volcanic eruptions or anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases. This challenge is exacerbated for regional climate responses evaluated from short (< 50 years) data records. The limited duration of the observations also places strong constraints on how well the spatial and temporal characteristics of natural climate variability are known, especially on multi-decadal time scales. The observational constraints, in turn, pose challenges for evaluation of climate models, including their representation of internal variability and assessing the accuracy of their responses to natural and anthropogenic radiative forcings. A promising new approach to climate model assessment is the advent of large (10-100 member) "initial-condition" ensembles of climate change simulations with individual models. Such ensembles allow for accurate determination, and straightforward separation, of externally forced climate signals and internal climate variability on regional scales. The range of climate trajectories in a given model ensemble results from the fact that each simulation represents a particular sequence of internal variability superimposed upon a common forced response. This makes clear that nature's single realization is only one of many that could have unfolded. This perspective leads to a rethinking of approaches to climate model evaluation that incorporate observational uncertainty due to limited sampling of internal variability. Illustrative examples across a range of well-known climate phenomena including ENSO, volcanic eruptions, and anthropogenic climate change will be discussed.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.H43A1308F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.H43A1308F"><span>Potential Seasonal Predictability of Water Cycle in Observations and Reanalysis</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Feng, X.; Houser, P.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>Identification of predictability of water cycle variability is crucial for climate prediction, water resources availability, ecosystem management and hazard mitigation. An analysis that can assess the potential skill in seasonal prediction was proposed by the authors, named as analysis of covariance (ANOCOVA). This method tests whether interannual variability of seasonal means exceeds that due to weather noise under the null hypothesis that seasonal means are identical every year. It has the advantage of taking into account autocorrelation structure in the daily time series but also accounting for the uncertainty of the estimated parameters in the significance test. During the past several years, multiple reanalysis datasets have become available for studying climate variability and understanding climate system. We are motivated to compare the potential predictability of water cycle variation from different reanalysis datasets against observations using the newly proposed ANOCOVA method. The selected eight reanalyses include the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR) 40-year Reanalysis Project (NNRP), the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Department of Energy (NCEP/DOE) Reanalysis Project (NDRP), the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) 40-year Reanalysis, The Japan Meteorological Agency 25-year Reanalysis Project (JRA25), the ECMWF) Interim Reanalysis (ERAINT), the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (NOAA/CIRES) 20th Century Reanalysis Version 2 (20CR). For key water cycle components, precipitation and evaporation, all reanalyses consistently show high fraction of predictable variance in the tropics, low predictability over the extratropics, more potential predictability over the ocean than land, and a stronger seasonal variation in potential predictability over land than ocean. The substantial differences are observed especially over the extropical areas where boundary-forced signal is not as significant as in tropics. We further evaluate the accuracy of reanalysis in estimating seasonal predictability over several selected regions, where rain gauge measurement or land surface data assimilation product is available and accurate, to gain insight on the strength and weakness of reanalysis products.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP31C1293L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP31C1293L"><span>Southwest Greenland's Alpine Glacier History: Recent Glacier Change in the Context of the Holocene Geologic Record</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Larocca, L. J.; Axford, Y.; Lasher, G. E.; Lee, C. W.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Due to anthropogenic climate change, the Arctic region is currently undergoing major transformation, and is expected to continue warming much faster than the global average. To put recent and future changes into context, a longer-term understanding of this region's past response to natural climate variability is needed. Given their sensitivity to modest climate change, small alpine glaciers and ice caps on Greenland's coastal margin (beyond the Greenland Ice Sheet) represent ideal features to record climate variability through the Holocene. Here we investigate the Holocene history of a small ( 160 square km) ice cap and adjacent alpine glaciers, located in southwest Greenland approximately 50 km south of Nuuk. We employ measurements on sediment cores from a glacier-fed lake in combination with geospatial analysis of satellite images spanning the past several decades. Sedimentary indicators of sediment source and thus glacial activity, including organic matter abundance, inferred chlorophyll-a content, sediment major element abundances, grain size, and magnetic susceptibility are presented from cores collected from a distal glacier-fed lake (informally referred to here as Per's Lake) in the summer of 2015. These parameters reflect changes in the amount and character of inorganic detrital input into the lake, which may be linked to the size of the upstream glaciers and ice cap and allow us to reconstruct their status through the Holocene. Additionally, we present a complementary record of recent changes in Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) for the upstream alpine glaciers. Modern ELAs are inferred using the accumulation area ratio (AAR) method in ArcGIS via Landsat and Worldview-2 satellite imagery, along with elevation data obtained from digital elevation models (DEMs). Paleo-ELAs are inferred from the positions of moraines and trim lines marking the glaciers' most recent expanded state, which we attribute to the Little Ice Age (LIA). This approach will allow us to explore the possibility of quantitatively or qualitatively linking changes in ELA (and thus the size of upstream glaciers) to specific sediment parameters. Ultimately, we aim to reconstruct glacier variability through the entire Holocene epoch, and to compare this history with 20th and 21st Century changes.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120001512','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120001512"><span>Intraseasonal Variations in Tropical Energy Balance: Relevance to Climate Sensitivity?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Robertson, Franklin R.; Ramey, Holly S.; Roberts, Jason B.</p> <p>2011-01-01</p> <p>Intraseasonal variability of deep convection represents a fundamental mode of organization for tropical convection. While most studies of intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) have focused on the spatial propagation and dynamics of convectively coupled circulations, here we examine the projection of ISOs on the tropically-averaged heat and moisture budget. One unresolved question concerns the degree to which observable variations in the "fast" processes (e.g. convection, radiative / turbulent fluxes) can inform our understanding of feedback mechanisms operable in the context of climate change. Our analysis use daily data from satellite observations, the Modern Era analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), and other model integrations to address these questions: (i) How are tropospheric temperature variations related to that tropical deep convection and the associated ice cloud fractional amount (ICF), ice water path (IWP), and properties of warmer liquid clouds? (ii) What role does moisture transport play vis-a-vis ocean latent heat flux in enabling the evolution of deep convection to mediate PBL - free atmospheric temperature equilibration? (iii) What affect do convectively generated upper-tropospheric clouds have on the TOA radiation budget? Our methodology is similar to that of Spencer et al., (2007 GRL ) whereby a composite time series of various quantities over 60+ ISO events is built using tropical mean tropospheric temperature signal as a reference to which the variables are related at various lag times (from -30 to +30 days). The area of interest encompasses the global oceans between 20oN/S. The increase of convective precipitation cannot be sustained by evaporation within the domain, implying strong moisture transports into the tropical ocean area. The decrease in net TOA radiation that develops after the peak in deep convective rainfall, is part of the response that constitutes a "discharge" / "recharge" mechanism that facilitates tropical heat balance maintenance on these time scales. However, water vapor and hydrologic scaling relationships for this mode of variability cast doubt on the utility of ISO variations as proxies for climate sensitivity response to external radiatively forced (e.g. greenhouse gas-induced) climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP43B1345K','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP43B1345K"><span>Antarctic Circumpolar Current Dynamics and Their Relation to Antarctic Ice Sheet and Perennial Sea-Ice Variability in the Central Drake Passage During the Last Climate Cycle</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Kuhn, G.; Wu, S.; Hass, H. C.; Klages, J. P.; Zheng, X.; Arz, H. W.; Esper, O.; Hillenbrand, C. D.; Lange, C.; Lamy, F.; Lohmann, G.; Müller, J.; McCave, I. N. N.; Nürnberg, D.; Roberts, J.; Tiedemann, R.; Timmermann, A.; Titschack, J.; Zhang, X.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The evolution of the Antarctic Ice Sheet during the last climate cycle and the interrelation to global atmospheric and ocean circulation remains controversial and plays an important role for our understanding of ice sheet response to modern global warming. The timing and sequence of deglacial warming is relevant for understanding the variability and sensitivity of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to climatic changes, and the continuing rise of atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. The Antarctic Ice Sheet is a pivotal component of the global water budget. Freshwater fluxes from the ice sheet may affect the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), which is strongly impacted by the westerly wind belt in the Southern Hemisphere (SHWW) and constricted to its narrowest extent in the Drake Passage. The flow of ACC water masses through Drake Passage is, therefore, crucial for advancing our understanding of the Southern Ocean's role in global meridional overturning circulation and global climate change. In order to address orbital and millennial-scale variability of the Antarctic ice sheet and the ACC, we applied a multi-proxy approach on a sediment core from the central Drake Passage including grain size, iceberg-rafted debris, mineral dust, bulk chemical and mineralogical composition, and physical properties. In combination with already published and new sediment records from the Drake Passage and Scotia Sea, as well as high-resolution data from Antarctic ice cores (WDC, EDML), we now have evidence that during glacial times a more northerly extent of the perennial sea-ice zone decreased ACC current velocities in the central Drake Passage. During deglaciation the SHWW shifted southwards due to a decreasing temperature gradient between subtropical and polar latitudes caused by sea ice and ice sheet decline. This in turn caused Southern Hemisphere warming, a more vigorous ACC, stronger Southern Ocean ventilation, and warm Circumpolar Deep Water (CDW) upwelling on Antarctic shelves resulting in increased ice shelf melting. Stronger upwelling is associated with a rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide to reach a threshold at which full deglaciation could become inevitable.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMSA43B2149L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMSA43B2149L"><span>Day-to-day ionospheric variability due to lower atmosphere perturbations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Liu, H.; Yudin, V. A.; Roble, R. G.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>Ionospheric day-to-day variability is a ubiquitous feature, even in the absence of appreciable geomagnetic activities. Although meteorological perturbations have been recognized as an important source of the variability, it is not well represented in previous modeling studies, and the mechanism is not well understood. This study demonstrates that TIME-GCM (Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model) constrained in the stratosphere and mesosphere by the hourly Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM) simulations is capable of reproducing observed features of day-to-day variability in the thermosphere-ionosphere. Realistic weather patterns in the lower atmosphere in WACCM was specified by Modern Era Retrospective reanalysis for Research and Application (MERRA). The day-to-day variations in mean zonal wind, migrating and non-migrating tides in the thermosphere, vertical and zonal ExB drifts, and ionosphere F2 layer peak electron density (NmF2) are examined. The standard deviations of the drifts and NmF2 display local time and longitudinal dependence that compare favorably with observations. Their magnitudes are 50% or more of those from observations. The day-to-day thermosphere and ionosphere variability in the model is primarily caused by the perturbations originated in lower atmosphere, since the model simulation is under constant solar minimum and low geomagnetic conditions.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018JASTP.171..234R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018JASTP.171..234R"><span>Changes in the zonal mean flow, temperature, and planetary waves observed in the Northern Hemisphere mid-winter months during the last decades</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rakushina, E. V.; Ermakova, T. S.; Pogoreltsev, A. I.</p> <p>2018-06-01</p> <p>Four sets of data: the UK Met Office, Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA), Japanese 55-year Reanalysis data (JRA-55), and ERA-Interim data (ERA) have been used to estimate the climatic variability of the zonal mean flow, temperature, and Stationary Planetary Waves (SPW1, SPW2) from the troposphere up to the lower mesosphere levels. The composites of the meteorological fields during mid-winter month have been averaged over the first (1995-2005) and second (2006-2016) 11 years intervals and have been compared mainly paying attention to interannual and intraseasonal variability. Results show that changes in the mean fields and SPW2 are weaker and statistical significance of these changes is lower in comparison with the changes observed in the intraseasonal variability of these characteristics. All data sets demonstrate a decrease of SPW1 amplitude at the higher-middle latitudes in the lower stratosphere and opposite effect in the upper stratosphere. However, there is an increase of the intraseasonal variability for all meteorological parameters and this rise is statistically significant. The results obtained show that UK Met Office data demonstrate stronger changes and increase of the intraseasonal variability in comparison with other data sets.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/biblio/207882-annually-laminated-sequences-internal-structure-some-belgian-stalagmites-importance-paleoclimatology','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/biblio/207882-annually-laminated-sequences-internal-structure-some-belgian-stalagmites-importance-paleoclimatology"><span>Annually laminated sequences in the internal structure of some Belgian stalagmites -- Importance for paleoclimatology</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Genty, D.; Quinif, Y.</p> <p>1996-01-01</p> <p>Fifteen stalagmites from four caves and one sealed tunnel in southern Belgium are composed of alternations of annually deposited white-porous and dark-compact laminae. This is demonstrated by comparing the number of laminae with the local history of the site for modern stalagmites and with radioisotopic ages for Late Glacial and Holocene stalagmites. Annual cyclicity in the internal structure of these speleothems is explained by the highly seasonal variations of the water excess, which influences underground water flow. Comparison between climatic data and modern stalagmites of a closed tunnel shows that growth laminae can record climatic variations: (1) there is amore » good correlation (R = 0.84) between lamina thickness in a stalagmite and water excess; (2) during years with a high water excess, dark-compact laminae are more developed, which makes the speleothem darker. Vertical successions of several laminae represent microsequences that may have recorded climatic variations with a time resolution of 1/2 year. In a Late Glacial stalagmite, successive laminae microsequences form very regular cycles of 11 years separated by a thick dark-compact lamina. It is supported that, as for modern stalagmites, the thick dark-compact lamina corresponds to a period of high water excess. Hence, this 11-year cycle may reflect a climatic cycle.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29472598','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29472598"><span>Climate-Driven Crop Yield and Yield Variability and Climate Change Impacts on the U.S. Great Plains Agricultural Production.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Kukal, Meetpal S; Irmak, Suat</p> <p>2018-02-22</p> <p>Climate variability and trends affect global crop yields and are characterized as highly dependent on location, crop type, and irrigation. U.S. Great Plains, due to its significance in national food production, evident climate variability, and extensive irrigation is an ideal region of investigation for climate impacts on food production. This paper evaluates climate impacts on maize, sorghum, and soybean yields and effect of irrigation for individual counties in this region by employing extensive crop yield and climate datasets from 1968-2013. Variability in crop yields was a quarter of the regional average yields, with a quarter of this variability explained by climate variability, and temperature and precipitation explained these in singularity or combination at different locations. Observed temperature trend was beneficial for maize yields, but detrimental for sorghum and soybean yields, whereas observed precipitation trend was beneficial for all three crops. Irrigated yields demonstrated increased robustness and an effective mitigation strategy against climate impacts than their non-irrigated counterparts by a considerable fraction. The information, data, and maps provided can serve as an assessment guide for planners, managers, and policy- and decision makers to prioritize agricultural resilience efforts and resource allocation or re-allocation in the regions that exhibit risk from climate variability.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28589633','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28589633"><span>Does climate variability influence the demography of wild primates? Evidence from long-term life-history data in seven species.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Campos, Fernando A; Morris, William F; Alberts, Susan C; Altmann, Jeanne; Brockman, Diane K; Cords, Marina; Pusey, Anne; Stoinski, Tara S; Strier, Karen B; Fedigan, Linda M</p> <p>2017-11-01</p> <p>Earth's rapidly changing climate creates a growing need to understand how demographic processes in natural populations are affected by climate variability, particularly among organisms threatened by extinction. Long-term, large-scale, and cross-taxon studies of vital rate variation in relation to climate variability can be particularly valuable because they can reveal environmental drivers that affect multiple species over extensive regions. Few such data exist for animals with slow life histories, particularly in the tropics, where climate variation over large-scale space is asynchronous. As our closest relatives, nonhuman primates are especially valuable as a resource to understand the roles of climate variability and climate change in human evolutionary history. Here, we provide the first comprehensive investigation of vital rate variation in relation to climate variability among wild primates. We ask whether primates are sensitive to global changes that are universal (e.g., higher temperature, large-scale climate oscillations) or whether they are more sensitive to global change effects that are local (e.g., more rain in some places), which would complicate predictions of how primates in general will respond to climate change. To address these questions, we use a database of long-term life-history data for natural populations of seven primate species that have been studied for 29-52 years to investigate associations between vital rate variation, local climate variability, and global climate oscillations. Associations between vital rates and climate variability varied among species and depended on the time windows considered, highlighting the importance of temporal scale in detection of such effects. We found strong climate signals in the fertility rates of three species. However, survival, which has a greater impact on population growth, was little affected by climate variability. Thus, we found evidence for demographic buffering of life histories, but also evidence of mechanisms by which climate change could affect the fates of wild primates. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26857170','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26857170"><span>The human dimensions of climate change: A micro-level assessment of views from the ecological modernization, political economy and human ecology perspectives.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Adua, Lazarus; York, Richard; Schuelke-Leech, Beth-Anne</p> <p>2016-03-01</p> <p>Understanding the manifold human and physical dimensions of climate change has become an area of great interest to researchers in recent decades. Using a U.S. nationally-representative data set and drawing on the ecological modernization, political economy, and human ecology perspectives, this study examines the impacts of energy efficiency technologies, affluence, household demographics, and biophysical characteristics on residential CO2 emissions. Overall, the study provides mixed support for the ecological modernization perspective. While several findings are consistent with the theory's expectation that modern societies can harness technology to mitigate human impacts on the environment, others directly contradict it. Also, the theory's prediction of an inverted U-shaped relationship between affluence and environmental impacts is contradicted. The evidence is somewhat more supportive of the political economy and human ecology perspectives, with affluence, some indicators of technology, household demographics, and biophysical characteristics emerging as important drivers of residential CO2 emissions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3427068','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3427068"><span>Volcanic ash layers illuminate the resilience of Neanderthals and early modern humans to natural hazards</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Lowe, John; Barton, Nick; Blockley, Simon; Ramsey, Christopher Bronk; Cullen, Victoria L.; Davies, William; Gamble, Clive; Grant, Katharine; Hardiman, Mark; Housley, Rupert; Lane, Christine S.; Lee, Sharen; Lewis, Mark; MacLeod, Alison; Menzies, Martin; Müller, Wolfgang; Pollard, Mark; Price, Catherine; Roberts, Andrew P.; Rohling, Eelco J.; Satow, Chris; Smith, Victoria C.; Stringer, Chris B.; Tomlinson, Emma L.; White, Dustin; Albert, Paul; Arienzo, Ilenia; Barker, Graeme; Borić, Dušan; Carandente, Antonio; Civetta, Lucia; Ferrier, Catherine; Guadelli, Jean-Luc; Karkanas, Panagiotis; Koumouzelis, Margarita; Müller, Ulrich C.; Orsi, Giovanni; Pross, Jörg; Rosi, Mauro; Shalamanov-Korobar, Ljiljiana; Sirakov, Nikolay; Tzedakis, Polychronis C.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>Marked changes in human dispersal and development during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition have been attributed to massive volcanic eruption and/or severe climatic deterioration. We test this concept using records of volcanic ash layers of the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption dated to ca. 40,000 y ago (40 ka B.P.). The distribution of the Campanian Ignimbrite has been enhanced by the discovery of cryptotephra deposits (volcanic ash layers that are not visible to the naked eye) in archaeological cave sequences. They enable us to synchronize archaeological and paleoclimatic records through the period of transition from Neanderthal to the earliest anatomically modern human populations in Europe. Our results confirm that the combined effects of a major volcanic eruption and severe climatic cooling failed to have lasting impacts on Neanderthals or early modern humans in Europe. We infer that modern humans proved a greater competitive threat to indigenous populations than natural disasters. PMID:22826222</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ClDy..tmp.2308Y','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ClDy..tmp.2308Y"><span>On climate prediction: how much can we expect from climate memory?