scholarly journals Simulated oxygen isotopes in cave drip water and speleothem calcite in European caves

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 1781-1799 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Wackerbarth ◽  
P. M. Langebroek ◽  
M. Werner ◽  
G. Lohmann ◽  
S. Riechelmann ◽  
...  

Abstract. Interpreting stable oxygen isotope (δ18O) records from stalagmites is still one of the complex tasks in speleothem research. Here, we present a novel model-based approach, where we force a model describing the processes and modifications of δ18O from rain water to speleothem calcite (Oxygen isotope Drip water and Stalagmite Model – ODSM) with the results of a state-of-the-art atmospheric general circulation model enhanced by explicit isotope diagnostics (ECHAM5-wiso). The approach is neither climate nor cave-specific and allows an integrated assessment of the influence of different varying climate variables, e.g. temperature and precipitation amount, on the isotopic composition of drip water and speleothem calcite. First, we apply and evaluate this new approach under present-day climate conditions using observational data from seven caves from different geographical regions in Europe. Each of these caves provides measured δ18O values of drip water and speleothem calcite to which we compare our simulated isotope values. For six of the seven caves modeled δ18O values of drip water and speleothem calcite are in good agreement with observed values. The mismatch of the remaining caves might be caused by the complexity of the cave system, beyond the parameterizations included in our cave model. We then examine the response of the cave system to mid-Holocene (6000 yr before present, 6 ka) climate conditions by forcing the ODSM with ECHAM5-wiso results from 6 ka simulations. For a set of twelve European caves, we compare the modeled mid-Holocene-to-modern difference in speleothem calcite δ18O to available measurements. We show that the general European changes are simulated well. However, local discrepancies are found, and might be explained either by a too low model resolution, complex local soil-atmosphere interactions affecting evapotranspiration or by cave specific factors such as non-equilibrium fractionation processes. The mid-Holocene experiment pronounces the potential of the presented approach to analyse δ18O variations on a spatially large (regional to global) scale. Modelled as well as measured European δ18O values of stalagmite samples suggest the presence of a strong, positive mode of the North Atlantic Oscillation at 6 ka before present, which is supported by the respective modelled climate parameters.

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 2777-2817 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Wackerbarth ◽  
P. M. Langebroek ◽  
M. Werner ◽  
G. Lohmann ◽  
S. Riechelmann ◽  
...  

Abstract. Interpreting stable oxygen isotope (δ18O) records from stalagmites is still one of the complex tasks in speleothem research. Here, we present a novel model-based approach, where we force a model describing the processes and modifications of δ18O from rain water to speleothem calcite (Oxygen isotope Drip water and Stalagmite Model – ODSM) with the results of a state-of-the-art atmospheric general circulation model enhanced by explicit isotope diagnostics (ECHAM5-wiso). The approach is neither climate nor cave-specific and allows an integrated assessment of the influence of different varying climate variables, e.g. temperature and precipitation amount, on the isotopic composition of drip water and speleothem calcite. First, we apply and evaluate this new approach under present-day climate conditions using observational data from seven caves from different geographical regions in Europe. Each of these caves provides measured δ18O values of drip water and speleothem calcite to which we compare our simulated isotope values. For six of the seven caves modeled δ18O values of drip water and speleothem calcite are in good agreement with observed values. The mismatch of the remaining cave might be caused by the complexity of the cave system, beyond the parameterizations included in our cave model. We then examine the response of the cave system to mid-Holocene (6000 yr before present, 6 ka) climate conditions by forcing the ODSM with ECHAM5-wiso results from 6 ka simulations. For a set of twelve European caves, we compare the modeled mid-Holocene-to-modern difference in speleothem calcite δ18O to available measurements. We show that the general European changes are simulated well. However, local discrepancies are found, and might be explained either by a too low model resolution, complex local soil-atmosphere interactions affecting evapotranspiration or by cave specific factors such as non-equilibrium fractionation processes.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian G. Mutz ◽  
Todd A. Ehlers

