Search results for "Climate"

Productivity modes in the Mediterranean Sea during Dansgaard–Oeschger (20,000–70,000 yr ago) oscillations

2013

The study of planktonic organisms during abrupt climatic variations of the last glacial period (Dansgaard-Oeschger oscillations, D-O) may reveal important insights on climatic, oceanographic and biological interactions. Here we present planktic foraminifera and coccolithophore data collected at the Ocean Drilling Program Site 963 (Sicily Channel), with a mean sampling resolution of respectively 43.5 and 98.9. yr, over the interval between 70,000 and 20,000. yr ago. The paleoenvironmental reconstruction suggests that three different scenarios can be seen across each D-O cycle: 1. oligotrophic surface water and a deep thermocline for the early Interstadials; 2. a Deep Chlorophyll Maximum and …

2021

Abstract. The collection of modern, spatially extensive pollen data is important for the interpretation of fossil pollen assemblages and the reconstruction of past vegetation communities in space and time. Modern datasets are readily available for percentage data but lacking for pollen accumulation rates (PARs). Filling this gap has been the motivation of the pollen monitoring network, whose contributors monitored pollen deposition in modified Tauber traps for several years or decades across Europe. Here we present this monitoring dataset consisting of 351 trap locations with a total of 2742 annual samples covering the period from 1981 to 2017. This dataset shows that total PAR is influence…

Mammalian Faunas as Indicators of Environmental and Climatic Changes in Spain during the Pliocene–Quaternary Transition

1999

The study of mammal communities provides useful knowledge of paleoenvironments and paleoclimates during the Quaternary Period, and better documentation about the main fossil sites is making this task easier. Paleoecological reconstructions of this study are based on (i) rodent evolution and species richness, (ii) the cenogram method, and (iii) methods for quantifying climatic parameters. These analyses applied to a Pliocene–Quaternary faunal sequence of Spain indicate that a climatic change occurred at the end of the Pliocene when considerable cooling led to the onset of the glacial–interglacial cycles. Subsequently, during the Quaternary Period, alternating environmental patterns occurred,…

The response of flood-plain ecosystems to the Late Glacial and Early Holocene hydrological changes: A case study from a small Central European river …

2016

Abstract We use a range of environmental variables to explore the possible drivers influencing the biota, especially the composition of aquatic invertebrates, during the Younger Dryas (YD) and Early Holocene (EH) in different river valley sites: a well-developed meandering river and the confluence zone of headwater streams. Using pollen, macrofossil, cladoceran, and chironomid as well as geochemical and lithological data as proxies for environmental factors (i.e., water depth and temperature), we attempt to show that these different sites display similar hydroclimatic signals (especially floods). The geochemical records in the studied valley are correlated with environmental factors, such a…

El Niño variability off Peru during the last 20,000 years

2005

Here we present a high-resolution marine sediment record from the El Nino region off the coast of Peru spanning the last 20,000 years. Sea surface temperature, photosynthetic pigments, and a lithic proxy for El Nino flood events on the continent are used as paleo–El Nino–Southern Oscillation proxy data. The onset of stronger El Nino activity in Peru started around 17,000 calibrated years before the present, which is later than modeling experiments show but contemporaneous with the Heinrich event 1. Maximum El Nino activity occurred during the early and late Holocene, especially during the second and third millennium B.P. The recurrence period of very strong El Nino events is 60–80 years. El…

Globorotalia truncatulinoides in Central - Western Mediterranean Sea during the Little Ice Age

2020

Abstract Globorotalia truncatulinoides oscillations have been recorded from different marine sediment cores collected in the central and western Mediterranean Sea. The abundances of this species over the last 500 yrs. demonstrates its potential value as bio-indicator of particular oceanographic condition during the Maunder Minimum (MM) event of the Little Ice Age (LIA). The comparison between the G. truncatulinoides abundance patterns of the Balearic Basin, central and south Tyrrhenian Sea and central and eastern Sicily Channel allows to highlight a similar response of this species during the MM event in the central-western Mediterranean Sea. The ecological meanings of this species and its …

2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility

2011

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 similar to 250 to 6…

Orbital forcing of tree-ring data

2012

Based on an analysis of maximum latewood density data from northern Scandinavia, along with published dendrochronological records, this study finds evidence that previous tree-ring-reliant reconstructions of large-scale near-surface air temperature underestimated long-term pre-industrial warmth during Medieval and Roman times. Solar insolation changes, resulting from long-term oscillations of orbital configurations1, are an important driver of Holocene climate2,3. The forcing is substantial over the past 2,000 years, up to four times as large as the 1.6 W m−2 net anthropogenic forcing since 1750 (ref. 4), but the trend varies considerably over time, space and with season5. Using numerous hi…

Vegetation response to abrupt climate changes in Western Europe from 45 to 14.7k cal a BP: the Bergsee lacustrine record (Black Forest, Germany)

2017

Carbon and oxygen stable isotope compositions of late Pleistocene mammal teeth from dolines of Ajoie (Northwestern Switzerland)

2014

AbstractFossils of megaherbivores from eight late Pleistocene 14C- and OSL-dated doline infillings of Ajoie (NW Switzerland) were discovered along the Transjurane highway in the Swiss Jura. Carbon and oxygen analyses of enamel were performed on forty-six teeth of large mammals (Equus germanicus, Mammuthus primigenius, Coelodonta antiquitatis, and Bison priscus), coming from one doline in Boncourt (~ 80 ka, marine oxygen isotope stage MIS5a) and seven in Courtedoux (51–27 ka, late MIS3), in order to reconstruct the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions of the region. Similar enamel δ13C values for both periods, ranging from − 14.5 to − 9.2‰, indicate that the megaherbivores lived i…