</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Yuan, Naiming; Huang, Yan; Duan, Jianping; Zhu, Congwen; Xoplaki, Elena; Luterbacher, Jürg</p> <p>2018-03-01</p> <p>Slowing variability in climate system is an important source of climate predictability. However, it is still challenging for current dynamical models to fully capture the variability as well as its impacts on future climate. In this study, instead of simulating the internal multi-scale oscillations in dynamical models, we discussed the effects of internal variability in terms of climate memory. By decomposing climate state x(t) at a certain time point t into memory part M(t) and non-memory part ɛ (t) , climate memory effects from the past 30 years on climate prediction are quantified. For variables with strong climate memory, high variance (over 20% ) in x(t) is explained by the memory part M(t), and the effects of climate memory are non-negligible for most climate variables, but the precipitation. Regarding of multi-steps climate prediction, a power law decay of the explained variance was found, indicating long-lasting climate memory effects. The explained variances by climate memory can remain to be higher than 10% for more than 10 time steps. Accordingly, past climate conditions can affect both short (monthly) and long-term (interannual, decadal, or even multidecadal) climate predictions. With the memory part M(t) precisely calculated from Fractional Integral Statistical Model, one only needs to focus on the non-memory part ɛ (t) , which is an important quantity that determines climate predictive skills.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=34049','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=34049"><span>Assessing climate impacts</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Wohl, Ellen E.; Pulwarty, Roger S.; Zhang, Jian Yun</p> <p>2000-01-01</p> <p>Assessing climate impacts involves identifying sources and characteristics of climate variability, and mitigating potential negative impacts of that variability. Associated research focuses on climate driving mechanisms, biosphere–hydrosphere responses and mediation, and human responses. Examples of climate impacts come from 1998 flooding in the Yangtze River Basin and hurricanes in the Caribbean and Central America. Although we have limited understanding of the fundamental driving-response interactions associated with climate variability, increasingly powerful measurement and modeling techniques make assessing climate impacts a rapidly developing frontier of science. PMID:11027321</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMED52A..01G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMED52A..01G"><span>Real-Time Climate Simulations in the Interactive 3D Game Universe Sandbox ²</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Goldenson, N. L.</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>Exploration in an open-ended computer game is an engaging way to explore climate and climate change. Everyone can explore physical models with real-time visualization in the educational simulator Universe Sandbox ² (universesandbox.com/2), which includes basic climate simulations on planets. I have implemented a time-dependent, one-dimensional meridional heat transport energy balance model to run and be adjustable in real time in the midst of a larger simulated system. Universe Sandbox ² is based on the original game - at its core a gravity simulator - with other new physically-based content for stellar evolution, and handling collisions between bodies. Existing users are mostly science enthusiasts in informal settings. We believe that this is the first climate simulation to be implemented in a professionally developed computer game with modern 3D graphical output in real time. The type of simple climate model we've adopted helps us depict the seasonal cycle and the more drastic changes that come from changing the orbit or other external forcings. Users can alter the climate as the simulation is running by altering the star(s) in the simulation, dragging to change orbits and obliquity, adjusting the climate simulation parameters directly or changing other properties like CO2 concentration that affect the model parameters in representative ways. Ongoing visuals of the expansion and contraction of sea ice and snow-cover respond to the temperature calculations, and make it accessible to explore a variety of scenarios and intuitive to understand the output. Variables like temperature can also be graphed in real time. We balance computational constraints with the ability to capture the physical phenomena we wish to visualize, giving everyone access to a simple open-ended meridional energy balance climate simulation to explore and experiment with. The software lends itself to labs at a variety of levels about climate concepts including seasons, the Greenhouse effect, reservoirs and flows, albedo feedback, Snowball Earth, climate sensitivity, and model experiment design. Climate calculations are extended to Mars with some modifications to the Earth climate component, and could be used in lessons about the Mars atmosphere, and exploring scenarios of Mars climate history.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19990094166&hterms=climate+change+evidence&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D60%26Ntt%3Dclimate%2Bchange%2Bevidence','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19990094166&hterms=climate+change+evidence&qs=Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntk%3DAll%26N%3D0%26No%3D60%26Ntt%3Dclimate%2Bchange%2Bevidence"><span>Solar Variability in the Context of Other Climate Forcing Mechanisms</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Hansen, James E.</p> <p>1999-01-01</p> <p>I compare and contrast climate forcings due to solar variability with climate forcings due to other mechanisms of climate change, interpretation of the role of the sun in climate change depends upon climate sensitivity and upon the net forcing by other climate change mechanisms. Among the potential indirect climate forcings due to solar variability, only that due to solar cycle induced ozone changes has been well quantified. There is evidence that the sun has been a significant player in past climate change on decadal to century time scales, and that it has the potential to contribute to climate change in the 21st century.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25086133','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25086133"><span>Burnout and quality of life among orthopaedic trainees in a modern educational programme: importance of the learning climate.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>van Vendeloo, S N; Brand, P L P; Verheyen, C C P M</p> <p>2014-08-01</p> <p>We aimed to determine quality of life and burnout among Dutch orthopaedic trainees following a modern orthopaedic curriculum, with strict compliance to a 48-hour working week. We also evaluated the effect of the clinical climate of learning on their emotional well-being. We assessed burnout, quality of life and the clinical climate of learning in 105 orthopaedic trainees using the Maslach Burnout Inventory, linear analogue scale self-assessments, and Dutch Residency Educational Climate Test (D-RECT), respectively. A total of 19 trainees (18%) had poor quality of life and 49 (47%) were dissatisfied with the balance between their personal and professional life. Some symptoms of burnout were found in 29 trainees (28%). Higher D-RECT scores (indicating a better climate of learning) were associated with a better quality of life (r = 0.31, p = 0.001), more work-life balance satisfaction (r = 0.31, p = 0.002), fewer symptoms of emotional exhaustion (r = -0.21, p = 0.028) and depersonalisation (r = -0,28, p = 0.04). A reduced quality of life with evidence of burnout were still seen in a significant proportion of orthopaedic trainees despite following a modern curriculum with strict compliance to a 48-hour working week. It is vital that further work is undertaken to improve the quality of life and reduce burnout in this cohort. ©2014 The British Editorial Society of Bone & Joint Surgery.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/publications/mtnviews.shtml','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/cirmount/publications/mtnviews.shtml"><span>Preliminary analysis of the role of lake basin morphology on the modern diatom flora in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range, Nevada, USA</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Starratt, Scott W.</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>As paleolimnologists, we often look at the world through a 5-cm-diameter hole in the bottom of a lake, and although a number of studies have shown that a single core in the deepest part of a lake does not necessarily reflect the entire diatom flora, time and money often limit our ability to collect more than one core from a given site. This preliminary study is part of a multidisciplinary research project to understand Holocene climate variability in alpine regions of the Great Basin, and ultimately, to compare these high elevation records to the better studied pluvial records from adjacent valleys, in this case, the Ruby Valley.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=338471','TEKTRAN'); return false;" href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=338471"><span>Flexible stocking as a strategy for enhancing ranch profitability in the face of a changing and variable climate</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/find-a-publication/">USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database</a></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>Predicted climate change impacts include increased weather variability and increased occurrences of extreme events such as drought. Such climate changes potentially affect cattle performance as well as pasture and range productivity. These climate induced risks are often coupled with variable market...</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_19");'>19</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li class="active"><span>21</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_21 --> <div id="page_22" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li class="active"><span>22</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_24");'>24</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="421"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1918904Z','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1918904Z"><span>Statistical structure of intrinsic climate variability under global warming</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Zhu, Xiuhua; Bye, John; Fraedrich, Klaus</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>Climate variability is often studied in terms of fluctuations with respect to the mean state, whereas the dependence between the mean and variability is rarely discussed. We propose a new climate metric to measure the relationship between means and standard deviations of annual surface temperature computed over non-overlapping 100-year segments. This metric is analyzed based on equilibrium simulations of the Max Planck Institute-Earth System Model (MPI-ESM): the last millennium climate (800-1799), the future climate projection following the A1B scenario (2100-2199), and the 3100-year unforced control simulation. A linear relationship is globally observed in the control simulation and thus termed intrinsic climate variability, which is most pronounced in the tropical region with negative regression slopes over the Pacific warm pool and positive slopes in the eastern tropical Pacific. It relates to asymmetric changes in temperature extremes and associates fluctuating climate means with increase or decrease in intensity and occurrence of both El Niño and La Niña events. In the future scenario period, the linear regression slopes largely retain their spatial structure with appreciable changes in intensity and geographical locations. Since intrinsic climate variability describes the internal rhythm of the climate system, it may serve as guidance for interpreting climate variability and climate change signals in the past and the future.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51A1582S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2010AGUFMPP51A1582S"><span>Holocene Climate Variability in the Central North Pacific: An Organic Geochemical Record from Ka'au Crater Swamp, O'ahu, Hawai'i</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Street, J. H.; Beilman, D.; Timmermann, A.; Gaidos, E.; Paytan, A.</p> <p>2010-12-01</p> <p>North Pacific climate is known to have varied during the Holocene, with significant “downstream” effects on the regional climate and hydrology of western North America. Evidence from paleoclimatic studies along the northeast Pacific margin hints at several broad-scale regime shifts since the early Holocene, with spatial expressions analogous to those observed during phase shifts of the modern ENSO and PDO, though occurring on much longer (centennial to millennial) timescales. Nonetheless, the timing, magnitude and spatial patterns of Holocene rearrangements in oceanic and atmospheric circulation in the North Pacific remain incompletely defined. The main Hawaiian Islands (19 - 22 °N, 155 - 160 °W) are uniquely situated to “sample” climate variability in the subtropical, central North Pacific. Precipitation in Hawai’i is strongly influenced by the seasonal migration of the Pacific Anticyclone and the associated trade winds, and, during the winter, the frequency and intensity of westerly moisture-bearing storms. On interannual to decadal timescales, basin-wide circulation changes related to ENSO and PDO modulate trade wind strength and the occurrence of winter storm patterns, leading to local variations in precipitation. Terrestrial paleoclimatic records from Hawai’i are rare, but of great potential value to reconstruct aspects of central North Pacific atmospheric circulation during the Holocene, including the influence of the tropical ENSO system. In this study we present initial results from a 4.5 m, ~14 kyr sedimentary sequence recovered from Ka’au Crater Swamp, located near the leeward crest of the Ko’olau range of southeastern O’ahu, in a zone of high precipitation (>330 cm/yr). We utilize carbon and nitrogen elemental abundances (TOC, TN, C/N) and isotopic compositions (δ13C, δ15N) of bulk organic matter and ratios of biomarker compounds to reconstruct changes in vegetation, organic matter sources, and biogeochemical cycling in relation to climatic variables. Variation in elemental abundances and ratios, particularly in the mid-Holocene, suggest a sensitive response to climate. In addition, we evaluate the use of compound-specific hydrogen isotope (δD) measurements on plant leaf-wax compounds extracted from the sediment as a means of reconstructing paleohydrologic conditions and moisture sources to the site. Leaf-wax δD at Ka’au Crater is affected by changes in the isotopic composition precipitation as well as local water balance, both of which respond to variations in trade wind strength and the balance among the several winter circulation patterns.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70188862','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70188862"><span>Covariation of climate and long-term erosion rates acrossa steep rainfall gradient on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Ken Ferrier,; J. Taylor Perron,; Sujoy Mukhopadhyay,; Matt Rosener,; Stock, Jonathan; Slosberg, Michelle; Kimberly L. Huppert,</p> <p>2013-01-01</p> <p>Erosion of volcanic ocean islands creates dramatic landscapes, modulates Earth’s carbon cycle, and delivers sediment to coasts and reefs. Because many volcanic islands have large climate gradients and minimal variations in lithology and tectonic history, they are excellent natural laboratories for studying climatic effects on the evolution of topography. Despite concerns that modern sediment fluxes to island coasts may exceed long-term fluxes, little is known about how erosion rates and processes vary across island interiors, how erosion rates are influenced by the strong climate gradients on many islands, and how modern island erosion rates compare to long-term rates. Here, we present new measurements of erosion rates over 5 yr to 5 m.y. timescales on the Hawaiian island of Kaua‘i, across which mean annual precipitation ranges from 0.5 to 9.5 m/yr. Eroded rock volumes from basins across Kaua‘i indicate that million-year-scale erosion rates are correlated with modern mean annual precipitation and range from 8 to 335 t km–2 yr–1. In Kaua‘i’s Hanalei River basin, 3He concentrations in detrital olivines imply millennial-scale erosion rates of >126 to >390 t km–2 yr–1 from olivine-bearing hillslopes, while fluvial suspended sediment fluxes measured from 2004 to 2009 plus estimates of chemical and bed-load fluxes imply basin-averaged erosion rates of 545 ± 128 t km–2 yr–1. Mapping of landslide scars in satellite imagery of the Hanalei basin from 2004 and 2010 implies landslide-driven erosion rates of 30–47 t km–2 yr–1. These measurements imply that modern erosion rates in the Hanalei basin are no more than 2.3 ± 0.6 times faster than millennial-scale erosion rates, and, to the extent that modern precipitation patterns resemble long-term patterns, they are consistent with a link between precipitation rates and long-term erosion rates.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP41B2245H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP41B2245H"><span>Obliquity (41kyr) Paced SE Asian Monsoon Variability Following the Miocene Climate Transition</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Heitmann, E. O.; Breecker, D.; Ji, S.; Nie, J.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>We investigated Asian monsoon variability during the Miocene, which may provide a good analog for the future given the lack of northern hemisphere ice sheets. In the Miocene Yanwan Section (Tianshui Basin, China) 25cm thick CaCO3-cemented horizons overprint siltstones every 1m. We suggest this rhythmic layering records variations in water availability influenced by the Asian monsoon. We interpret the siltstones as stacked soils that formed in a seasonal climate with a fluctuating water table, evidenced by roots, clay films, mottling, presence of CaCO3 nodules, and stacked carbonate nodule δ13C and δ18O profiles that mimic modern soils. We interpret the CaCO3-cemented horizons as capillary-fringe carbonates that formed in an arid climate with a steady water table and high potential evapotranspiration (PET), evidenced by sharp upper and basal contacts, micrite, sparite, and root-pore cements. The magnetostratigraphy-based age model indicates obliquity-pacing of the CaCO3-cemented horizons suggesting an orbital control on water availability, for which we propose two mechanisms: 1) summer monsoon strength, moderated by the control of obliquity on the cross-equatorial pressure gradient, and 2) PET, moderated by the control of precession on 35oN summer insolation. We use orbital configurations to predict lithology. Coincidence of obliquity minima and insolation maxima drives strong summer monsoons, seasonal variations in water table depth and soil formation. Coincidence of obliquity maxima and insolation minima drives weak summer monsoons, high PET, and carbonate accumulation above a deepened, stable water table. Coincidence of obliquity and insolation minima drives strong monsoons, low PET, and a high water table, explaining the evidence for aquatic plants previously observed in this section. Southern hemisphere control of summer monsoon variability in the Miocene may thus have resulted in large water availability variations in central China.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014PRP.....2....1S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014PRP.....2....1S"><span>The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Scafetta, N.</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system, which since Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570-495 BC) is known as the music of the spheres, is briefly reviewed from the Renaissance up to contemporary research. Copernicus' heliocentric model from 1543 suggested that the planets of our solar system form a kind of mutually ordered and quasi-synchronized system. From 1596 to 1619 Kepler formulated preliminary mathematical relations of approximate commensurabilities among the planets, which were later reformulated in the Titius-Bode rule (1766-1772), which successfully predicted the orbital position of Ceres and Uranus. Following the discovery of the ~ 11 yr sunspot cycle, in 1859 Wolf suggested that the observed solar variability could be approximately synchronized with the orbital movements of Venus, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. Modern research has further confirmed that (1) the planetary orbital periods can be approximately deduced from a simple system of resonant frequencies; (2) the solar system oscillates with a specific set of gravitational frequencies, and many of them (e.g., within the range between 3 yr and 100 yr) can be approximately constructed as harmonics of a base period of ~ 178.38 yr; and (3) solar and climate records are also characterized by planetary harmonics from the monthly to the millennial timescales. This short review concludes with an emphasis on the contribution of the author's research on the empirical evidences and physical modeling of both solar and climate variability based on astronomical harmonics. The general conclusion is that the solar system works as a resonator characterized by a specific harmonic planetary structure that also synchronizes the Sun's activity and the Earth's climate. The special issue Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts (Mörner et al., 2013) further develops the ideas about the planetary-solar-terrestrial interaction with the personal contribution of 10 authors.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20404180','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20404180"><span>Linking global climate and temperature variability to widespread amphibian declines putatively caused by disease.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Rohr, Jason R; Raffel, Thomas R</p> <p>2010-05-04</p> <p>The role of global climate change in the decline of biodiversity and the emergence of infectious diseases remains controversial, and the effect of climatic variability, in particular, has largely been ignored. For instance, it was recently revealed that the proposed link between climate change and widespread amphibian declines, putatively caused by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), was tenuous because it was based on a temporally confounded correlation. Here we provide temporally unconfounded evidence that global El Niño climatic events drive widespread amphibian losses in genus Atelopus via increased regional temperature variability, which can reduce amphibian defenses against pathogens. Of 26 climate variables tested, only factors associated with temperature variability could account for the spatiotemporal patterns of declines thought to be associated with Bd. Climatic predictors of declines became significant only after controlling for a pattern consistent with epidemic spread (by temporally detrending the data). This presumed spread accounted for 59% of the temporal variation in amphibian losses, whereas El Niño accounted for 59% of the remaining variation. Hence, we could account for 83% of the variation in declines with these two variables alone. Given that global climate change seems to increase temperature variability, extreme climatic events, and the strength of Central Pacific El Niño episodes, climate change might exacerbate worldwide enigmatic declines of amphibians, presumably by increasing susceptibility to disease. These results suggest that changes to temperature variability associated with climate change might be as significant to biodiversity losses and disease emergence as changes to mean temperature.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018TCry...12..741B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018TCry...12..741B"><span>Effects of short-term variability of meteorological variables on soil temperature in permafrost regions</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Beer, Christian; Porada, Philipp; Ekici, Altug; Brakebusch, Matthias</p> <p>2018-03-01</p> <p>Effects of the short-term temporal variability of meteorological variables on soil temperature in northern high-latitude regions have been investigated. For this, a process-oriented land surface model has been driven using an artificially manipulated climate dataset. Short-term climate variability mainly impacts snow depth, and the thermal diffusivity of lichens and bryophytes. These impacts of climate variability on insulating surface layers together substantially alter the heat exchange between atmosphere and soil. As a result, soil temperature is 0.1 to 0.8 °C higher when climate variability is reduced. Earth system models project warming of the Arctic region but also increasing variability of meteorological variables and more often extreme meteorological events. Therefore, our results show that projected future increases in permafrost temperature and active-layer thickness in response to climate change will be lower (i) when taking into account future changes in short-term variability of meteorological variables and (ii) when representing dynamic snow and lichen and bryophyte functions in land surface models.