Evidence of Abrupt Climate Change and the Development of an Historic Mercury Deposition Record Using Chronological Refinement of Ice Cores at Upper Fremont Glacier

Author(s):  
Paul F. Schuster ◽  
David L. Naftz ◽  
L. DeWayne Cecil ◽  
Jaromy R. Green
2007 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Lutz ◽  
Gregory Wiles ◽  
Thomas Lowell ◽  
Joshua Michaels

AbstractMany Northern Hemisphere paleoclimatic records, including ice cores, speleothems, lake sediments, ocean cores and glacier chronologies, indicate an abrupt cooling event about 8200 cal yr BP. A new well-dated series of sediment cores taken from Brown's Lake, a kettle in Northeast Ohio, shows two closely spaced intervals of loess deposition during this time period. The source of loess is uncertain; however, it is likely from an abandoned drainage and former glacial lake basin located to the north of the stagnant ice topography that gave rise to the kettle lake. Strong visual stratigraphy, loss on ignition data and sediment grain size analyses dated with 3 AMS radiocarbon dates place the two intervals of loess deposition between 8950 and 8005 cal yr BP. The possibility of a two-phase abrupt climate change at this time is a finding that has been suggested in other research. This record adds detail to the spatial extent and timing as well as possible structure of the 8.2-ka abrupt climate change event.


2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (47) ◽  
pp. 14522-14526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen B. Springer ◽  
Craig R. Manker ◽  
Jeffrey S. Pigati

Desert wetlands are keystone ecosystems in arid environments and are preserved in the geologic record as groundwater discharge (GWD) deposits. GWD deposits are inherently discontinuous and stratigraphically complex, which has limited our understanding of how desert wetlands responded to past episodes of rapid climate change. Previous studies have shown that wetlands responded to climate change on glacial to interglacial timescales, but their sensitivity to short-lived climate perturbations is largely unknown. Here, we show that GWD deposits in the Las Vegas Valley (southern Nevada, United States) provide a detailed and nearly complete record of dynamic hydrologic changes during the past 35 ka (thousands of calibrated 14C years before present), including cycles of wetland expansion and contraction that correlate tightly with climatic oscillations recorded in the Greenland ice cores. Cessation of discharge associated with rapid warming events resulted in the collapse of entire wetland systems in the Las Vegas Valley at multiple times during the late Quaternary. On average, drought-like conditions, as recorded by widespread erosion and the formation of desert soils, lasted for a few centuries. This record illustrates the vulnerability of desert wetland flora and fauna to abrupt climate change. It also shows that GWD deposits can be used to reconstruct paleohydrologic conditions at millennial to submillennial timescales and informs conservation efforts aimed at protecting these fragile ecosystems in the face of anthropogenic warming.


Eos ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 44-44
Author(s):  
C. J. van der Veen

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 358
Author(s):  
Bruce Vaughn ◽  
Richard B. Alley

2007 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. M. Raisbeck ◽  
F. Yiou ◽  
J. Jouzel ◽  
T. F. Stocker

Abstract. A new, decadally resolved record of the 10Be peak at 41 kyr from the EPICA Dome C ice core (Antarctica) is used to match it with the same peak in the GRIP ice core (Greenland). This permits a direct synchronisation of the climatic variations around this time period, independent of uncertainties related to the ice age-gas age difference in ice cores. Dansgaard-Oeschger event 10 is in the period of best synchronisation and is found to be coeval with an Antarctic temperature maximum. Simulations using a thermal bipolar seesaw model agree reasonably well with the observed relative climate chronology in these two cores. They also reproduce three Antarctic warming events observed between A1 and A2.


2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 3489-3509
Author(s):  
R. Banderas ◽  
J. Álvarez-Solas ◽  
M. Montoya

Abstract. The study of Greenland ice cores revealed two decades ago the abrupt character of glacial millennial-scale climate variability. Several triggering mechanisms have been proposed and confronted against growing proxy-data evidence. Although the implication of North Atlantic deep water (NADW) formation reorganisations seems robust nowadays, their final cause remains unclear. Here, the role of CO2 and Southern Ocean winds is investigated using a coupled model of intermediate complexity in an experimental setup designed such that the climate system resides close to a threshold found in previous studies. An abrupt surface air temperature (SAT) increase over the North Atlantic is simulated in response to increasing atmospheric CO2 levels and/or enhancing southern westerlies. The simulated abrupt warming shows a similar pattern and amplitude over Greenland as registered in ice-core records of Dansgaard-Oeschger (D/O) events. This is accompanied by a strong Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) intensification. The AMOC strengthening is found to be caused by a northward shift of NADW formation sites into the Nordic Seas as a result of an increase in sea surface salinity in the Northeastern Atlantic. The latter is caused by a northward retreat of the sea-ice front in response to higher temperatures. In this way, a new mechanism that is consistent with proxy data is identified by which abrupt climate change can be promoted.


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