<p>The interpretation of Earth surface archives often requires consideration of distant off-site events. One such event is the surface uplift of Earth’s major mountain ranges, which affects climate and the Earth’s surface globally. In this study, the individual and synergistic climatic effects of topographic changes in major mountain ranges are explored with a series of General Circulation Model (GCM) experiments and analyses of atmospheric teleconnections. The GCM experiments are forced with different topographic scenarios for Himalaya-Tibet (TBT) and the Andes (ADS), while environmental boundary conditions are kept constant. The topographic scenarios are constructed by successively lowering modern topography to 0% of its modern height in increments of 25%. This results in a total of 5 topographic scenarios for TBT (tbt100, tbt075, tbt050, tbt025, tbt000) and ADS (ads100, ads075, ads050, ads025, ads000). TBT scenarios are then nested in ADS scenarios, resulting in a total of 25 experiments with unique topographic settings. The climate for each of those 25 scenarios is simulated with the GCM ECHAM5-wiso. We then explore possible synergies and distant impacts of topographic changes by testing the hypothesis that varying ADS has no effect on simulated climate conditions in the TBT region (c_tbt) and vice versa. This can be expressed as the null hypothesis c_tbt(ads100) = c_tbt(ads075) = c_tbt(ads050) = c_tbt(ads025) = c_tbt(ads000) for each of the 5 TBT scenarios, and vice versa. We conduct Kruskal-Wallis tests for a total of 10 treatment sets to address these hypotheses. The results suggest that ADS climate is mostly independent of TBT topography changes, whereas TBT climate is sensitive to ADS topography changes when TBT topography is high, but insensitive when TBT topography is strongly reduced. Analyses of atmospheric pressure fields suggest that TBT height acts as a control on cross-equatorial atmospheric transport and modifies the impact of ADS topography on northern hemisphere climate. These results dictate a more careful consideration of global (off-site) conditions in the interpretation of Earth surface records.</p>


2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (8) ◽  
pp. 1576-1587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley M. Thomson ◽  
Kevin A. Crowe ◽  
William H. Parker

Optimal breeding zones were developed for white spruce ( Picea glauca (Moench) Voss) in Ontario under present and future climate conditions to examine potential shifts due to climate change. These zones were developed by (i) determining a set of candidate breeding zones based on the relationship between measured performance variables and climate and (ii) employing a decision support model to select subsets of breeding zones that maximize geographic coverage subject to a constraint on the maximum number of zones. Current optimal breeding zones were based on 1961–1990 climate normals, and future breeding zones were based on three general circulation model (CGCM2, HADCM3, and CSIRO) predictions of 2041–2070 climate. Based on a maximum adaptive distance of 2.0 least significant difference values between sites within zones, 14 zones were required to cover the Ontario range of white spruce for the 1961–1990 data. Compared with breeding zones of other boreal conifers, current optimal breeding zones for white spruce were quite large, spanning up to 3° latitude and 10°–12° longitude and indicating large distances of effective seed transfer. Of the three general circulation models used to simulate future climate, HADCM3 B2 and CGCM2 B2 predicted 2041–2070 breeding zones that largely coincide with 1961–1990 zones. In contrast, CSIRO B2 indicated much narrower 2041–2070 breeding zones.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Velautham Daksiya ◽  
Pradeep Mandapaka ◽  
Edmond Y. M. Lo

The impact of changing climate on the frequency of daily rainfall extremes in Jakarta, Indonesia, is analysed and quantified. The study used three different models to assess the changes in rainfall characteristics. The first method involves the use of the weather generator LARS-WG to quantify changes between historical and future daily rainfall maxima. The second approach consists of statistically downscaling general circulation model (GCM) output based on historical empirical relationships between GCM output and station rainfall. Lastly, the study employed recent statistically downscaled global gridded rainfall projections to characterize climate change impact rainfall structure. Both annual and seasonal rainfall extremes are studied. The results show significant changes in annual maximum daily rainfall, with an average increase as high as 20% in the 100-year return period daily rainfall. The uncertainty arising from the use of different GCMs was found to be much larger than the uncertainty from the emission scenarios. Furthermore, the annual and wet seasonal analyses exhibit similar behaviors with increased future rainfall, but the dry season is not consistent across the models. The GCM uncertainty is larger in the dry season compared to annual and wet season.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 741-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Russon ◽  
A. W. Tudhope ◽  
G. C. Hegerl ◽  
M. Collins ◽  
J. Tindall