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP23A2311F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP23A2311F"><span>How Dry was too Dry? Evaluating the Impact of Climatic Stress on Prehistoric Human Populations in southern Ethiopia.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Foerster, V. E.; Asrat, A.; Cohen, A. S.; Junginger, A.; Lamb, H. F.; Schaebitz, F.; Trauth, M. H.; Vogelsang, R.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>What role did abrupt climate shifts play in human evolution and the dispersal of Homo sapiens within and beyond the African continent? How did gradual climatic transitions on the other hand affect cultural and technological innovations in the source region of modern humans? In order to evaluate the effect of environmental instability on human evolution, with their cultural and technological innovations, and with their expansion out of Africa, it is essential to understand how the east African climate switches from dry to wet and back to dry. Determining the timespan of both long-term transitions and climate flickers eventually provides the much needed environmental information how much time early humans had to react (evolution, migration, adaption) to the profound changes in their living environment. As a contribution to providing an environmental context to these central questions on human-climate interaction, the Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project (HSPDP) has successfully completed coring five fluvio-lacustrine archives of climate change during the last 3.5 Ma in East Africa. The five high-priority areas in Ethiopia and Kenya are located in close proximity to key paleoanthropological sites covering various steps in evolution. Here we present a comparison between the youngest part of our continuous climate reconstruction (temporal resolution of up to 3 years) from the Chew Bahir site in southern Ethiopia and the available archaeological record of human presence in the source region of modern humans for the past 20 ka. The results contribute to test hypotheses on the impact of climatic stress on migration, the role of human decision-making and environmental thresholds (Foerster et al., 2015, 2016). Furthermore, we match key technological innovations in the area with the profound environmental changes during the highly debated mid-Holocene wet-dry transition. Finally, we give a first overview over possible phases of climatic stress during the last >500 ka in the first homeland of modern humans, as a time interval that comprises the transition into the Middle Stone Age as well as the origin and dispersal of Homo sapiens.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3295284','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3295284"><span>Timing of climate variability and grassland productivity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Craine, Joseph M.; Nippert, Jesse B.; Elmore, Andrew J.; Skibbe, Adam M.; Hutchinson, Stacy L.; Brunsell, Nathaniel A.</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>Future climates are forecast to include greater precipitation variability and more frequent heat waves, but the degree to which the timing of climate variability impacts ecosystems is uncertain. In a temperate, humid grassland, we examined the seasonal impacts of climate variability on 27 y of grass productivity. Drought and high-intensity precipitation reduced grass productivity only during a 110-d period, whereas high temperatures reduced productivity only during 25 d in July. The effects of drought and heat waves declined over the season and had no detectable impact on grass productivity in August. If these patterns are general across ecosystems, predictions of ecosystem response to climate change will have to account not only for the magnitude of climate variability but also for its timing. PMID:22331914</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22889171','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22889171"><span>Selection of climate change scenario data for impact modelling.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Sloth Madsen, M; Maule, C Fox; MacKellar, N; Olesen, J E; Christensen, J Hesselbjerg</p> <p>2012-01-01</p> <p>Impact models investigating climate change effects on food safety often need detailed climate data. The aim of this study was to select climate change projection data for selected crop phenology and mycotoxin impact models. Using the ENSEMBLES database of climate model output, this study illustrates how the projected climate change signal of important variables as temperature, precipitation and relative humidity depends on the choice of the climate model. Using climate change projections from at least two different climate models is recommended to account for model uncertainty. To make the climate projections suitable for impact analysis at the local scale a weather generator approach was adopted. As the weather generator did not treat all the necessary variables, an ad-hoc statistical method was developed to synthesise realistic values of missing variables. The method is presented in this paper, applied to relative humidity, but it could be adopted to other variables if needed.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23438320','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23438320"><span>Means and extremes: building variability into community-level climate change experiments.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Thompson, Ross M; Beardall, John; Beringer, Jason; Grace, Mike; Sardina, Paula</p> <p>2013-06-01</p> <p>Experimental studies assessing climatic effects on ecological communities have typically applied static warming treatments. Although these studies have been informative, they have usually failed to incorporate either current or predicted future, patterns of variability. Future climates are likely to include extreme events which have greater impacts on ecological systems than changes in means alone. Here, we review the studies which have used experiments to assess impacts of temperature on marine, freshwater and terrestrial communities, and classify them into a set of 'generations' based on how they incorporate variability. The majority of studies have failed to incorporate extreme events. In terrestrial ecosystems in particular, experimental treatments have reduced temperature variability, when most climate models predict increased variability. Marine studies have tended to not concentrate on changes in variability, likely in part because the thermal mass of oceans will moderate variation. In freshwaters, climate change experiments have a much shorter history than in the other ecosystems, and have tended to take a relatively simple approach. We propose a new 'generation' of climate change experiments using down-scaled climate models which incorporate predicted changes in climatic variability, and describe a process for generating data which can be applied as experimental climate change treatments. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd/CNRS.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ESD.....6..311F','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015ESD.....6..311F"><span>Exploring objective climate classification for the Himalayan arc and adjacent regions using gridded data sources</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Forsythe, N.; Blenkinsop, S.; Fowler, H. J.</p> <p>2015-05-01</p> <p>A three-step climate classification was applied to a spatial domain covering the Himalayan arc and adjacent plains regions using input data from four global meteorological reanalyses. Input variables were selected based on an understanding of the climatic drivers of regional water resource variability and crop yields. Principal component analysis (PCA) of those variables and k-means clustering on the PCA outputs revealed a reanalysis ensemble consensus for eight macro-climate zones. Spatial statistics of input variables for each zone revealed consistent, distinct climatologies. This climate classification approach has potential for enhancing assessment of climatic influences on water resources and food security as well as for characterising the skill and bias of gridded data sets, both meteorological reanalyses and climate models, for reproducing subregional climatologies. Through their spatial descriptors (area, geographic centroid, elevation mean range), climate classifications also provide metrics, beyond simple changes in individual variables, with which to assess the magnitude of projected climate change. Such sophisticated metrics are of particular interest for regions, including mountainous areas, where natural and anthropogenic systems are expected to be sensitive to incremental climate shifts.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EGUGA..15.6561G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013EGUGA..15.6561G"><span>Educational process in modern climatology within the web-GIS platform "Climate"</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Gordova, Yulia; Gorbatenko, Valentina; Gordov, Evgeny; Martynova, Yulia; Okladnikov, Igor; Titov, Alexander; Shulgina, Tamara</p> <p>2013-04-01</p> <p>These days, common to all scientific fields the problem of training of scientists in the environmental sciences is exacerbated by the need to develop new computational and information technology skills in distributed multi-disciplinary teams. To address this and other pressing problems of Earth system sciences, software infrastructure for information support of integrated research in the geosciences was created based on modern information and computational technologies and a software and hardware platform "Climate» (http://climate.scert.ru/) was developed. In addition to the direct analysis of geophysical data archives, the platform is aimed at teaching the basics of the study of changes in regional climate. The educational component of the platform includes a series of lectures on climate, environmental and meteorological modeling and laboratory work cycles on the basics of analysis of current and potential future regional climate change using Siberia territory as an example. The educational process within the Platform is implemented using the distance learning system Moodle (www.moodle.org). This work is partially supported by the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation (contract #8345), SB RAS project VIII.80.2.1, RFBR grant #11-05-01190a, and integrated project SB RAS #131.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP11B1034M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP11B1034M"><span>Penguin Proxies: Deciphering Millennial-Scale Antarctic Ecosystem Change using Amino Acid Stable Isotope Analysis.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Michelson, C.; McMahon, K.; Emslie, S. D.; Patterson, W. P.; McCarthy, M. D.; Polito, M. J.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The Southern Ocean ecosystem is undergoing rapid environmental change due to ongoing and historic anthropogenic impacts such as climate change and marine mammal harvesting. These disturbances may have cascading effects through the Antarctic food webs, resulting in profound shifts in the sources and cycling of organic matter supporting higher-trophic organisms, such as penguins. For example, bulk stable isotope analyses of modern and ancient preserved penguin tissues suggest variations in penguin feeding ecology throughout the Holocene with dramatic isotopic shifts in the last 200 years. However, it is not clear whether these isotopic shifts resulted from changes at the base of the food web, dietary shifts in penguins, or some combination of both factors. Newly developed compound-specific stable nitrogen isotope analysis of individual amino acids (CSIA-AA) may provide a powerful new tool to tease apart these confounding variables. Stable nitrogen isotope values of trophic amino acids (e.g., glutamic acid) increase substantially with each trophic transfer in the food web, while source amino acid (e.g., phenylalanine) stable nitrogen isotope values remain relatively unchanged and reflect ecosystem baselines. As such, we can use this CSIA-AA approach to decipher between baseline and dietary shifts in penguins over time from modern and ancient eggshells of Pygoscelis penguins in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Ross Sea regions of Antarctica. In order to accurately apply this CSIA-AA approach, we first characterized the trophic fractionation factors of individual amino acids between diet and penguin consumers in a long-term controlled penguin feeding experiment. We then applied these values to modern and ancient eggshells from the Antarctic Peninsula and Ross Sea to evaluate shifts in penguin trophic dynamics as a function of climate and anthropogenic interaction throughout much of the Holocene. This work develops a cutting edge new molecular geochemistry approach applied to penguins as sensitive indicators of past environmental change in Antarctica.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP43B1351M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP43B1351M"><span>Postglacial Records of Southern Hemisphere Climate and Oceanographic Change From the New Zealand Subantarctic Auckland Islands</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Moy, C. M.; Gilmer, G.; Nichols, J. E.; Browne, I. M.; Curtin, L.; Vandergoes, M.; Aebig, C.; Wilson, G. S.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The strength and latitudinal position of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds (SHWW) play a fundamental role in influencing mid-latitude climate and CO2 exchange between the Southern Ocean and the atmosphere along seasonal to glaicial-interglacial timescales. Despite their importance, our understanding of past SHWW change is limited by the small number of paleoclimate records from the modern wind maximum, which are often not in agreement. The New Zealand subantarctic Auckland Islands are located within the core of the modern wind belt (50°S), a key latitude where ocean-atmospheric linkages between the Antarctic and mid-latitudes are strong. In contrast to other subantarctic islands on the Campbell Plateau, the Auckland Islands have multiple protected fjord sub-basins, deep lakes, and peatlands that are advantageous for the development of high-resolution paleoclimate records. We will present ongoing work towards the establishment of multi-proxy and multi-site reconstructions of past SHWW variability from the Auckland Islands. Modern process and paleoclimate studies suggest that in lacustrine and fjord settings, the degree of water column mixing, the stable isotopic composition of n-alkanes and benthic foraminifera, and the influx of terrestrial organic matter are good indicators of wind-induced mixing of the water column or precipitation-driven erosion within catchments. During the Late Glacial and early Holocene (15 to 9 ka), elevated long-chain n-alkane δD values from ombrotrophic peatlands and an increase in the concentration of redox-sensitive elements in fjord sediment cores, signal weakening of the SHWW that appears to be coincident with periods of rapid deglacial warming of West Antarctica. Since 5.5 ka, we interpret declining n-alkane δD values to indicate enhanced westerly flow. These interpretations are in broad agreement with terrestrial paleoclimate records developed from southern South America and argue for a symmetrical response of the SHWW during the last 15,000 years along multi-millennial timescales.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24443553','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24443553"><span>Rough parameter dependence in climate models and the role of Ruelle-Pollicott resonances.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Chekroun, Mickaël David; Neelin, J David; Kondrashov, Dmitri; McWilliams, James C; Ghil, Michael</p> <p>2014-02-04</p> <p>Despite the importance of uncertainties encountered in climate model simulations, the fundamental mechanisms at the origin of sensitive behavior of long-term model statistics remain unclear. Variability of turbulent flows in the atmosphere and oceans exhibits recurrent large-scale patterns. These patterns, while evolving irregularly in time, manifest characteristic frequencies across a large range of time scales, from intraseasonal through interdecadal. Based on modern spectral theory of chaotic and dissipative dynamical systems, the associated low-frequency variability may be formulated in terms of Ruelle-Pollicott (RP) resonances. RP resonances encode information on the nonlinear dynamics of the system, and an approach for estimating them--as filtered through an observable of the system--is proposed. This approach relies on an appropriate Markov representation of the dynamics associated with a given observable. It is shown that, within this representation, the spectral gap--defined as the distance between the subdominant RP resonance and the unit circle--plays a major role in the roughness of parameter dependences. The model statistics are the most sensitive for the smallest spectral gaps; such small gaps turn out to correspond to regimes where the low-frequency variability is more pronounced, whereas autocorrelations decay more slowly. The present approach is applied to analyze the rough parameter dependence encountered in key statistics of an El-Niño-Southern Oscillation model of intermediate complexity. Theoretical arguments, however, strongly suggest that such links between model sensitivity and the decay of correlation properties are not limited to this particular model and could hold much more generally.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3918823','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3918823"><span>Rough parameter dependence in climate models and the role of Ruelle-Pollicott resonances</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Chekroun, Mickaël David; Neelin, J. David; Kondrashov, Dmitri; McWilliams, James C.; Ghil, Michael</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Despite the importance of uncertainties encountered in climate model simulations, the fundamental mechanisms at the origin of sensitive behavior of long-term model statistics remain unclear. Variability of turbulent flows in the atmosphere and oceans exhibits recurrent large-scale patterns. These patterns, while evolving irregularly in time, manifest characteristic frequencies across a large range of time scales, from intraseasonal through interdecadal. Based on modern spectral theory of chaotic and dissipative dynamical systems, the associated low-frequency variability may be formulated in terms of Ruelle-Pollicott (RP) resonances. RP resonances encode information on the nonlinear dynamics of the system, and an approach for estimating them—as filtered through an observable of the system—is proposed. This approach relies on an appropriate Markov representation of the dynamics associated with a given observable. It is shown that, within this representation, the spectral gap—defined as the distance between the subdominant RP resonance and the unit circle—plays a major role in the roughness of parameter dependences. The model statistics are the most sensitive for the smallest spectral gaps; such small gaps turn out to correspond to regimes where the low-frequency variability is more pronounced, whereas autocorrelations decay more slowly. The present approach is applied to analyze the rough parameter dependence encountered in key statistics of an El-Niño–Southern Oscillation model of intermediate complexity. Theoretical arguments, however, strongly suggest that such links between model sensitivity and the decay of correlation properties are not limited to this particular model and could hold much more generally. PMID:24443553</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP41E..01C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP41E..01C"><span>Indonesian Throughflow drove Australian climate from humid Pliocene to arid Pleistocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Christensen, B. A.; Renema, W.; Henderiks, J.; De Vleeschouwer, D.; Groeneveld, J.; Castañeda, I. S.; Reuning, L.; Bogus, K.; Auer, G.; Ishiwa, T.; McHugh, C.; Gallagher, S. J.; Fulthorpe, C.; Expedition 356 Scientists, I.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Our understanding of the onset of aridity in Australia and associated mechanisms is limited by the availability of long, continuous climate archives, particularly for the NW shelf in the Pliocene. Five sites were cored and logged on IODP Expedition 356, western Australian margin. Analysis of the natural gamma ray (NGR) suite of downhole logs, provide insights to the timing and rate of climate change. NGR data provide an outstanding tool to assess continental humidity (K%) and aridity (Th/K, Uppm); interpretations are supported with clay mineral data. We show progressive constriction of the Indonesian Throughflow (ITF) and the emerging Maritime Continent drove Australian climate to become drier and more variable. We identify 3 intervals of latest Miocene through early Pleistocene change: sudden onset of humidity at 5.5 Ma (Humid Interval), followed by decreased humidity (Transition Interval) and establishment of the NW dust pathway (Arid Interval) at 2.3 Ma. The Humid Interval is associated with the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) expansion west to the South China Sea and higher Indian Ocean SSTs. Our study of the NW region confirms wetter climates ringed the arid center during the early Pliocene. Reduced moisture availability began at 3.3 Ma, coincident with cooling in the WPWP and elsewhere, global atmospheric circulation constriction and Indian Ocean subsurface freshening and cooling, a direct response to ITF constriction. Greatest aridity and the onset of the modern dust pathway, documented in Th/K and Uppm logs beginning 2.3 Ma, is coincident with orbitally- controlled climatic change, and reorganization of Indian Ocean circulation. Our data indicate Australian climate is driven by tectonic and oceanographic changes in the ITF. Such changes altered regional atmospheric moisture transport and Indian Ocean circulation patterns and led to a shift from Pacific to Indian Ocean influence on theNW Australian climate, well after the intensification of northern hemisphere glaciation. We conclude that the Maritime Continent is the switchboard modulating teleconnections between monsoonal and glacial climate systems.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC21C0850W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFMGC21C0850W"><span>Projecting climate-driven increases in North American fire activity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Wang, D.; Morton, D. C.; Collatz, G. J.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>Climate regulates fire activity through controls on vegetation productivity (fuels), lightning ignitions, and conditions governing fire spread. In many regions of the world, human management also influences the timing, duration, and extent of fire activity. These coupled interactions between human and natural systems make fire a complex component of the Earth system. Satellite data provide valuable information on the spatial and temporal dynamics of recent fire activity, as active fires, burned area, and land cover information can be combined to separate wildfires from intentional burning for agriculture and forestry. Here, we combined satellite-derived burned area data with land cover and climate data to assess fire-climate relationships in North America between 2000-2012. We used the latest versions of the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED) burned area product and Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) climate data to develop regional relationships between burned area and potential evaporation (PE), an integrated dryness metric. Logistic regression models were developed to link burned area with PE and individual climate variables during and preceding the fire season, and optimal models were selected based on Akaike Information Criterion (AIC). Overall, our model explained 85% of the variance in burned area since 2000 across North America. Fire-climate relationships from the era of satellite observations provide a blueprint for potential changes in fire activity under scenarios of climate change. We used that blueprint to evaluate potential changes in fire activity over the next 50 years based on twenty models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). All models suggest an increase of PE under low and high emissions scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5, respectively), with largest increases in projected burned area across the western US and central Canada. Overall, near-term climate projections point to pronounced changes in fire season length, total burned area, and the frequency of extreme events across North America by 2050.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP41A0178R','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMPP41A0178R"><span>Reconstruction of Centennial and Millennial-scale Climate and Environmental Variability during the Holocene in the Central Canadian Arctic</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Rolland, N.; Porinchu, D.; MacDonald, G.; Moser, K.</p> <p>2007-12-01</p> <p>The Arctic and sub-Arctic regions are experiencing dramatic changes in surface temperature, sea-ice extent, glacial melt, river discharge, soil carbon storage and snow cover. According to the IPCC high latitude regions are expected to warm between 4°C and 7°C over the next 100 years. The magnitude of warming and the rate at which it occurs will dwarf any previous warming episodes experienced by latitude regions over the last 11,000 years. It is critical that we improve our understanding of how the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions responded to past periods of warming, especially in light of the changes these regions will be experiencing over the next 100 years. One of the lines of evidence increasingly utilized in multi-proxy paleolimnological research is the Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera). Also known as non-biting midge flies, chironomids are ubiquitous, frequently the most abundant insects found in freshwater ecosystems and very sensitive to environmental conditions. This research uses Chironomidae to quantitatively characterize climate and environmental conditions of the continental interior of Arctic Canada during the Holocene. Spanning four major vegetation zones (boreal forest, forest-tundra, birch tundra and herb tundra), the surface samples of 80 lakes recovered from the central Canadian Arctic were used to assess the relationship of 22 environmental variables with the chironomid distribution. Redundancy analysis (RDA) identified four variables, total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), pH, summer surface water temperature (SSWT) and depth, which best explain the variance in the distribution of chironomids within these ecoregions. In order to provide new quantitative estimates of SSWT, a 1-component weighted average partial least square (WA-PLS) model was developed (r2jack = 0.76, RMSEP = 1.42°C) and applied downcore in two low arctic continental Nunavut lakes located approximately 50 km and 200 km north of modern treeline. This robust midge-inferred temperature reconstruction of the Holocene thermal conditions will then be compared with previous research describing vegetation development in this region. This study provides new and important data which helps to further resolve millennial and centennial-scale climate variability in the central Canadian Arctic during the Holocene.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_20");'>20</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li class="active"><span>22</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_24");'>24</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_22 --> <div id="page_23" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li class="active"><span>23</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_24");'>24</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>25</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="441"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=314971','TEKTRAN'); return false;" href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=314971"><span>Soils regulate and mitigate climate change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/find-a-publication/">USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database</a></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>Background/Question/Methods: The interaction of soil science and ecology can be traced back to the origins of soil science as an independent discipline within the natural sciences. Vasili Dokuchaev, the founder of modern soil science, identified five soil forming factors: parent material, climate, o...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC33C1079S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMGC33C1079S"><span>Atmospheric Teleconnection and Climate Variability: Affecting Rice Productivity of Bihar, India</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Saini, A.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Climate variability brought various negative results to the environment around us and area under rice crop in Bihar has also faced a lot of negative impacts due to variability in temperature and rainfall. Location of Bihar in Northern Plain of India automatically makes it prime location for agriculture and therefore variability in climatic variables brings highly sensitive results to the agricultural production (especially rice). In this study, rainfall and temperature variables are taken into consideration to investigate the impact on rice cultivated area. Change in climate variable with the passage of time is prevailing since the start of geological time scale, how the variability in climate variables has affected the major crops. Climate index of Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean influences the seasonal weather in Bihar and therefore role of ENSO and IOD is an interesting point of inquiry. Does there exists direct relation between climate variability and area under agricultural crops? How many important variables directly signals towards the change in area under agriculture production? These entire questions are answered with respect to change in area under rice cultivation of Bihar State of India. Temperature, rainfall and ENSO are a good indicator with respect to rice cultivation in Indian subcontinent. Impact on the area under rice has been signaled through ONI, Niño3 and DMI. Increasing range of temperature in the rice productivity declining years is observed since 1990.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1115/','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1115/"><span>Framework for a U.S. Geological Survey Hydrologic Climate-Response Program in Maine</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Hodgkins, Glenn A.; Lent, Robert M.; Dudley, Robert W.; Schalk, Charles W.</p> <p>2009-01-01</p> <p>This report presents a framework for a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologic climate-response program designed to provide early warning of changes in the seasonal water cycle of Maine. Climate-related hydrologic changes on Maine's rivers and lakes in the winter and spring during the last century are well documented, and several river and lake variables have been shown to be sensitive to air-temperature changes. Monitoring of relevant hydrologic data would provide important baseline information against which future climate change can be measured. The framework of the hydrologic climate-response program presented here consists of four major parts: (1) identifying homogeneous climate-response regions; (2) identifying hydrologic components and key variables of those components that would be included in a hydrologic climate-response data network - as an example, streamflow has been identified as a primary component, with a key variable of streamflow being winter-spring streamflow timing; the data network would be created by maintaining existing USGS data-collection stations and establishing new ones to fill data gaps; (3) regularly updating historical trends of hydrologic data network variables; and (4) establishing basins for process-based studies. Components proposed for inclusion in the hydrologic climate-response data network have at least one key variable for which substantial historical data are available. The proposed components are streamflow, lake ice, river ice, snowpack, and groundwater. The proposed key variables of each component have extensive historical data at multiple sites and are expected to be responsive to climate change in the next few decades. These variables are also important for human water use and (or) ecosystem function. Maine would be divided into seven climate-response regions that follow major river-basin boundaries (basins subdivided to hydrologic units with 8-digit codes or larger) and have relatively homogeneous climates. Key hydrologic variables within each climate-response region would be analyzed regularly to maintain up-to-date analyses of year-to-year variability, decadal variability, and longer term trends. Finally, one basin in each climate-response region would be identified for process-based hydrologic and ecological studies.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016E%26PSL.449...61S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016E%26PSL.449...61S"><span>Asian Eocene monsoons as revealed by leaf architectural signatures</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Spicer, Robert A.; Yang, Jian; Herman, Alexei B.; Kodrul, Tatiana; Maslova, Natalia; Spicer, Teresa E. V.; Aleksandrova, Galina; Jin, Jianhua</p> <p>2016-09-01</p> <p>The onset and development of the Asian monsoon systems is a topic that has attracted considerable research effort but proxy data limitations, coupled with a diversity of definitions and metrics characterizing monsoon phenomena, have generated much debate. Failure of geological proxies to yield metrics capable of distinguishing between rainfall seasonality induced by migrations of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) from that attributable to topographically modified seasonal pressure reversals has frustrated attempts to understand mechanisms underpinning monsoon development and dynamics. Here we circumvent the use of such single climate parameter metrics in favor of detecting directly the distinctive attributes of different monsoon regimes encoded in leaf fossils. Leaf form adapts to the prevailing climate, particularly under the extreme seasonal stresses imposed by monsoons, so it is likely that fossil leaves carry a unique signature of past monsoon regimes. Leaf form trait spectra obtained from fossils from Eocene basins in southern China were compared with those seen in modern leaves growing under known climate regimes. The fossil leaf trait spectra, including those derived from previously published fossil floras from northwestern India, were most similar to those found in vegetation exposed to the modern Indonesia-Australia Monsoon (I-AM), which is largely a product of seasonal migrations of the ITCZ. The presence of this distinctive leaf physiognomic signature suggests that although a monsoon climate existed in Eocene time across southern Asia the characteristics of the modern topographically-enhanced South Asia Monsoon had yet to develop. By the Eocene leaves in South Asia had become well adapted to an I-AM type regime across many taxa and points to the existence of a pervasive monsoon climate prior to the Eocene. No fossil trait spectra typical of exposure to the modern East Asia monsoon were seen, suggesting the effects of this system in southern China were a much later development.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70157133','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70157133"><span>Climate change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Cronin, Thomas M.</p> <p>2016-01-01</p> <p>Climate change (including climate variability) refers to regional or global changes in mean climate state or in patterns of climate variability over decades to millions of years often identified using statistical methods and sometimes referred to as changes in long-term weather conditions (IPCC, 2012). Climate is influenced by changes in continent-ocean configurations due to plate tectonic processes, variations in Earth’s orbit, axial tilt and precession, atmospheric greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations, solar variability, volcanism, internal variability resulting from interactions between the atmosphere, oceans and ice (glaciers, small ice caps, ice sheets, and sea ice), and anthropogenic activities such as greenhouse gas emissions and land use and their effects on carbon cycling.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP13C1097H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFMPP13C1097H"><span>PaleoClim: new datasets to quantify the impact of past climate changes on modern biodiversity</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hill, D. J.; Brown, J. T.; Carnaval, A. C.; Haywood, A. M.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Palaeoclimate history is an important driver of modern patterns of biodiversity and many ecological modelling studies have shown the predictive power of palaeoclimate information. However, a major limiting factor to such studies is the availability of global palaeoclimate reconstructions in the relevant bioclim layers. The primary source of such fields is from climate model simulations, which are currently limited to the key PMIP (Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project) intervals of the mid-Holocene (6ka), the Last Glacial Maximum (21ka) and the Last Interglaciation (130ka). The PaleoClim project will significantly increase the availability of pre-processed palaeoclimate bioclim information and provide a new platform for accessing the information. The first new PaleoClim time period will be the mid-Pliocene Warm Period (3Ma). This is the last period of sustained globally warmer than modern climate in Earth history and represents the last global warmth before the cooling into the Pleistocene ice ages. Being 3 million years ago this represents a significant lengthening of the time range of available bioclim layers and the first time these have been available over evolutionary timescales. PaleoClim will also greatly expand the available Pleistocene time periods, looking to both quantify the differences between the late Pleistocene interglacial periods and understand the role of orbital changes in modulating tropical precipitation and driving modern biodiversity patterns.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009EGUGA..1113633V','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2009EGUGA..1113633V"><span>CLANIMAE: Climatic and Anthropogenic Impacts on African Ecosystems</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Verschuren, D.; André, L.; Mahy, G.; Cocquyt, C.; Plisnier, P.-D.; Gelorini, V.; Rumes, B.; Lebrun, J.; Bock, L.; Marchant, R.</p> <p>2009-04-01</p> <p>Global studies of historical land use focusing on the large-scale landscape change that can potentially affect global climate (via effects on surface albedo, aerosols, and the carbon cycle) have concluded that the impact of pre-colonial East African cultures on regional ecosystems was limited, due to very low mean population density. This contrasts with the paradigm in East African archaeology and paleoecology that the onset of anthropogenic deforestation started at least 2500 years ago, following the introduction of iron metallurgy by Bantu immigrants. This conflict highlights the present lack of real data on historical climate-environment-human interactions in East Africa, which are eminently relevant to sustainable natural resource management and biodiversity conservation in a future of continued population growth and global climate change. CLANIMAE responds to the urgent need of a correct long-term perspective to today's climate-environment-human interactions in East Africa, by reconstructing simultaneously the histories of past climate change and of vegetation and water-quality changes over the last 2500 years, through multi-disciplinary analysis of dated lake-sediment records. The climate reconstructions integrate information on biological, geochemical and sedimentological indicators of past changes in the water balance of the study lakes, which cover the climatological gradient from (sub-)humid western Uganda to semi-arid eastern Kenya. Reconstruction of past terrestrial vegetation dynamics is based on analyses of fossil plant pollen and phytoliths, plus the fossil spores of fungi associated with the excrements of large domestic animals as indicators of lake use by pastoralists. The evolution of water quality through time is reconstructed using silicon isotopes in diatom algae as proxy indicator for past phytoplankton productivity, and paleoecological analyses of fossil diatoms and aquatic macrophytes, following calibration of diatom and macrophyte species distribution against lake trophic status and turbidity in the modern-day regional lake gradient. The integrated paleoecological research method of this project addresses the question of past climate-environment-human relationships at the time scale at which the relevant processes have actually occurred. This will allow us to 1) separate the influences of natural climate variability and human activity on East African ecosystems, 2) determine the exact timing and relative magnitude of indigenous (pre-20th century) anthropogenic land clearance compared to recent landscape alteration, 3) determine the severity of lake water-quality losses due to siltation and excess nutrient input directly linked to deforestation and agriculture, compared to those associated with natural ecosystem variability, and 4) assess the resilience of African ecosystems, and prospects for the restoration of disturbed ecosystems if human pressure were to be reversed.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120009271','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20120009271"><span>Analysis of the Relationship Between Climate and NDVI Variability at Global Scales</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Zeng, Fan-Wei; Collatz, G. James; Pinzon, Jorge; Ivanoff, Alvaro</p> <p>2011-01-01</p> <p>interannual variability in modeled (CASA) C flux is in part caused by interannual variability in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) Fraction of Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR). This study confirms a mechanism producing variability in modeled NPP: -- NDVI (FPAR) interannual variability is strongly driven by climate; -- The climate driven variability in NDVI (FPAR) can lead to much larger fluctuation in NPP vs. the NPP computed from FPAR climatology</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28546553','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28546553"><span>Symbiont community stability through severe coral bleaching in a thermally extreme lagoon.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Smith, E G; Vaughan, G O; Ketchum, R N; McParland, D; Burt, J A</p> <p>2017-05-25</p> <p>Coral reefs are threatened by climate change as coral-algal symbioses are currently living close to their upper thermal limits. The resilience of the algal partner plays a key role in determining the thermal tolerance of the coral holobiont and therefore, understanding the acclimatory limits of present day coral-algal symbioses is fundamental to forecasting corals' responses to climate change. This study characterised the symbiont community in a highly variable and thermally extreme (Max = 37.5 °C, Min = 16.8 °C) lagoon located in the southern Persian/Arabian Gulf using next generation sequencing of ITS2 amplicons. Despite experiencing extreme temperatures, severe bleaching and many factors that would be expected to promote the presence of, or transition to clade D dominance, the symbiont communities of the lagoon remain dominated by the C3 variant, Symbiodinium thermophilum. The stability of this symbiosis across multiple genera with different means of symbiont transmission highlights the importance of Symbiodinium thermophilum for corals living at the acclimatory limits of modern day corals. Corals in this extreme environment did not undergo adaptive bleaching, suggesting they are living at the edge of their acclimatory potential and that this valuable source of thermally tolerant genotypes may be lost in the near future under climate change.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016QuRes..86..247D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016QuRes..86..247D"><span>Determinants of fire activity during the last 3500 yr at a wildland-urban interface, Alberta, Canada</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Davis, Emma L.; Courtney Mustaphi, Colin J.; Gall, Amber; Pisaric, Michael F. J.; Vermaire, Jesse C.; Moser, Katrina A.</p> <p>2016-11-01</p> <p>Long-term records of wildfires and their controlling factors are important sources of information for informing land management practices. Here, dendrochronology and lake sediment analyses are used to develop a 3500-yr fire and vegetation history for a montane forest in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. The tree-ring record (AD 1771-2012) indicates that this region historically experienced a mixed-severity fire regime, and that effective fire suppression excluded widespread fire events from the study area during the 20th century. A sediment core collected from Little Trefoil Lake, located near the Jasper townsite, is analyzed for subfossil pollen and macroscopic charcoal (>150 μm). When comparing the tree-ring record to the 3500-yr record of sediment-derived fire events, only high-severity fires are represented in the charcoal record. Comparisons between the charcoal record and historical climate and pollen data indicate that climate and vegetation composition have been important controls on the fire regime for most of the last 3500 yr. Although fire frequency is presently within the historical range of variability, the fire return interval of the last 150 yr is longer than expected given modern climate and vegetation conditions, indicating that humans have become the main control on fire activity around Little Trefoil Lake.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26777288','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26777288"><span>Surface-Atmosphere Moisture Interactions in the Frozen Ground Regions of Eurasia.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Ford, Trent W; Frauenfeld, Oliver W</p> <p>2016-01-18</p> <p>Climate models simulate an intensifying Arctic hydrologic cycle in response to climatic warming, however the role of surface-atmosphere interactions from degrading frozen ground is unclear in these projections. Using Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) data in high-latitude Eurasia, we examine long-term variability in surface-atmosphere coupling as represented by the statistical relationship between surface evaporative fraction (EF) and afternoon precipitation. Changes in EF, precipitation, and their statistical association are then related to underlying permafrost type and snow cover. Results indicate significant positive trends in July EF in the Central Siberian Plateau, corresponding to significant increases in afternoon precipitation. The positive trends are only significant over continuous permafrost, with non-significant or negative EF and precipitation trends over isolated, sporadic, and discontinuous permafrost areas. Concurrently, increasing EF and subsequent precipitation are found to coincide with significant trends in May and June snowmelt, which potentially provides the moisture source for the observed enhanced latent heating and moisture recycling in the region. As climate change causes continuous permafrost to transition to discontinuous, discontinuous to sporadic, sporadic to isolated, and isolated permafrost disappears, this will also alter patterns of atmospheric convection, moisture recycling, and hence the hydrologic cycle in high-latitude land areas.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMGC53A..10P','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AGUFMGC53A..10P"><span>Solar and Volcanic Modulation of Little Ice Age Climate in the Tropical Andes, Venezuela</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Polissar, P. J.; Abbott, M. B.; Wolfe, A. P.; Rull, V.; Bezada, M.</p> <p>2004-12-01</p> <p>The underlying causes of late-Holocene climate variability in the tropics are incompletely understood. Here, we report a 1500-year reconstruction of climate history in the Venezuelan Andes using lake sediment records from four sites. This reconstruction is based upon accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon and Pb-210 dating, sedimentology, magnetic susceptibility, geochemistry, pollen and stable isotope (C, N) measurements. In the Laguna Mucubaji watershed four distinct glacial advances occurred between 1250 and 1810 A.D. The earliest advance began during an extended period of higher global volcanic activity. The subsequent three advances were coincident with minima in solar activity (reconstructed from Be-10 and C-14 records). The Mucubají glacial activity in the Venezuelan Andes coincides with other records of Little Ice Age (LIA) glacial advances in S. America. Comparison of modern glacier equilibrium line altitudes (ELAs) in Venezuela with the Mucubaji LIA glacier ELA indicates an ELA depression of at least 300 m. Both a decline in temperature and increase in precipitation are required to explain the ELA depression. The precipitation increase is supported by increased catchment erosion recorded in L. Blanca sediments. Pollen records from two sites in the Venezuelan Andes also indicate wetter and colder conditions during the LIA.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.H23F1452L','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.H23F1452L"><span>Water resource sensitivity from a Mediterranean perspective</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Lyon, S. W.; Klein, J.; Archibald, J. A.; Walter, T.