Abstract. Water isotope-enabled coupled atmosphere/ocean climate models allow for exploration of the relative contributions to coral stable oxygen isotope (δ18Ocoral) variability arising from Sea Surface Temperature (SST) and the isotopic composition of seawater (δ18Osw). The unforced behaviour of the isotope-enabled HadCM3 Coupled General Circulation Model affirms that the extent to which inter-annual δ18Osw variability contributes to that in model δ18Ocoral is strongly spatially dependent, ranging from being negligible in the eastern equatorial Pacific to accounting for 50% of δ18Ocoral variance in parts of the western Pacific. In these latter cases, a significant component of the inter-annual δ18Osw variability is correlated to that in SST, meaning that local calibrations of the effective local δ18Ocoral–SST relationships are likely to be essential. Furthermore, the relationship between δ18Osw and SST in the central and western equatorial Pacific is non-linear, such that the interpretation of model δ18Ocoral in the context of a linear dependence on SST alone may lead to overestimation (by up to 20%) of the SST anomalies associated with large El-Niño events. Intra-model evaluation of a salinity-based pseudo-coral approach shows that such an approach captures the first-order features of the model δ18Osw behaviour. However, the utility of the pseudo-corals is limited by the extent of spatial variability seen within the modelled slopes of the temporal salinity–δ18Osw relationship.


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (14) ◽  
pp. 3769-3788 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Posselt ◽  
U. Lohmann

Abstract. Increased Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) load due to anthropogenic activity might lead to non-precipitating clouds because the cloud drops become smaller (for a constant liquid water content) and, therefore, less efficient in rain formation (aerosol indirect effect). Adding giant CCN (GCCN) into such a cloud can initiate precipitation (namely, drizzle) and, therefore, might counteract the aerosol indirect effect. The effect of GCCN on global climate on warm clouds and precipitation within the ECHAM5 General Circulation Model (GCM) is investigated. Therefore, the newly introduced prognostic rain scheme (Posselt and Lohmann, 2007) is applied so that GCCN are directly activated into rain drops. The ECHAM5 simulations with incorporated GCCN show that precipitation is affected only locally. On the global scale, the precipitation amount does not change. Cloud properties like total water (liquid + rain water) and cloud drop number show a larger sensitivity to GCCN. Depending on the amount of added GCCN, the reduction of total water and cloud drops account for up to 20% compared to the control run without GCCN. Thus, the incorporation of the GCCN accelerate the hydrological cycle so that clouds precipitate faster (but not more) and less condensed water is accumulated in the atmosphere. An estimate of the anthropogenic aerosol indirect effect on the climate is obtained by comparing simulations for present-day and pre-industrial climate. The introduction of the prognostic rain scheme lowered the anthropogenic aerosol indirect effect significantly compared to the standard ECHAM5 with the diagnostic rain scheme. The incorporation of the GCCN changes the model state, especially the cloud properties like TWP and Nl. The precipitation changes only locally but globally the precipitation is unaffected because it has to equal the global mean evaporation rate. Changing the cloud properties leads to a local reduction of the aerosol indirect effect and, hence, partly compensating for the increased anthropogenic CCN concentrations in that regions. Globally, the aerosol indirect effect is nearly the same for all simulations.


2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1543-1557 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Russon ◽  
A. W. Tudhope ◽  
G. C. Hegerl ◽  
M. Collins ◽  
J. Tindall

Abstract. Water isotope-enabled coupled atmosphere–ocean climate models allow for exploration of the relative contributions to coral stable oxygen isotope (δ18Ocoral) variability arising from sea surface temperature (SST) and the isotopic composition of seawater (δ18Osw). The unforced behaviour of the isotope-enabled HadCM3 coupled general circulation model suggests that the extent to which inter-annual δ18Osw variability contributes to that in model δ18Ocoral is strongly spatially dependent, ranging from being negligible in the eastern equatorial Pacific to accounting for 50% of δ18Ocoral variance in parts of the western Pacific. In these latter cases, a significant component of the inter-annual δ18Osw variability is correlated to that in SST, meaning that local calibrations of the effective local δ18Ocoral–SST relationships are likely to be essential. Furthermore, the relationship between δ18Osw and SST can be non-linear, such that the model interpretation of central and western equatorial Pacific δ18Ocoral in the context of a linear dependence on SST alone leads to overestimation (by up to 20%) of the SST anomalies associated with large El Niño events. Intra-model evaluation of a salinity-based pseudo-coral approach shows that such an approach captures the first-order features of the model δ18Osw behaviour. However, the utility of the pseudo-corals is limited by the extent of spatial variability seen within the modelled slopes of the temporal salinity–δ18Osw relationship.