</p> <p>2012-12-01</p> <p>The water cycle in semiarid environments is intimately connected to plant-water interactions making these regions sensitive to both future climatic changes and landuse alterations. This study explores the sensitivity of water resource availability from a Mediterranean perspective using the Navarino Environmental Observatory (NEO) in Costa Navarino, Greece as a large-scale laboratory for developing and testing the potential resource impacts of various landuse/climatic trajectories. Direct measurements of evapotranspiration were combined with Penman-Monteith estimates to compare water vapor flux variability across the gradient of current management conditions found within the NEO landscape. These range from native, non-managed vegetation to historic, traditionally managed agriculture to modern, actively managed recreational lands. These management conditions greatly impact the vertical flux of water vapor in this semiarid landscape. Our evapotranspiration estimates were placed into a process-based modeling framework to characterize the current state of regional water resource availability and simulate future trajectories (and the associated uncertainties) in response to landuse/climatic changes. This region is quite sensitive with regards to water cycle modifications due to the anthropogenic redistribution of water within and across the landscape. Such sensitivity typifies that expected for much of the Mediterranean region, highlighting the NEO as a potential key location for future observation and investigation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18.7093T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016EGUGA..18.7093T"><span>Resilience, rapid transitions and regime shifts: fingerprinting the responses of Lake Żabińskie (NE Poland) to climate variability and human disturbance since 1000 AD</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Tylmann, Wojciech; Hernández-Almeida, Iván; Grosjean, Martin; José Gómez Navarro, Juan; Larocque-Tobler, Isabelle; Bonk, Alicja; Enters, Dirk; Ustrzycka, Alicja; Piotrowska, Natalia; Przybylak, Rajmund; Wacnik, Agnieszka; Witak, Małgorzata</p> <p>2016-04-01</p> <p>Rapid ecosystem transitions and adverse effects on ecosystem services as responses to combined climate and human impacts are of major concern. Yet few quantitative observational data exist, particularly for ecosystems that have a long history of human intervention. Here, we combine quantitative summer and winter climate reconstructions, climate model simulations and proxies for three major environmental pressures (land use, nutrients and erosion) to explore the system dynamics, resilience, and the role of disturbance regimes in varved eutrophic Lake Żabińskie since AD 1000. Comparison between regional and global climate simulations and quantitative climate reconstructions indicate that proxy data capture noticeably natural forced climate variability, while internal variability appears as the dominant source of climate variability in the climate model simulations during most parts of the last millennium. Using different multivariate analyses and change point detection techniques, we identify ecosystem changes through time and shifts between rather stable states and highly variable ones, as expressed by the proxies for land-use, erosion and productivity in the lake. Prior to AD 1600, the lake ecosystem was characterized by a high stability and resilience against considerable observed natural climate variability. In contrast, lake-ecosystem conditions started to fluctuate at high frequency across a broad range of states after AD 1600. The period AD 1748-1868 represents the phase with the strongest human disturbance of the ecosystem. Analyses of the frequency of change points in the multi-proxy dataset suggests that the last 400 years were highly variable and flickering with increasing vulnerability of the ecosystem to the combined effects of climate variability and anthropogenic disturbances. This led to significant rapid ecosystem transformations.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015CliPD..11..135M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015CliPD..11..135M"><span>The effects of past climate variability on fire and vegetation in the cerrãdo savanna ecosystem of the Huanchaca Mesetta, Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, NE Bolivia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Maezumi, S. Y.; Power, M. J.; Mayle, F. E.; McLauchlan, K.; Iriarte, J.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Cerrãdo savannas have the greatest fire activity of all major global land-cover types and play a significant role in the global carbon cycle. During the 21st century, temperatures are predicted to increase by ~ 3 °C coupled with a precipitation decrease of ~ 20%. Although these conditions could potentially intensify drought stress, it is unknown how that might alter vegetation composition and fire regimes. To assess how Neotropical savannas responded to past climate changes, a 14 500 year, high-resolution, sedimentary record from Huanchaca Mesetta, a palm swamp located in the cerrãdo savanna in northeastern Bolivia, was analyzed for phytoliths, stable isotopes and charcoal. A non-analogue, cold-adapted vegetation community dominated the Late Glacial-Early Holocene period (14 500-9000 ka), that included trees and C3 Pooideae and C4 Panicoideae grasses. The Late Glacial vegetation was fire sensitive and fire activity during this period was low, likely responding to fuel availability and limitation. Although similar vegetation characterized the Early Holocene, the warming conditions associated with the onset of the Holocene led to an initial increase in fire activity. Huanchaca Mesetta became increasingly fire-dependent during the Middle Holocene with the expansion of C4 fire adapted grasses. However, as warm, dry conditions, characterized by increased length and severity of the dry season, continued, fuel availability decreased. The establishment of the modern palm swamp vegetation occurred at 5000 cal yr BP. Edaphic factors are the first order control on vegetation on the rocky quartzite mesetta. Where soils are sufficiently thick, climate is the second order control of vegetation on the mesetta. The presence of the modern palm swamp is attributed to two factors: (1) increased precipitation that increased water table levels, and (2) decreased frequency and duration of surazos leading to increased temperature minima. Natural (soil, climate, fire) drivers rather than anthropogenic drivers control the vegetation and fire activity at Huanchaca Mesetta. Thus the cerrãdo savanna ecosystem of the Huanchaca Plateau has exhibited ecosystem resilience to major climatic changes in both temperature and precipitation since the Late Glacial period.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.A41E0089D','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.A41E0089D"><span>Examination of Satellite and Model Reanalysis Precipitation with Climate Oscillations</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Donato, T. F.; Houser, P. R.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of satellite and model reanalysis precipitation with climate oscillations. Specifically, we examine and compare the relationship between the Global Precipitation Climate Project (GPCP) with Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Application, Version 2 (MERRA-2) in regards to four climate indices: The North Atlantic Oscillation, Southern Oscillation Index, the Southern Annular Mode and Solar Activity. This analysis covers a 35-year observation period from 1980 through 2015. We ask two questions: How is global and regional precipitation changing over the observation period, and how are global and regional variations in precipitation related to global climate variation? We explore and compare global and regional precipitation trends between the two data sets. To do this, we constructed a total of 56 Regions of Interest (ROI). Nineteen of the ROIs were focused on geographic regions including continents, ocean basins, and marginal seas. Twelve ROIs examine hemispheric processes. The remaining 26 regions are derived from spatial-temporal classification analysis of GPCP data over a ten-year period (2001-2010). These regions include the primary wet and dry monsoon regions, regions influenced by western boundary currents, and orography. We investigate and interpret the monthly, seasonal and yearly global and regional response to the selected climate indices. Initial results indicate that no correlation exist between the GPCP data and Merra-2 data. Preliminary qualitative assessment between GCPC and solar activity suggest a possible relationship in intra-annual variability. This work is performed under the State of the Global Water and Energy Cycle (SWEC) project, a NASA-sponsored program in support of NASA's Energy and Water cycle Study (NEWS).</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMSH13B4089H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014AGUFMSH13B4089H"><span>Solar activities and Climate change hazards</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hady, A. A., II</p> <p>2014-12-01</p> <p>Throughout the geological history of Earth, climate change is one of the recurrent natural hazards. In recent history, the impact of man brought about additional climatic change. Solar activities have had notable effect on palaeoclimatic changes. Contemporary, both solar activities and building-up of green-house gases effect added to the climatic changes. This paper discusses if the global worming caused by the green-house gases effect will be equal or less than the global cooling resulting from the solar activities. In this respect, we refer to the Modern Dalton Minimum (MDM) which stated that starting from year 2005 for the next 40 years; the earth's surface temperature will become cooler than nowadays. However the degree of cooling, previously mentioned in old Dalton Minimum (c. 210 y ago), will be minimized by building-up of green-house gases effect during MDM period. Regarding to the periodicities of solar activities, it is clear that now we have a new solar cycle of around 210 years. Keywords: Solar activities; solar cycles; palaeoclimatic changes; Global cooling; Modern Dalton Minimum.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24652258','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24652258"><span>[Modelling the effect of local climatic variability on dengue transmission in Medellin (Colombia) by means of time series analysis].</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Rúa-Uribe, Guillermo L; Suárez-Acosta, Carolina; Chauca, José; Ventosilla, Palmira; Almanza, Rita</p> <p>2013-09-01</p> <p>Dengue fever is a major impact on public health vector-borne disease, and its transmission is influenced by entomological, sociocultural and economic factors. Additionally, climate variability plays an important role in the transmission dynamics. A large scientific consensus has indicated that the strong association between climatic variables and disease could be used to develop models to explain the incidence of the disease. To develop a model that provides a better understanding of dengue transmission dynamics in Medellin and predicts increases in the incidence of the disease. The incidence of dengue fever was used as dependent variable, and weekly climatic factors (maximum, mean and minimum temperature, relative humidity and precipitation) as independent variables. Expert Modeler was used to develop a model to better explain the behavior of the disease. Climatic variables with significant association to the dependent variable were selected through ARIMA models. The model explains 34% of observed variability. Precipitation was the climatic variable showing statistically significant association with the incidence of dengue fever, but with a 20 weeks delay. In Medellin, the transmission of dengue fever was influenced by climate variability, especially precipitation. The strong association dengue fever/precipitation allowed the construction of a model to help understand dengue transmission dynamics. This information will be useful to develop appropriate and timely strategies for dengue control.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70029006','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70029006"><span>Quaternary geomorphology and modern coastal development in response to an inherent geologic framework: An example from Charleston, South Carolina</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Harris, M.S.; Gayes, P.T.; Kindinger, J.L.; Flocks, J.G.; Krantz, D.E.; Donovan, P.</p> <p>2005-01-01</p> <p>Coastal landscapes evolve over wide-ranging spatial and temporal scales in response to physical and biological pro-cesses that interact with a wide range of variables. To develop better predictive models for these dynamic areas, we must understand the influence of these variables on coastal morphologies and ultimately how they influence coastal processes. This study defines the influence of geologic framework variability on a classic mixed-energy coastline, and establishes four categorical scales of spatial and temporal influence on the coastal system. The near-surface, geologic framework was delineated using high-resolution seismic profiles, shallow vibracores, detailed geomorphic maps, historical shorelines, aerial photographs, and existing studies, and compared to the long- and short-term development of two coastal compartments near Charleston, South Carolina. Although it is clear that the imprint of a mixed-energy tidal and wave signal (basin-scale) dictates formation of drumstick barriers and that immediate responses to wave climate are dramatic, island size, position, and longer-term dynamics are influenced by a series of inherent, complex near-surface stratigraphic geometries. Major near-surface Tertiary geometries influence inlet placement and drainage development (island-scale) through multiple interglacial cycles and overall channel morphology (local-scale). During the modern marine transgression, the halo of ebb-tidal deltas greatly influence inlet region dynamics, while truncated beach ridges and exposed, differentially erodable Cenozoic deposits in the active system influence historical shoreline dynamics and active shoreface morphologies (blockscale). This study concludes that the mixed-energy imprint of wave and tide theories dominates general coastal morphology, but that underlying stratigraphic influences on the coast provide site-specific, long-standing imprints on coastal evolution.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.B33A2075C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.B33A2075C"><span>Multi-proxy Organic Geochemical Reconstruction of Holocene Hydroclimate Near the Western Greenland Ice Sheet Margin</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Cluett, A.; Thomas, E. K.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Anthropogenic warming is projected to drive profound change to the Arctic hydrological cycle within the century, most notably in the intensification of rainfall, with potential feedbacks to the climate system and cryosphere. However, the relationship between hydroclimate and cryosphere variability is poorly constrained in the long-term due to a scarcity of high-resolution hydroclimate records from the Arctic. We analyze the stable hydrogen isotopes (dD) of leaf wax biomarkers from lacustrine sediments spanning the Holocene to 9000 cal. year B.P. from Lake Gus (67.032ºN, 52.427ºW, 300 m a.s.l.; informal name), a small lake approximately 90 km from the modern western margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet. We interpret the signal of aquatic leaf wax isotopes in the context of a survey of 100 modern lake water samples from western Greenland across an aridity gradient to better understand the combined climatological and hydrological controls on lake water dD in the study area. We compare variability of aquatic and terrestrial leaf wax isotopes to infer changes in relative moisture throughout the Holocene, and complement our leaf wax record with analysis of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) and alkenones, to produce records of summer temperature. Pairing temperature and leaf wax isotope records provides a means to constrain the changing dD-temperature relationship throughout the Holocene and infer moisture source variability. In combination, these proxies produce a comprehensive hydroclimate record at approximately centennial scale to evaluate shifts in relative moisture, temperature, and moisture source, and to investigate the interaction between hydroclimate and Greenland Ice Sheet margin fluctuations through the Holocene.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li class="active"><span>23</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_24");'>24</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>25</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_23 --> <div id="page_24" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li class="active"><span>24</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>25</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="461"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.B32A..05M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.B32A..05M"><span>Late Holocene dinosterol hydrogen isotope variability in Lac Lalolalo and Lac Lanutavake on Wallis Island</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Maloney, A. E.; Hing, S. N.; Richey, J. N.; Nelson, D. B.; Sachs, J. P.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) is the Southern Hemisphere's largest precipitation feature, yet little is known about the region's rainfall prior to the instrumental record. In the tropics, hydrogen isotopes of precipitation are controlled by the "amount effect" where higher mean annual rainfall rates result in 2H-depleted rain. In turn, hydrogen isotopes in tropical lakes are influenced by both rain water isotopes and evaporative enrichment. Molecular fossils preserved in lake sediments offer a promising tool for improving our understanding of the past SPCZ by tracking changes in lake water isotopes. Hydrogen isotope compositions (δ2H) of the algal lipid biomarker dinosterol were measured in duplicate sediment cores from lakes 2.75km apart on Wallis Island. The modern lakes differ in physical and chemical conditions but are both freshwater in the photic zone and experience identical climate conditions. They are an ideal setting to investigate the fidelity to which δ2Hdinosterol records climate. Duplicate records from Lac Lanutavake are in excellent agreement and reveal little change in during the past 1700 years with minor δ2Hdinosterol fluctuations between -280‰ and -290‰. Duplicate records from Lac Lalolalo also agree extremely well during the past 2,000 years. However, contrary to its neighbor, Lac Lalolalo has a highly variable δ2Hdinosterol history with 2H-depleted values of -300‰ during the youngest part of the record climbing to 2H-enriched values of -230‰ around 1000-2000 years ago. The large shift in Lac Lalolalo δ2Hdinosterol may be due to changes in lake biogeochemistry that impact growth conditions or shifts in dinoflagellate species composition. Alternatively, if the Lac Lalolalo record actually reflects changes in hydrology, large limnological changes must have occurred in Lac Lanutavke to mute the climate signal. This work emphasizes the importance of redundancy and duplication when investigating changes in past climate using molecular tools that are also sensitive to environmental parameters.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015CliPD..11.5549H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015CliPD..11.5549H"><span>Was the Little Ice Age more or less El Niño-like than the Mediaeval Climate Anomaly? Evidence from hydrological and temperature proxy data</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Henke, L. M. K.; Lambert, F. H.; Charman, D. J.</p> <p>2015-11-01</p> <p>The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), an ocean-atmosphere coupled oscillation over the equatorial Pacific, is the most important source of global climate variability on inter-annual time scales. It has substantial environmental and socio-economic consequences such as devastation of South American fish populations and increased forest fires in Indonesia. The instrumental ENSO record is too short for analysing long-term trends and variability, hence proxy data is used to extend the record. However, different proxy sources have produced varying reconstructions of ENSO, with some evidence for a temperature-precipitation divergence in ENSO trends over the past millennium, in particular during the Mediaeval Climate Anomaly (MCA; AD 800-1300) and the Little Ice Age (LIA; AD 1400-1850). This throws into question the stability of the modern ENSO system and its links to the global climate, which has implications for future projections. Here we use a new statistical approach using EOF-based weighting to create two new large-scale ENSO reconstructions derived independently from precipitation proxies and temperature proxies respectively. The method is developed and validated using pseudoproxy experiments that address the effects of proxy dating error, resolution and noise to improve uncertainty estimations. The precipitation ENSO reconstruction displays a significantly more El Niño-like state during the LIA than the MCA, while the temperature reconstruction shows no significant difference. The trends shown in the precipitation ENSO reconstruction are relatively robust to variations in the precipitation EOF pattern. However, the temperature reconstruction suffers significantly from a lack of high-quality, favourably located proxy records, which limits its ability to capture the large-scale ENSO signal. Further expansion of the palaeo-database and improvements to instrumental, satellite and model representations of ENSO are needed to fully resolve the discrepancies found among proxy records.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51D2348T','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51D2348T"><span>Rapid, non-destructive coral paleothermometry by synchrotron XR</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Tangri, N.; Mehta, A.; Marks, R.; Dunbar, R. B.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>We present advances in the use of synchrotron x-ray fluorescence (XRF) to recover climate signals from coral exoskeleton. Corals record sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, and other environmental conditions in the density and composition of their exoskeletons; in particular, SST is reflected in both the Sr/Ca ratio and the annual density banding. Synchrotron XRF has previously been used to examine the fine-scaled variability of Sr concentrations in the exoskeleton structure, but has not yet yielded any long-term SST reconstructions. Modern XRF techniques allow the detection of sub-ppm trace element concentrations and appear ideally suited to long climate reconstructions, as they are non-destructive, high-resolution (250 um) and potentially quite rapid ( 40 years of sample in 24 hours of instrument time). The low Sr content of the coral and its low change in concentration require a high brightness synchrotron source to generate a high signal-to-background ratio. However, difficulties arise from the local heterogeneity of Sr that is unrelated to environmental conditions. These variations of biological origin in Sr concentrations often mask the smaller-amplitude, annual and interannual SST signals. The challenge is to normalize the local variability in order to extract the climate signal. Other techniques have normalized against Ca, but in XRF the Ca signal is sensitive to only the surface 50 um of material, whereas the Sr signal comes from 1mm, so the values are not comparable. Instead, we normalize against density as calculated from beam transmission. We also explore the use of Rb normalization to filter out collection artifacts. Both Sr and Rb show strong annual signals and interesting departures from the density signal. Finally, we pair the XRF results with δ18O measurements to recover a convincing record of SST variation. Although challenges remain, we believe that synchrotron XRF techniques hold considerable promise to rapidly and accurately recover climate signals from corals.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMPP33B1535W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AGUFMPP33B1535W"><span>Milankovitch Modulation of the Ecosystem Dynamics of Fossil Great Lakes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Whiteside, J. H.; Olsen, P. E.; Eglinton, T. I.; Cornet, B.; Huber, P.; McDonald, N. G.</p> <p>2008-12-01</p> <p>Triassic and Early Jurassic lacustrine deposits of eastern North American rift basins preserve a spectacular record of precession-related Milankovitch forcing in the Pangean tropics. The abundant and well-preserved fossil fish assemblages from these great lakes demonstrate a sequence of cyclical changes that track the permeating hierarchy of climatic cycles. To detail ecosystem processes correlating with succession of fish communities, we measured bulk δ13Corg through a 100 ky series of Early Jurassic climatic precession-forced lake level cycles in the lower Shuttle Meadow Formation of the Hartford rift basin, CT. The deep-water phase of one of these cycles, the Bluff Head bed, has produced thousands of articulated fish. We observe fluctuations in the bulk δ13Corg of the cyclical strata that reflect differing degrees of lake water stratification, nutrient levels, and relative proportion of algal vs. plant derived organic matter that trace fish community changes. We can exclude extrinsic changes in the global exchangeable reservoirs as an origin of this variability because molecule-level δ13C of n-alkanes of plant leaf waxes from the same strata show no such variability. While at higher taxonomic levels the fish communities responded largely by sorting of taxa by environmental forcing, at the species level the holostean genus Semionotus responded by in situ evolution, and ultimately extinction, of a species flock. Fluctuations at the higher frequency, climatic precessional scale are mirrored at lower frequency, eccentricity modulated, scales, all following the lake-level hierarchical pattern. Thus, lacustrine isotopic ratios amplify the Milankovitch climate signal that was already intensified by sequelae of the end-Triassic extinctions. The degree to which the ecological structure of modern lakes responds to similar environmental cyclicity is largely unknown, but we suspect similar patterns and processes within the Neogene history of the East African great lakes, which may be modified in the future by anthropogenic CO2-driven intensification of the hydrological cycle.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007EOSTr..88..111G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007EOSTr..88..111G"><span>Reconstruction of Past Mediterranean Climate</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>García-Herrera, Ricardo; Luterbacher, Jürg; Lionello, Piero; Gonzáles-Rouco, Fidel; Ribera, Pedro; Rodó, Xavier; Kull, Christoph; Zerefos, Christos</p> <p>2007-02-01</p> <p>First MEDCLIVAR Workshop on Reconstruction of Past Mediterranean Climate; Pablo de Olavide University, Carmona, Spain, 8-11 November 2006; Mediterranean Climate Variability and Predictability (MEDCLIVAR; http://www.medclivar.eu) is a program that coordinates and promotes research on different aspects of Mediterranean climate. The main MEDCLIVAR goals include the reconstruction of past climate, describing patterns and mechanisms characterizing climate space-time variability, extremes at different time and space scales, coupled climate model/empirical reconstruction comparisons, seasonal forecasting, and the identification of the forcings responsible for the observed changes. The program has been endorsed by CLIVAR (Climate Variability and Predictability project) and is funded by the European Science Foundation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.H32G..03H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017AGUFM.H32G..03H"><span>Climate variability and demand growth as drivers of water scarcity in the Turkwel river basin: a bottom-up risk assessment of a data-sparse basin in Kenya</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Hirpa, F. A.; Dyer, E.; Hope, R.; Dadson, S. J.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Sustainable water management and allocation are essential for maintaining human well-being, sustaining healthy ecosystems, and supporting steady economic growth. The Turkwel river basin, located in north-western Kenya, experiences a high level of water scarcity due to its arid climate, high rainfall variability, and rapidly growing water demand. However, due to sparse hydro-climatic data and limited literature, the water resources system of the basin has been poorly understood. Here we apply a bottom-up climate risk assessment method to estimate the resilience of the basin's water resources system to growing demand and climate stressors. First, using a water resource system model and historical climate data, we construct a climate risk map that depicts the way in which the system responds to climate change and variability. Then we develop a set of water demand scenarios to identify the conditions that potentially lead to the risk of unmet water demand and groundwater depletion. Finally, we investigate the impact of climate change and variability by stress testing these development scenarios against historically strong El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) years and future climate projections from multiple Global Circulation Models (GCMs). The results reveal that climate variability and increased water demand are the main drivers of water scarcity in the basin. Our findings show that increases in water demand due to expanded irrigation and population growth exert the strongest influence on the ability of the system to meet water resource supply requirements, and in all cases considered increase the impacts of droughts caused by future climate variability. Our analysis illustrates the importance of combining analysis of future climate risks with other development decisions that affect water resources planning. Policy and investment decisions which maximise water use efficiency in the present day are likely to impart resilience to climate change and variability under a wide range of future scenarios and therefore constitute low regret measures for climate adaptation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70194984','USGSPUBS'); return false;" href="https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70194984"><span>Greenhouse gas emissions from diverse Arctic Alaskan lakes are dominated by young carbon</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/pubs/index.jsp?view=adv">USGS Publications Warehouse</a></p> <p>Elder, Clayton D.; Xu, Xiaomei; Walker, Jennifer; Schnell, Jordan L.; Hinkel, Kenneth M.; Townsend-Small, Amy; Arp, Christopher D.; Pohlman, John; Gaglioti, Benjamin V.; Czimzik, Claudia I.</p> <p>2018-01-01</p> <p>Climate-sensitive Arctic lakes have been identified as conduits for ancient permafrost-carbon (C) emissions and as such accelerate warming. However, the environmental factors that control emission pathways and their sources are unclear; this complicates upscaling, forecasting and climate-impact-assessment efforts. Here we show that current whole-lake CH4 and CO2 emissions from widespread lakes in Arctic Alaska primarily originate from organic matter fixed within the past 3–4 millennia (modern to 3,300 ± 70 years before the present), and not from Pleistocene permafrost C. Furthermore, almost 100% of the annual diffusive C flux is emitted as CO2. Although the lakes mostly processed younger C (89 ± 3% of total C emissions), minor contributions from ancient C sources were two times greater in fine-textured versus coarse-textured Pleistocene sediments, which emphasizes the importance of the underlying geological substrate in current and future emissions. This spatially extensive survey considered the environmental and temporal variability necessary to monitor and forecast the fate of ancient permafrost C as Arctic warming progresses.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018NatCC...8..166E','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018NatCC...8..166E"><span>Greenhouse gas emissions from diverse Arctic Alaskan lakes are dominated by young carbon</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Elder, Clayton D.; Xu, Xiaomei; Walker, Jennifer; Schnell, Jordan L.; Hinkel, Kenneth M.; Townsend-Small, Amy; Arp, Christopher D.; Pohlman, John W.; Gaglioti, Benjamin V.; Czimczik, Claudia I.</p> <p>2018-01-01</p> <p>Climate-sensitive Arctic lakes have been identified as conduits for ancient permafrost-carbon (C) emissions and as such accelerate warming. However, the environmental factors that control emission pathways and their sources are unclear; this complicates upscaling, forecasting and climate-impact-assessment efforts. Here we show that current whole-lake CH4 and CO2 emissions from widespread lakes in Arctic Alaska primarily originate from organic matter fixed within the past 3-4 millennia (modern to 3,300 ± 70 years before the present), and not from Pleistocene permafrost C. Furthermore, almost 100% of the annual diffusive C flux is emitted as CO2. Although the lakes mostly processed younger C (89 ± 3% of total C emissions), minor contributions from ancient C sources were two times greater in fine-textured versus coarse-textured Pleistocene sediments, which emphasizes the importance of the underlying geological substrate in current and future emissions. This spatially extensive survey considered the environmental and temporal variability necessary to monitor and forecast the fate of ancient permafrost C as Arctic warming progresses.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140006563','NASA-TRS'); return false;" href="http://hdl.handle.net/2060/20140006563"><span>Martian Cryogenic Carbonate Formation: Stable Isotope Variations Observed in Laboratory Studies</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp">NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)</a></p> <p>Socki, Richard A.; Niles, Paul B.; Sun, Tao; Fu, Qi; Romanek, Christopher S.; Gibson, Everett K. Jr.</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>The history of water on Mars is tied to the formation of carbonates through atmospheric CO2 and its control of the climate history of the planet. Carbonate mineral formation under modern martian atmospheric conditions could be a critical factor in controlling the martian climate in a means similar to the rock weathering cycle on Earth. The combination of evidence for liquid water on the martian surface and cold surface conditions suggest fluid freezing could be very common on the surface of Mars. Cryogenic calcite forms easily from freezing solutions when carbon dioxide degasses quickly from Ca-bicarbonate-rich water, a process that has been observed in some terrestrial settings such as arctic permafrost cave deposits, lake beds of the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, and in aufeis (river icings) from rivers of N.E. Alaska. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted that simulated cryogenic carbonate formation on Mars in order to understand their isotopic systematics. The results indicate that carbonates grown under martian conditions show variable enrichments from starting bicarbonate fluids in both carbon and oxygen isotopes beyond equilibrium values.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP43B1818N','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMPP43B1818N"><span>Coral Records of 20th Century Central Tropical Pacific SST and Salinity: Signatures of Natural and Anthropogenic Climate Change</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Nurhati, I. S.; Cobb, K.; Di Lorenzo, E.</p> <p>2011-12-01</p> <p>Accurate forecasts of regional climate changes in many regions of the world largely depend on quantifying anthropogenic trends in tropical Pacific climate against its rich background of interannual to decadal-scale climate variability. However, the strong natural climate variability combined with limited instrumental climate datasets have obscured potential anthropogenic climate signals in the region. Here, we present coral-based sea-surface temperature (SST) and salinity proxy records over the 20th century (1898-1998) from the central tropical Pacific - a region sensitive to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) whose variability strongly impacts the global climate. The SST and salinity proxy records are reconstructed via coral Sr/Ca and the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater (δ18Osw), respectively. On interannual (2-7yr) timescales, the SST proxy record tracks both eastern- and central-Pacific flavors of ENSO variability (R=0.65 and R=0.67, respectively). Interannual-scale salinity variability in our coral record highlights profound differences in precipitation and ocean advections during the two flavors of ENSO. On decadal (8yr-lowpassed) timescales, the central tropical Pacific SST and salinity proxy records are controlled by different sets of dynamics linked to the leading climate modes of North Pacific climate variability. Decadal-scale central tropical Pacific SST is highly correlated to the recently discovered North Pacific Gyre Oscillation (NPGO; R=-0.85), reflecting strong dynamical links between the central Pacific warming mode and extratropical decadal climate variability. Whereas decadal-scale salinity variations in the central tropical Pacific are significantly correlated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO; R=0.54), providing a better understanding on low-frequency salinity variability in the region. Having characterized natural climate variability in this region, the coral record shows a +0.5°C warming trend throughout the last century. However, the most prominent feature of the new coral records is an unprecedented freshening trend since the mid-20th century, in line with global climate models (GCMs) projections of enhanced hydrological patterns (wet areas are getting wetter and vice versa) under greenhouse forcing. Taken together, the coral records provide key constraints on tropical Pacific climate trends that may improve regional climate projections in areas affected by tropical Pacific climate variability.<br />Central Tropical Pacific SST and Salinity Proxy Records<img class="jpg" border=0 width=600px src="/meetings/fm11/program/tables/PP43B-1818_T1.jpg"></p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA513745','DTIC-ST'); return false;" href="http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA513745"><span>Climate Change, Instability and a Full Spectrum Approach to Conflict Prevention in Africa</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.dtic.mil/">DTIC Science & Technology</a></p> <p></p> <p>2009-10-23</p> <p>commander to follow. 15. SUBJECT TERMS Climate Change, Global Warming , Security Cooperation, Stability, Instability, Stabilization, Security...note that global warming could also create similar impacts on resources.19 In modern times disputes over natural resources have erupted into conflict...16. Center for Naval Analysis, National Security and the Threat of Climate Change, 18. 17. Michael T. Klare, ― Global Warming Battlefields: How</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017JHyd..555..535J','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017JHyd..555..535J"><span>Upper Blue Nile basin water budget from a multi-model perspective</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Jung, Hahn Chul; Getirana, Augusto; Policelli, Frederick; McNally, Amy; Arsenault, Kristi R.; Kumar, Sujay; Tadesse, Tsegaye; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.</p> <p>2017-12-01</p> <p>Improved understanding of the water balance in the Blue Nile is of critical importance because of increasingly frequent hydroclimatic extremes under a changing climate. The intercomparison and evaluation of multiple land surface models (LSMs) associated with different meteorological forcing and precipitation datasets can offer a moderate range of water budget variable estimates. In this context, two LSMs, Noah version 3.3 (Noah3.3) and Catchment LSM version Fortuna 2.5 (CLSMF2.5) coupled with the Hydrological Modeling and Analysis Platform (HyMAP) river routing scheme are used to produce hydrological estimates over the region. The two LSMs were forced with different combinations of two reanalysis-based meteorological datasets from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications datasets (i.e., MERRA-Land and MERRA-2) and three observation-based precipitation datasets, generating a total of 16 experiments. Modeled evapotranspiration (ET), streamflow, and terrestrial water storage estimates were evaluated against the Atmosphere-Land Exchange Inverse (ALEXI) ET, in-situ streamflow observations, and NASA Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) products, respectively. Results show that CLSMF2.5 provided better representation of the water budget variables than Noah3.3 in terms of Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient when considering all meteorological forcing datasets and precipitation datasets. The model experiments forced with observation-based products, the Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multi-Satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA), outperform those run with MERRA-Land and MERRA-2 precipitation. The results presented in this paper would suggest that the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Land Data Assimilation System incorporate CLSMF2.5 and HyMAP routing scheme to better represent the water balance in this region.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28078972','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28078972"><span>The predictive state: Science, territory and the future of the Indian climate.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Mahony, Martin</p> <p>2014-02-01</p> <p>Acts of scientific calculation have long been considered central to the formation of the modern nation state, yet the transnational spaces of knowledge generation and political action associated with climate change seem to challenge territorial modes of political order. This article explores the changing geographies of climate prediction through a study of the ways in which climate change is rendered knowable at the national scale in India. The recent controversy surrounding an erroneous prediction of melting Himalayan glaciers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change provides a window onto the complex and, at times, antagonistic relationship between the Panel and Indian political and scientific communities. The Indian reaction to the error, made public in 2009, drew upon a national history of contestation around climate change science and corresponded with the establishment of a scientific assessment network, the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, which has given the state a new platform on which to bring together knowledge about the future climate. I argue that the Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment is indicative of the growing use of regional climate models within longer traditions of national territorial knowledge-making, allowing a rescaling of climate change according to local norms and practices of linking scientific knowledge to political action. I illustrate the complex co-production of the epistemic and the normative in climate politics, but also seek to show how co-productionist understandings of science and politics can function as strategic resources in the ongoing negotiation of social order. In this case, scientific rationalities and modes of environmental governance contribute to the contested epistemic construction of territory and the evolving spatiality of the modern nation state under a changing climate.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1911203W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017EGUGA..1911203W"><span>Examining spatial variability in relative sea-level in the New York City/New Jersey region during the Common Era</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Walker, Jennifer; Clear, Jennifer; Garcia-Artola, Ane; Khan, Nicole; Shaw, Timothy; Corbett, Reide; Kemp, Andrew; Kopp, Robert; Horton, Benjamin</p> <p>2017-04-01</p> <p>Relative sea-level (RSL) reconstructions extend the 20th century instrumental record (tide gauge and satellite measurements) of spatial and temporal sea-level variability to provide a much longer context for recent trends and projected RSL rise. Common Era (last 2000 years) RSL reconstructions illustrate patterns of natural variability and include natural phases of climate and sea-level which will improve our knowledge basis for sea-level responses to climate changes. The northeast U.S. has exhibited varying rates in relative sea-level rise through the Common Era, primarily due to glacial isostatic adjustment. However, other factors such as ocean/atmosphere dynamics, sediment compaction, and the static equilibrium response to land ice changes, further influence the evolution of relative sea-level. The spatial variability is manifest in the tide gauge records. The tide gauge at the Battery, New York City (1856 to 2015) records a relative sea-level rise of 2.8 mm/yr whereas the tide gauge at Sandy Hook, New Jersey (1932 to 2015), 25 km southeast, records 4.1 mm/yr. Here we present a new reconstruction of RSL in northern New Jersey using geological and tide gauge data. A Common Era sea-level record from northern New Jersey fills in the spatial gap between records completed in southern New Jersey, New York City, and Connecticut. Our field study site is in Cheesequake State Park, where we observed sedimentary sequences dating back 2000 cal. yrs. BP. We use microfossil indicators preserved in salt-marsh sediments as a proxy to reconstruct RSL with decimeter precision. Salt-marsh foraminifera act as reliable RSL indicators because their modern distribution is strongly linked to tidal elevation. The recent application of microfossil-based transfer functions has enabled continuous records of RSL, extending centuries before the modern instrumental period, to be produced with a full consideration of uncertainty. We use a composite chronology of AMS 14C, pollen chrono-horizons, pollution histories, and a 137Cs spike (AD 1963) to achieve multi-decadal temporal precision. The RSL record for northern New Jersey shows a 2.4 m rise during the past 2000 years at a mean rate of 1.2 mm/yr. This compares to rates from a database of Holocene relative sea-level observations for the U.S. Atlantic coast which found a rise of 1.4 mm/yr for New Jersey and 1.3 mm/yr for New York from 4 ka BP to AD 1900 (Engelhart and Horton, 2012).</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015Geomo.248....1B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015Geomo.248....1B"><span>Understanding controls on cirque floor altitudes: Insights from Kamchatka</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Barr, Iestyn D.; Spagnolo, Matteo</p> <p>2015-11-01</p> <p>Glacial cirques reflect former regions of glacier initiation, and are therefore used as indicators of past climate. One specific way in which palaeoclimatic information is obtained from cirques is by analysing their elevations, on the assumption that cirque floor altitudes are a proxy for climatically controlled equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) during former periods of small scale (cirque-type) glaciation. However, specific controls on cirque altitudes are rarely assessed, and the validity of using cirque floor altitudes as a source of palaeoclimatic information remains open to question. In order to address this, here we analyse the distribution of 3520 ice-free cirques on the Kamchatka Peninsula (eastern Russia), and assess various controls on their floor altitudes. In addition, we analyse controls on the mid-altitudes of 503 modern glaciers, currently identifiable on the peninsula, and make comparisons with the cirque altitude data. The main study findings are that cirque floor altitudes increase steeply inland from the Pacific, suggesting that moisture availability (i.e., proximity to the coastline) played a key role in regulating the altitudes at which former (cirque-forming) glaciers were able to initiate. Other factors, such as latitude, aspect, topography, geology, and neo-tectonics seem to have played a limited (but not insignificant) role in regulating cirque floor altitudes, though south-facing cirques are typically higher than their north-facing equivalents, potentially reflecting the impact of prevailing wind directions (from the SSE) and/or variations in solar radiation on the altitudes at which former glaciers were able to initiate. Trends in glacier and cirque altitudes across the peninsula are typically comparable (i.e., values typically rise from both the north and south, inland from the Pacific coastline, and where glaciers/cirques are south-facing), yet the relationship with latitude is stronger for modern glaciers, and the relationship with distance to the coastline (and to a lesser degree with aspect) is notably weaker. These differences suggest that former glacier initiation (leading to cirque formation) was largely regulated by moisture availability (during winter months) and the control this exerted on accumulation; whilst the survival of modern glaciers is also strongly regulated by the variety of climatic and non-climatic factors that control ablation. As a result, relationships between modern glacier mid-altitudes and peninsula-wide climatic trends are more difficult to identify than when cirque floor altitudes are considered (i.e., cirque-forming glaciers were likely in climatic equilibrium, whereas modern glaciers may not be).</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.B11D0502H','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFM.B11D0502H"><span>Analyzing the responses of species assemblages to climate change across the Great Basin, USA.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Henareh Khalyani, A.; Falkowski, M. J.; Crookston, N.; Yousef, F.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>The potential impacts of climate change on the future distribution of tree species in not well understood. Climate driven changes in tree species distribution could cause significant changes in realized species niches, potentially resulting in the loss of ecotonal species as well as the formation on novel assemblages of overlapping tree species. In an effort to gain a better understating of how the geographic distribution of tree species may respond to climate change, we model the potential future distribution of 50 different tree species across 70 million ha in the Great Basin, USA. This is achieved by leveraging a species realized niche model based on non-parametric analysis of species occurrences across climatic, topographic, and edaphic variables. Spatially explicit, high spatial resolution (30 m) climate variables (e.g., precipitation, and minimum, maximum, and mean temperature) and associated climate indices were generated on an annual basis between 1981-2010 by integrating climate station data with digital elevation data (Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) data) in a thin plate spline interpolation algorithm (ANUSPLIN). Bioclimate models of species niches in in the cotemporary period and three following 30 year periods were then generated by integrating the climate variables, soil data, and CMIP 5 general circulation model projections. Our results suggest that local scale contemporary variations in species realized niches across space are influenced by edaphic and topographic variables as well as climatic variables. The local variability in soil properties and topographic variability across space also affect the species responses to climate change through time and potential formation of species assemblages in future. The results presented here in will aid in the development of adaptive forest management techniques aimed at mitigating negative impacts of climate change on forest composition, structure, and function.