2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (11) ◽  
pp. 2484-2499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akio Kitoh ◽  
Tatsuo Motoi ◽  
Shigenori Murakami

Abstract Modulation of El Niño–Southern Oscillation at the mid-Holocene [6000 yr before present (6 ka)] is investigated with a coupled ocean–atmosphere general circulation model. The model is integrated for 300 yr with 6-ka and present (0 ka) insolation both with and without flux adjustment, and the effect of flux adjustment on the simulation of El Niño is investigated. The response in the equatorial Pacific Ocean in 6 ka is in favor of weaker El Niño variability resulting from lowered sea surface temperature (SST) and a more diffuse thermocline. Atmospheric sensitivity in 6 ka is larger than that in 0 ka because of increased trade winds, while oceanic sensitivity in 6 ka is weaker than that in 0 ka, resulting from destabilization of the upper ocean, both in the flux- and non-flux-adjusted experiments. However, the use of flux adjustment causes a difference in the total response. El Niño variability in 6 ka does not change much from that in 0 ka with the flux-adjusted case, while the 6-ka El Niño variability is weaker without flux adjustment. Because the observed proxy data suggest weaker El Niño variability in the mid-Holocene, the non-flux-adjusted version gives a more reasonable response despite a larger bias in its basic states, implying that nondistortion of sensitivity to forcing is more important.


Author(s):  
Dong-Sin Shih ◽  
Ray-Shyan Wu ◽  
Chung-Yuan Tsai

This paper proposes a method to utilize weather and land cover models to generate future environmental scenarios, and presents the watershed models to simulate the hydrological impact on watershed-scale hydrology. The Weather Generator model and General Circulation Model were applied to produce rainfall and local temperature under different climate conditions, and the Conservation and Land Use and its Effects model was incorporated to simulate future land cover variability. The circumstances of future climate and land cover changes were used as inputs to drive the HEC-HMS rainfall runoff model for obtaining surface runoff in a mountainous area. The WASH123D model was then utilized for the entire watershed simulation. Modeling results were then examined to discuss hydrological impacts on three different time periods: near future (2020-2039), future (2050-2069), and distant future (2080-2099). The Fengshan Creek basin in northern Taiwan was selected as study site. Simulations results indicated that the influence of climate change revealed more relevant effects when compared to local land cover changes. The ground water levels tended to diminish as the land cover area changed. In addition, both river and groundwater levels reveal that it is drier in dry season and wetter in wet season in future.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Gierz ◽  
Gregor Knorr ◽  
Aline Govin ◽  
Emilie Capron ◽  
Nadezhda Sokolova ◽  
...  

Abstract Transitions from glacials to interglacials are the largest climate shifts that occurred during the Quaternary. These glacial terminations are characterized by transient changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and associated alterations in the northward heat transport. It has been a challenge to differentiate between early last interglacial or late penultimate glacial climate conditions at 129-131 ka (thousands of years before present). Neither simulations with a stable interglacial-type nor with a freshwater perturbed AMOC state have reproduced the reconstructed sea surface temperature (SST) fingerprint in the North Atlantic. As previous approaches failed to consider the highly transient nature of the climate system at ~130 ka, the potential of transient, deglaciating AMOC responses and the corresponding impact on North Atlantic SST has yet to be examined. In this study, we employ a fully coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model (AOGCM) equipped with a stable-oxygen isotope module to investigate the underlying AMOC dynamics at the onset of the Last Interglacial (LIG). We demonstrate that successfully capturing both the SST patterns and the calcite δ18O signature in planktonic foraminifera from North Atlantic marine sediment cores necessitates a transiently recovering AMOC. Furthermore, this critically depends on capturing the cold, glacial ocean state prior to the onset of the interglacial.


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