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1550767','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1550767"><span>Climate variability has a stabilizing effect on the coexistence of prairie grasses</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Adler, Peter B.; HilleRisLambers, Janneke; Kyriakidis, Phaedon C.; Guan, Qingfeng; Levine, Jonathan M.</p> <p>2006-01-01</p> <p>How expected increases in climate variability will affect species diversity depends on the role of such variability in regulating the coexistence of competing species. Despite theory linking temporal environmental fluctuations with the maintenance of diversity, the importance of climate variability for stabilizing coexistence remains unknown because of a lack of appropriate long-term observations. Here, we analyze three decades of demographic data from a Kansas prairie to demonstrate that interannual climate variability promotes the coexistence of three common grass species. Specifically, we show that (i) the dynamics of the three species satisfy all requirements of “storage effect” theory based on recruitment variability with overlapping generations, (ii) climate variables are correlated with interannual variation in species performance, and (iii) temporal variability increases low-density growth rates, buffering these species against competitive exclusion. Given that environmental fluctuations are ubiquitous in natural systems, our results suggest that coexistence based on the storage effect may be underappreciated and could provide an important alternative to recent neutral theories of diversity. Field evidence for positive effects of variability on coexistence also emphasizes the need to consider changes in both climate means and variances when forecasting the effects of global change on species diversity. PMID:16908862</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUOSPC34A2163B','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUOSPC34A2163B"><span>Pathfinder Sea Surface Temperature Climate Data Record</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Baker-Yeboah, S.; Saha, K.; Zhang, D.; Casey, K. S.</p> <p>2016-02-01</p> <p>Global sea surface temperature (SST) fields are important in understanding ocean and climate variability. The NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) develops and maintains a high resolution, long-term, climate data record (CDR) of global satellite SST. These SST values are generated at approximately 4 km resolution using Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) instruments aboard NOAA polar-orbiting satellites going back to 1981. The Pathfinder SST algorithm is based on the Non-Linear SST algorithm using the modernized NASA SeaWiFS Data Analysis System (SeaDAS). Coefficients for this SST product were generated using regression analyses with co-located in situ and satellite measurements. Previous versions of Pathfinder included level 3 collated (L3C) products. Pathfinder Version 5.3 includes level 2 pre-processed (L2P), level 3 Uncollated (L3C), and L3C products. Notably, the data were processed in the cloud using Amazon Web Services and are made available through all of the modern web visualization and subset services provided by the THREDDS Data Server, the Live Access Server, and the OPeNDAP Hyrax Server.In this version of Pathfinder SST, anomalous hot-spots at land-water boundaries are better identified and the dataset includes updated land masks and sea ice data over the Antarctic ice shelves. All quality levels of SST values are generated, giving the user greater flexibility and the option to apply their own cloud-masking procedures. Additional improvements include consistent cloud tree tests for NOAA-07 and NOAA-19 with respect to the other sensors, improved SSTs in sun glint areas, and netCDF file format improvements to ensure consistency with the latest Group for High Resolution SST (GHRSST) requirements. This quality controlled satellite SST field is a reference environmental data record utilized as a primary resource of SST for numerous regional and global marine efforts.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5638312','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=5638312"><span>Genetic and ecological insights into glacial refugia of walnut (Juglans regia L.)</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Aradhya, Mallikarjuna; Ibrahimov, Zakir; Toktoraliev, Biimyrza; Maghradze, David; Musayev, Mirza; Bobokashvili, Zviadi; Preece, John E.</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>The distribution and survival of trees during the last glacial maximum (LGM) has been of interest to paleoecologists, biogeographers, and geneticists. Ecological niche models that associate species occurrence and abundance with climatic variables are widely used to gain ecological and evolutionary insights and to predict species distributions over space and time. The present study deals with the glacial history of walnut to address questions related to past distributions through genetic analysis and ecological modeling of the present, LGM and Last Interglacial (LIG) periods. A maximum entropy method was used to project the current walnut distribution model on to the LGM (21–18 kyr BP) and LIG (130–116 kyr BP) climatic conditions. Model tuning identified the walnut data set filtered at 10 km spatial resolution as the best for modeling the current distribution and to hindcast past (LGM and LIG) distributions of walnut. The current distribution model predicted southern Caucasus, parts of West and Central Asia extending into South Asia encompassing northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, northwestern Himalayan region, and southwestern Tibet, as the favorable climatic niche matching the modern distribution of walnut. The hindcast of distributions suggested the occurrence of walnut during LGM was somewhat limited to southern latitudes from southern Caucasus, Central and South Asian regions extending into southwestern Tibet, northeastern India, Himalayan region of Sikkim and Bhutan, and southeastern China. Both CCSM and MIROC projections overlapped, except that MIROC projected a significant presence of walnut in the Balkan Peninsula during the LGM. In contrast, genetic analysis of the current walnut distribution suggested a much narrower area in northern Pakistan and the surrounding areas of Afghanistan, northwestern India, and southern Tajikistan as a plausible hotspot of diversity where walnut may have survived glaciations. Overall, the findings suggest that walnut perhaps survived the last glaciations in several refugia across a wide geographic area between 30° and 45° North latitude. However, humans probably played a significant role in the recent history and modern distribution of walnut. PMID:29023476</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29023476','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29023476"><span>Genetic and ecological insights into glacial refugia of walnut (Juglans regia L.).</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Aradhya, Mallikarjuna; Velasco, Dianne; Ibrahimov, Zakir; Toktoraliev, Biimyrza; Maghradze, David; Musayev, Mirza; Bobokashvili, Zviadi; Preece, John E</p> <p>2017-01-01</p> <p>The distribution and survival of trees during the last glacial maximum (LGM) has been of interest to paleoecologists, biogeographers, and geneticists. Ecological niche models that associate species occurrence and abundance with climatic variables are widely used to gain ecological and evolutionary insights and to predict species distributions over space and time. The present study deals with the glacial history of walnut to address questions related to past distributions through genetic analysis and ecological modeling of the present, LGM and Last Interglacial (LIG) periods. A maximum entropy method was used to project the current walnut distribution model on to the LGM (21-18 kyr BP) and LIG (130-116 kyr BP) climatic conditions. Model tuning identified the walnut data set filtered at 10 km spatial resolution as the best for modeling the current distribution and to hindcast past (LGM and LIG) distributions of walnut. The current distribution model predicted southern Caucasus, parts of West and Central Asia extending into South Asia encompassing northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, northwestern Himalayan region, and southwestern Tibet, as the favorable climatic niche matching the modern distribution of walnut. The hindcast of distributions suggested the occurrence of walnut during LGM was somewhat limited to southern latitudes from southern Caucasus, Central and South Asian regions extending into southwestern Tibet, northeastern India, Himalayan region of Sikkim and Bhutan, and southeastern China. Both CCSM and MIROC projections overlapped, except that MIROC projected a significant presence of walnut in the Balkan Peninsula during the LGM. In contrast, genetic analysis of the current walnut distribution suggested a much narrower area in northern Pakistan and the surrounding areas of Afghanistan, northwestern India, and southern Tajikistan as a plausible hotspot of diversity where walnut may have survived glaciations. Overall, the findings suggest that walnut perhaps survived the last glaciations in several refugia across a wide geographic area between 30° and 45° North latitude. However, humans probably played a significant role in the recent history and modern distribution of walnut.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li class="active"><span>24</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>25</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_24 --> <div id="page_25" class="hiddenDiv"> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_24");'>24</a></li> <li class="active"><span>25</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <div class="col-sm-12"> <ol class="result-class" start="481"> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMGC33D..03G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFMGC33D..03G"><span>Interannual physiological and growth responses of glacial Juniperus to changes in atmospheric [CO2] since the Last Glacial Maximum</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Gerhart, L. M.; Harris, J. M.; Ward, J. K.</p> <p>2011-12-01</p> <p>During the Last Glacial Maximum, atmospheric [CO2] was as low as 180 ppm and has currently risen to a modern value of 393 ppm as a result of fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. In order to understand how changing [CO2] influenced trees over the last 50,000 years, we analyzed carbon isotope ratios and width of individual tree rings from glacial Juniperus specimens preserved in the Rancho La Brea tar pits in southern California (aged 14-49 kyr BP). Modern trees were also analyzed to compare effects of changing precipitation, temperature and atmospheric [CO2] on physiology and growth. To assess physiological responses, we calculated ci/ca (intercellular [CO2]/atmospheric [CO2]) for each annual ring of each tree. This ratio incorporates numerous aspects of plant physiology, including stomatal conductance and photosynthetic capacity. In addition, we measured ring widths for each sample, and standardized these measurements into indices in order to compare across individuals. Mean ci/ca values remained constant throughout 50,000 years despite major environmental changes, indicating a long-term physiological set point for ci/ca in this group. Constant ci/ca ratios would be maintained through offsetting changes in stomatal conductance and photosynthetic capacity. Glacial Juniperus never experienced ci values below 90 ppm, suggesting a survival compensation point for Juniperus. In addition, glacial trees showed significantly reduced interannual variation in ci/ca, even though interannual climatic variability was as high during the LGM in this region as it is today. A lack of variability in ci/ca of glacial trees suggests that tree physiology was dominated by low [CO2], which shows low interannual variation. Modern trees showed high interannual variation in ci/ca, since water availability dominates current physiological responses and varies greatly from year to year. Interestingly, interannual variation in ring width index did not show significant differences between glacial and modern trees, suggesting these trees were adapted to maintain growth under low [CO2]. These adaptations may constrain the ability of modern trees to fully utilize increases in atmospheric [CO2]. These results have significant implications for our understanding of the adaptations of trees to changing [CO2] and indicate that the environmental factors that most strongly influence plant physiology may have changed over geologic time scales.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25629508','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25629508"><span>Paleoceanographic insights on recent oxygen minimum zone expansion: lessons for modern oceanography.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Moffitt, Sarah E; Moffitt, Russell A; Sauthoff, Wilson; Davis, Catherine V; Hewett, Kathryn; Hill, Tessa M</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Climate-driven Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) expansions in the geologic record provide an opportunity to characterize the spatial and temporal scales of OMZ change. Here we investigate OMZ expansion through the global-scale warming event of the most recent deglaciation (18-11 ka), an event with clear relevance to understanding modern anthropogenic climate change. Deglacial marine sediment records were compiled to quantify the vertical extent, intensity, surface area and volume impingements of hypoxic waters upon continental margins. By integrating sediment records (183-2,309 meters below sea level; mbsl) containing one or more geochemical, sedimentary or microfossil oxygenation proxies integrated with analyses of eustatic sea level rise, we reconstruct the timing, depth and intensity of seafloor hypoxia. The maximum vertical OMZ extent during the deglaciation was variable by region: Subarctic Pacific (~600-2,900 mbsl), California Current (~330-1,500 mbsl), Mexico Margin (~330-830 mbsl), and the Humboldt Current and Equatorial Pacific (~110-3,100 mbsl). The timing of OMZ expansion is regionally coherent but not globally synchronous. Subarctic Pacific and California Current continental margins exhibit tight correlation to the oscillations of Northern Hemisphere deglacial events (Termination IA, Bølling-Allerød, Younger Dryas and Termination IB). Southern regions (Mexico Margin and the Equatorial Pacific and Humboldt Current) exhibit hypoxia expansion prior to Termination IA (~14.7 ka), and no regional oxygenation oscillations. Our analyses provide new evidence for the geographically and vertically extensive expansion of OMZs, and the extreme compression of upper-ocean oxygenated ecosystems during the geologically recent deglaciation.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4309540','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=4309540"><span>Paleoceanographic Insights on Recent Oxygen Minimum Zone Expansion: Lessons for Modern Oceanography</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Moffitt, Sarah E.; Moffitt, Russell A.; Sauthoff, Wilson; Davis, Catherine V.; Hewett, Kathryn; Hill, Tessa M.</p> <p>2015-01-01</p> <p>Climate-driven Oxygen Minimum Zone (OMZ) expansions in the geologic record provide an opportunity to characterize the spatial and temporal scales of OMZ change. Here we investigate OMZ expansion through the global-scale warming event of the most recent deglaciation (18-11 ka), an event with clear relevance to understanding modern anthropogenic climate change. Deglacial marine sediment records were compiled to quantify the vertical extent, intensity, surface area and volume impingements of hypoxic waters upon continental margins. By integrating sediment records (183-2,309 meters below sea level; mbsl) containing one or more geochemical, sedimentary or microfossil oxygenation proxies integrated with analyses of eustatic sea level rise, we reconstruct the timing, depth and intensity of seafloor hypoxia. The maximum vertical OMZ extent during the deglaciation was variable by region: Subarctic Pacific (~600-2,900 mbsl), California Current (~330-1,500 mbsl), Mexico Margin (~330-830 mbsl), and the Humboldt Current and Equatorial Pacific (~110-3,100 mbsl). The timing of OMZ expansion is regionally coherent but not globally synchronous. Subarctic Pacific and California Current continental margins exhibit tight correlation to the oscillations of Northern Hemisphere deglacial events (Termination IA, Bølling-Allerød, Younger Dryas and Termination IB). Southern regions (Mexico Margin and the Equatorial Pacific and Humboldt Current) exhibit hypoxia expansion prior to Termination IA (~14.7 ka), and no regional oxygenation oscillations. Our analyses provide new evidence for the geographically and vertically extensive expansion of OMZs, and the extreme compression of upper-ocean oxygenated ecosystems during the geologically recent deglaciation. PMID:25629508</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016CliPa..12.1263M','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016CliPa..12.1263M"><span>Inferring late-Holocene climate in the Ecuadorian Andes using a chironomid-based temperature inference model</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Matthews-Bird, Frazer; Brooks, Stephen J.; Holden, Philip B.; Montoya, Encarni; Gosling, William D.</p> <p>2016-06-01</p> <p>Presented here is the first chironomid calibration data set for tropical South America. Surface sediments were collected from 59 lakes across Bolivia (15 lakes), Peru (32 lakes), and Ecuador (12 lakes) between 2004 and 2013 over an altitudinal gradient from 150 m above sea level (a.s.l) to 4655 m a.s.l, between 0-17° S and 64-78° W. The study sites cover a mean annual temperature (MAT) gradient of 25 °C. In total, 55 chironomid taxa were identified in the 59 calibration data set lakes. When used as a single explanatory variable, MAT explains 12.9 % of the variance (λ1/λ2 = 1.431). Two inference models were developed using weighted averaging (WA) and Bayesian methods. The best-performing model using conventional statistical methods was a WA (inverse) model (R2jack = 0.890; RMSEPjack = 2.404 °C, RMSEP - root mean squared error of prediction; mean biasjack = -0.017 °C; max biasjack = 4.665 °C). The Bayesian method produced a model with R2jack = 0.909, RMSEPjack = 2.373 °C, mean biasjack = 0.598 °C, and max biasjack = 3.158 °C. Both models were used to infer past temperatures from a ca. 3000-year record from the tropical Andes of Ecuador, Laguna Pindo. Inferred temperatures fluctuated around modern-day conditions but showed significant departures at certain intervals (ca. 1600 cal yr BP; ca. 3000-2500 cal yr BP). Both methods (WA and Bayesian) showed similar patterns of temperature variability; however, the magnitude of fluctuations differed. In general the WA method was more variable and often underestimated Holocene temperatures (by ca. -7 ± 2.5 °C relative to the modern period). The Bayesian method provided temperature anomaly estimates for cool periods that lay within the expected range of the Holocene (ca. -3 ± 3.4 °C). The error associated with both reconstructions is consistent with a constant temperature of 20 °C for the past 3000 years. We would caution, however, against an over-interpretation at this stage. The reconstruction can only currently be deemed qualitative and requires more research before quantitative estimates can be generated with confidence. Increasing the number, and spread, of lakes in the calibration data set would enable the detection of smaller climate signals.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35856','DOTNTL'); return false;" href="https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/35856"><span>Evaluation of LTPP Climatic Data for Use in Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) Calibration and Other Pavement Analysis</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/index.do">DOT National Transportation Integrated Search</a></p> <p></p> <p>2015-02-01</p> <p>This TechBrief describes evaluating the use of the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) product as an alternative climatic data source for the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) and other transporta...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/24572','TREESEARCH'); return false;" href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/24572"><span>Spatial variability in forest growth—climate relationships in the Olympic Mountains, Washington.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/">Treesearch</a></p> <p>Jill M. Nakawatase; David L. Peterson</p> <p>2006-01-01</p> <p>For many Pacific Northwest forests, little is known about the spatial and temporal variability in tree growth - climate relationships, yet it is this information that is needed to predict how forests will respond to future climatic change. We studied the effects of climatic variability on forest growth at 74 plots in the western and northeastern Olympic Mountains....</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1275738-frontiers-decadal-climate-variability-proceedings-workshop','SCIGOV-STC'); return false;" href="https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1275738-frontiers-decadal-climate-variability-proceedings-workshop"><span>Frontiers in Decadal Climate Variability: Proceedings of a Workshop</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.osti.gov/search">DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)</a></p> <p>Purcell, Amanda</p> <p></p> <p>A number of studies indicate an apparent slowdown in the overall rise in global average surface temperature between roughly 1998 and 2014. Most models did not predict such a slowdown--a fact that stimulated a lot of new research on variability of Earth's climate system. At a September 2015 workshop, leading scientists gathered to discuss current understanding of climate variability on decadal timescales (10 to 30 years) and whether and how prediction of it might be improved. Many researchers have focused their attention on the climate system itself, which is known to vary across seasons, decades, and other timescales. Several naturalmore » variables produce "ups and downs" in the climate system, which are superimposed on the long-term warming trend due to human influence. Understanding decadal climate variability is important not only for assessing global climate change but also for improving decision making related to infrastructure, water resources, agriculture, energy, and other realms. Like the well-studied El Nino and La Nina interannual variations, decadal climate variability is associated with specific regional patterns of temperature and precipitation, such as heat waves, cold spells, and droughts. Several participants shared research that assesses decadal predictive capability of current models.« less</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28319296','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28319296"><span>Joint effects of climate variability and socioecological factors on dengue transmission: epidemiological evidence.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Akter, Rokeya; Hu, Wenbiao; Naish, Suchithra; Banu, Shahera; Tong, Shilu</p> <p>2017-06-01</p> <p>To assess the epidemiological evidence on the joint effects of climate variability and socioecological factors on dengue transmission. Following PRISMA guidelines, a detailed literature search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. Peer-reviewed, freely available and full-text articles, considering both climate and socioecological factors in relation to dengue, published in English from January 1993 to October 2015 were included in this review. Twenty studies have met the inclusion criteria and assessed the impact of both climatic and socioecological factors on dengue dynamics. Among those, four studies have further investigated the relative importance of climate variability and socioecological factors on dengue transmission. A few studies also developed predictive models including both climatic and socioecological factors. Due to insufficient data, methodological issues and contextual variability of the studies, it is hard to draw conclusion on the joint effects of climate variability and socioecological factors on dengue transmission. Future research should take into account socioecological factors in combination with climate variables for a better understanding of the complex nature of dengue transmission as well as for improving the predictive capability of dengue forecasting models, to develop effective and reliable early warning systems. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFM.H13G1391S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005AGUFM.H13G1391S"><span>Impacts of Considering Climate Variability on Investment Decisions in Ethiopia</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Strzepek, K.; Block, P.; Rosegrant, M.; Diao, X.</p> <p>2005-12-01</p> <p>In Ethiopia, climate extremes, inducing droughts or floods, are not unusual. Monitoring the effects of these extremes, and climate variability in general, is critical for economic prediction and assessment of the country's future welfare. The focus of this study involves adding climate variability to a deterministic, mean climate-driven agro-economic model, in an attempt to understand its effects and degree of influence on general economic prediction indicators for Ethiopia. Four simulations are examined, including a baseline simulation and three investment strategies: simulations of irrigation investment, roads investment, and a combination investment of both irrigation and roads. The deterministic model is transformed into a stochastic model by dynamically adding year-to-year climate variability through climate-yield factors. Nine sets of actual, historic, variable climate data are individually assembled and implemented into the 12-year stochastic model simulation, producing an ensemble of economic prediction indicators. This ensemble allows for a probabilistic approach to planning and policy making, allowing decision makers to consider risk. The economic indicators from the deterministic and stochastic approaches, including rates of return to investments, are significantly different. The predictions of the deterministic model appreciably overestimate the future welfare of Ethiopia; the predictions of the stochastic model, utilizing actual climate data, tend to give a better semblance of what may be expected. Inclusion of climate variability is vital for proper analysis of the predictor values from this agro-economic model.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP13C2303C','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFMPP13C2303C"><span>Evaluating Carbon Isotope Signature of Bulk Organic Matter and Plant Wax Derived n-alkanes from Lacustrine Sediments as Climate Proxies along the Western Side of the Andes</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Contreras, S.; Werne, J. P.; Araneda, A.; Conejero, C. A.</p> <p>2015-12-01</p> <p>Sedimentary carbon isotope values (δ13C) of bulk organic matter and long chain (C25 to C35) n-alkanes are among the most long-lived and widely utilized proxies of organic matter and vegetation source. The carbon distribution (e.g. average carbon chain length, ACL) and isotope signature from long chain n-alkanes had been intensively used on paleoclimate studies because they are less influenced by diagenesis, differential preservation of compound classes, and changes in the sources of organic matter than bulk δ13C values. Recently, studies of modern plant n-alkanes have challenged the use of carbon distribution and carbon isotope signature from sedimentary n-alkanes as reliable indicators of vegetation and climate change. The climate in central-south western South America (SA) is projected to become significantly warmer and drier over the next several decades to centuries in response to anthropogenically driven warming. Paleolimnological studies along western SA are critical to obtain more realistic and reliable regional reconstructions of past climate and environments, including vegetation and water budget variability. Here we discuss bulk δ13C, distribution and δ13C in long chain n-alkanes from a suite of ~40 lake surface sediment (core-top) samples spanning the transition from a Mediterranean climate with a patchwork of cultivated vegetation, pastureland, conifers in central Chile to a rainy temperate climate dominated by broadleaf deciduous and evergreen forest. Data are compared to the latitudinal and orographic climatic trends of the Andes based on the climatology (e.g. precipitation and temperature) of the locations of all lakes involved in this study, using monthly gridded reanalysis products of the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR), based on the NCEP global forecast model and meteorological stations available in the region, from January 1979 to December 2010 with a 0.5° horizontal resolution.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586279','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24586279"><span>Broad-scale climate influences on spring-spawning herring (Clupea harengus, L.) recruitment in the Western Baltic Sea.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Gröger, Joachim P; Hinrichsen, Hans-Harald; Polte, Patrick</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Climate forcing in complex ecosystems can have profound implications for ecosystem sustainability and may thus challenge a precautionary ecosystem management. Climatic influences documented to affect various ecological functions on a global scale, may themselves be observed on quantitative or qualitative scales including regime shifts in complex marine ecosystems. This study investigates the potential climatic impact on the reproduction success of spring-spawning herring (Clupea harengus) in the Western Baltic Sea (WBSS herring). To test for climate effects on reproduction success, the regionally determined and scientifically well-documented spawning grounds of WBSS herring represent an ideal model system. Climate effects on herring reproduction were investigated using two global indices of atmospheric variability and sea surface temperature, represented by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), respectively, and the Baltic Sea Index (BSI) which is a regional-scale atmospheric index for the Baltic Sea. Moreover, we combined a traditional approach with modern time series analysis based on a recruitment model connecting parental population components with reproduction success. Generalized transfer functions (ARIMAX models) allowed evaluating the dynamic nature of exogenous climate processes interacting with the endogenous recruitment process. Using different model selection criteria our results reveal that in contrast to NAO and AMO, the BSI shows a significant positive but delayed signal on the annual dynamics of herring recruitment. The westward influence of the Siberian high is considered strongly suppressing the influence of the NAO in this area leading to a higher explanatory power of the BSI reflecting the atmospheric pressure regime on a North-South transect between Oslo, Norway and Szczecin, Poland. We suggest incorporating climate-induced effects into stock and risk assessments and management strategies as part of the EU ecosystem approach to support sustainable herring fisheries in the Western Baltic Sea.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3934862','PMC'); return false;" href="https://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=3934862"><span>Broad-Scale Climate Influences on Spring-Spawning Herring (Clupea harengus, L.) Recruitment in the Western Baltic Sea</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pmc">PubMed Central</a></p> <p>Gröger, Joachim P.; Hinrichsen, Hans-Harald; Polte, Patrick</p> <p>2014-01-01</p> <p>Climate forcing in complex ecosystems can have profound implications for ecosystem sustainability and may thus challenge a precautionary ecosystem management. Climatic influences documented to affect various ecological functions on a global scale, may themselves be observed on quantitative or qualitative scales including regime shifts in complex marine ecosystems. This study investigates the potential climatic impact on the reproduction success of spring-spawning herring (Clupea harengus) in the Western Baltic Sea (WBSS herring). To test for climate effects on reproduction success, the regionally determined and scientifically well-documented spawning grounds of WBSS herring represent an ideal model system. Climate effects on herring reproduction were investigated using two global indices of atmospheric variability and sea surface temperature, represented by the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), respectively, and the Baltic Sea Index (BSI) which is a regional-scale atmospheric index for the Baltic Sea. Moreover, we combined a traditional approach with modern time series analysis based on a recruitment model connecting parental population components with reproduction success. Generalized transfer functions (ARIMAX models) allowed evaluating the dynamic nature of exogenous climate processes interacting with the endogenous recruitment process. Using different model selection criteria our results reveal that in contrast to NAO and AMO, the BSI shows a significant positive but delayed signal on the annual dynamics of herring recruitment. The westward influence of the Siberian high is considered strongly suppressing the influence of the NAO in this area leading to a higher explanatory power of the BSI reflecting the atmospheric pressure regime on a North-South transect between Oslo, Norway and Szczecin, Poland. We suggest incorporating climate-induced effects into stock and risk assessments and management strategies as part of the EU ecosystem approach to support sustainable herring fisheries in the Western Baltic Sea. PMID:24586279</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51D2329S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2016AGUFMPP51D2329S"><span>Coral Ensemble Estimates of Central Pacific Mean Climate During the Little Ice Age</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Sayani, H. R.; Cobb, K. M.; O'Connor, G.; Khare, A.; Atwood, A. R.; Grothe, P. R.; Chen, T.; Hagos, M. M.; Hitt, N. T.; Thompson, D. M.; Deocampo, D.; Lu, Y.; Cheng, H.; Edwards, R. L.</p> <p>2016-12-01</p> <p>Multi-century, robust records of tropical Pacific sea-surface temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS) variability from the pre-industrial era are needed to quantify anthropogenic contributions to present-day climate trends and to improve the accuracy of regional climate projections. However, high-resolution reconstructions of tropical Pacific climate are scarce prior to the 20th century, and only a handful exist from the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1500-1850CE) immediately prior to the documented rise of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. Modern and fossil corals from the northern Line Islands (2-6°N, 157-162°W) have been used to extend the instrumental climate record back into the LIA and beyond, primarily for paleo-ENSO investigations [Cobb et al., 2003, 2013]. However, large offsets in mean coral Sr/Ca and δ18O values observed across overlapping coral colonies translate into 1-2°C (1σ) uncertainties for mean climate reconstructions based on any single fossil coral colony. Here we present the results of a new approach to reconstructing mean climate during the LIA using a large ensemble (N>10) of relatively short (7-15yr long), U/Th-dated fossil corals from Christmas Island (2°N, 157°W). We employ pseudo-coral estimates of paleo-SST and paleo-seawater δ18O variations as benchmarks for our reconstructions, with a focus on quantifying the maximum and minimum potential tropical Pacific SST changes during the LIA that are consistent with our new ensemble of coral data. Lastly, by comparing bulk and high-resolution coral d18O and Sr/Ca records, we identify the strengths and limitations of using a high-N, ensemble approach to climate reconstruction from fossil corals. References:Cobb, K. M., et al. (2003) Nature. doi:10.1038/nature01779Cobb, K. M., et al. (2013) Science. doi: 10.1126/science.1228246</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFM.H13B1398S','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFM.H13B1398S"><span>Post-Fire Recovery of Eco-Hydrologic Behavior Given Historic and Projected Climate Variability in California Mediterranean Type Environments</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Seaby, L. P.; Tague, C. L.; Hope, A. S.</p> <p>2006-12-01</p> <p>The Mediterranean type environments (MTEs) of California are characterized by a distinct wet and dry season and high variability in inter-annual climate. Water limitation in MTEs makes eco-hydrological processes highly sensitive to both climate variability and frequent fire disturbance. This research modeled post-fire eco- hydrologic behavior under historical and moderate and extreme scenarios of future climate in a semi-arid chaparral dominated southern California MTE. We used a physically-based, spatially-distributed, eco- hydrological model (RHESSys - Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System), to capture linkages between water and vegetation response to the combined effects of fire and historic and future climate variability. We found post-fire eco-hydrologic behavior to be strongly influenced by the episodic nature of MTE climate, which intensifies under projected climate change. Higher rates of post-fire net primary productivity were found under moderate climate change, while more extreme climate change produced water stressed conditions which were less favorable for vegetation productivity. Precipitation variability in the historic record follows the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and these inter-annual climate characteristics intensify under climate change. Inter-annual variation in streamflow follows these precipitation patterns. Post-fire streamflow and carbon cycling trajectories are strongly dependent on climate characteristics during the first 5 years following fire, and historic intra-climate variability during this period tends to overwhelm longer term trends and variation that might be attributable to climate change. Results have implications for water resource availability, vegetation type conversion from shrubs to grassland, and changes in ecosystem structure and function.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?dirEntryId=337703&keyword=gasoline&actType=&TIMSType=+&TIMSSubTypeID=&DEID=&epaNumber=&ntisID=&archiveStatus=Both&ombCat=Any&dateBeginCreated=&dateEndCreated=&dateBeginPublishedPresented=&dateEndPublishedPresented=&dateBeginUpdated=&dateEndUpdated=&dateBeginCompleted=&dateEndCompleted=&personID=&role=Any&journalID=&publisherID=&sortBy=revisionDate&count=50','EPA-EIMS'); return false;" href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?dirEntryId=337703&keyword=gasoline&actType=&TIMSType=+&TIMSSubTypeID=&DEID=&epaNumber=&ntisID=&archiveStatus=Both&ombCat=Any&dateBeginCreated=&dateEndCreated=&dateBeginPublishedPresented=&dateEndPublishedPresented=&dateBeginUpdated=&dateEndUpdated=&dateBeginCompleted=&dateEndCompleted=&personID=&role=Any&journalID=&publisherID=&sortBy=revisionDate&count=50"><span>Cold Temperature Effects on Speciated VOC Emissions from Modern GDI Light-Duty Vehicles 1</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://oaspub.epa.gov/eims/query.page">EPA Science Inventory</a></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>In this study, speciated VOC emissions were characterized from three modern GDI light-duty vehicles. The vehicles were tested on a chassis dynamometer housed in a climate-controlled chamber at two temperatures (20 and 72 °F) using the EPA Federal Test Procedure (FTP) and a portio...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=322816','TEKTRAN'); return false;" href="http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publication/?seqNo115=322816"><span>Climate change and cotton production in modern farming systems</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/find-a-publication/">USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database</a></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>Cotton is used every day in the form of clothing made from cotton fiber and products made from cotton-seed oil. Wild ancestors of cotton are found in arid regions, often with high daytime temperatures and cool nights, and are naturally adapted to surviving long periods of hot dry weather. Modern cul...</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://eric.ed.gov/?q=globalization+AND+individualism&pg=2&id=EJ611247','ERIC'); return false;" href="https://eric.ed.gov/?q=globalization+AND+individualism&pg=2&id=EJ611247"><span>Schools in a Learning Society: New Purposes and Modalities of Learning in Late Modern Society.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/extended.jsp?_pageLabel=advanced">ERIC Educational Resources Information Center</a></p> <p>Strain, Michael</p> <p>2000-01-01</p> <p>Examines limitations inherent in the learning society debate, highlighting public schooling's role; individualization and fears of uselessness in a modernized, informationalized world; and effects of globalization on learning. A climate of risk and consumerism requires reflexive construction of a "self" on a lifelong learning journey.…</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFM.B54A..04W','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013AGUFM.B54A..04W"><span>Temperature is a potent driver of regional forest drought stress, disturbance, and tree mortality (Invited)</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Williams, P.; Allen, C. D.; Macalady, A.; Griffin, D.; Woodhouse, C. A.; Meko, D. M.; Swetnam, T. W.; Rauscher, S.; Seager, R.; Grissino-Mayer, H.; Dean, J.; Cook, E. R.; Gangodagamage, C.; Cai, M.; McDowell, N. G.</p> <p>2013-12-01</p> <p>I present a forest drought-stress index (FDSI) for the Southwestern United States using a comprehensive set of regional tree-ring records for AD 1000-2007. Comparing the last century of FDSI data to observed climate records, regional FDSI appears approximately equally influenced by warm-season atmospheric moisture demand (mostly controlled by temperature) and cold-season precipitation, together explaining an astounding 82% of southwestern FDSI variability. When atmospheric moisture demand intensifies, so does forest drought stress. Importantly, intensified moisture demand is not only associated with decreased tree growth; it is also associated with increased mortality. In particular, among a suite of drought-related climate variables, warm-season moisture demand has been the best predictor of annual forest area burned by stand-replacing wildfires since at least 1984. Further, the relationship between moisture demand and burned area is exponential, where incremental increases in moisture demand correspond to increasingly large influences on area burned. Using climate observations to update FDSI through 2013, I show that the current Southwestern drought-stress event, which began in 2000, is the most severe in over 400 years, but not as severe as those that occurred during the infamous 'Megadroughts' of AD 1000-1600. Like the Megadroughts of the past, the current drought will come to an end, but unlike the Megadroughts of the past, the current drought and those that will follow will be superimposed upon a warming-induced trend toward increased moisture demand and intensified forest drought stress, disturbance, and mortality. If atmospheric moisture demand continues increasing as projected by climate models, then mean annual Southwestern US climate by the 2050s will be less suitable for forest growth and survival than it was during the worst years of last millennium's Megadroughts. An intense La-Niña driven drought anomaly superimposed upon mean conditions in the 2050s would lead to forest drought stress, mortality, and wildfire conditions that are far more disastrous than those observed thusfar. These results foreshadow 21st-century transitions of Southwestern forests, and probably forests elsewhere, toward distributions unfamiliar to modern civilization.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16.7300G','NASAADS'); return false;" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014EGUGA..16.7300G"><span>Interglacial Greenland aerosol deposition: comparison of continuous high resolution chemical ice core records from the Eemian and Holocene</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html">NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)</a></p> <p>Gfeller, Gideon; Bigler, Matthias; Schüpbach, Simon; Mini, Olivia; Leuenberger, Daiana; Fischer, Hubertus</p> <p>2014-05-01</p> <p>Earth's climate system has been oscillating over the last million years between cold glacials and warm interglacials, leaving the imprints of their climate states in form of isotopes variations and chemical impurities in polar ice caps. In the course of the North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling (NEEM) project, the NEEM ice core has been entirely analysed in very high depth resolution with a Continuous Flow Analysis (CFA) system for the concentrations of chemical aerosol tracers in the ice. Only in the brittle ice zone (600-1100 m depth equivalent to the time interval 3000-8000 years before present) most of the ice had to be discarded due to multifractured core material. Based on the unique reconstructed age scale to unfold the stratigraphically disturbed part from about 2200 m depth downwards (NEEM community members, Nature, 2013), we are able to present the first Greenland chemistry record over the entire last interglacial, the so called Eemian period (about 128'000 to 115'000 years ago). As the Eemian is believed to have been 4 to 8 degrees C warmer than the modern climate, it can be used as an analogue for our present warming climate and, thus, contributes to a better understanding of processes causing natural variations. By means of the chemistry records we are able to assess the natural variability of Greenland Eemian climate and gain insight in its biogeochemical state. Here, short-term variability as well as long term trends of soluble chemical impurities in the Eemian are investigated and compared with those in the Holocene. Changes of organic processes in soils and biomass burning for example are assessed through soluble ammonium and nitrate concentrations. In comparison to the Holocene, ammonium concentrations were about 25% higher during the Eemian. Nitrate, on the other hand, shows about 25% lower concentrations. Sodium concentrations, reflecting changes in sea salt aerosol, are about 35% lower during the Eemian than during the Holocene. Calcium, generally regarded as a long range transport proxy, shows similar concentration during both periods.</p> </li> <li> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" onclick="trackOutboundLink('https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26324900','PUBMED'); return false;" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26324900"><span>Slowing down of North Pacific climate variability and its implications for abrupt ecosystem change.</span></a></p> <p><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed">PubMed</a></p> <p>Boulton, Chris A; Lenton, Timothy M</p> <p>2015-09-15</p> <p>Marine ecosystems are sensitive to stochastic environmental variability, with higher-amplitude, lower-frequency--i.e., "redder"--variability posing a greater threat of triggering large ecosystem changes. Here we show that fluctuations in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index have slowed down markedly over the observational record (1900-present), as indicated by a robust increase in autocorrelation. This "reddening" of the spectrum of climate variability is also found in regionally averaged North Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and can be at least partly explained by observed deepening of the ocean mixed layer. The progressive reddening of North Pacific climate variability has important implications for marine ecosystems. Ecosystem variables that respond linearly to climate forcing will have become prone to much larger variations over the observational record, whereas ecosystem variables that respond nonlinearly to climate forcing will have become prone to more frequent "regime shifts." Thus, slowing down of North Pacific climate variability can help explain the large magnitude and potentially the quick succession of well-known abrupt changes in North Pacific ecosystems in 1977 and 1989. When looking ahead, despite model limitations in simulating mixed layer depth (MLD) in the North Pacific, global warming is robustly expected to decrease MLD. This could potentially reverse the observed trend of slowing down of North Pacific climate variability and its effects on marine ecosystems.</p> </li> </ol> <div class="pull-right"> <ul class="pagination"> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_1");'>«</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_21");'>21</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_22");'>22</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_23");'>23</a></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_24");'>24</a></li> <li class="active"><span>25</span></li> <li><a href="#" onclick='return showDiv("page_25");'>»</a></li> </ul> </div> </div><!-- col-sm-12 --> </div><!-- row --> </div><!-- page_25 --> <div class="footer-extlink text-muted" style="margin-bottom:1rem; text-align:center;">Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.</div> </div><!-- container --> <a id="backToTop" href="#top"> Top </a> <footer> <nav> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/sitemap.html">Site Map</a></li> <li><a href="/website-policies.html">Website Policies</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.energy.gov/vulnerability-disclosure-policy" target="_blank">Vulnerability Disclosure Program</a></li> <li><a href="/contact.html">Contact Us</a></li> </ul> </nav> </footer> <script type="text/javascript"><!-- // var lastDiv = ""; function showDiv(divName) { // hide last div if (lastDiv) { document.getElementById(lastDiv).className = "hiddenDiv"; } //if value of the box is not nothing and an object with that name exists, then change the class if (divName && document.getElementById(divName)) { document.getElementById(divName).className = "visibleDiv"; lastDiv = divName; } } //--> </script> <script> /** * Function that tracks a click on an outbound link in Google Analytics. * This function takes a valid URL string as an argument, and uses that URL string * as the event label. */ var trackOutboundLink = function(url,collectionCode) { try { h = window.open(url); setTimeout(function() { ga('send', 'event', 'topic-page-click-through', collectionCode, url); }, 1000); } catch(err){} }; </script> <!-- Google Analytics --> <script> (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-1122789-34', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview'); </script> <!-- End Google Analytics --> <script> showDiv('page_1') </script> </body> </html>