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showing 10 items of 36149 documents
Identification of processes that control the stable isotope composition of rainwater in the humid tropical West-Central Africa.
2020
12 pages; International audience; This study interprets 11 years (2006 to 2016) and 6 months (March to August in 2017) of respectively monthly and daily isotopic (δD and δ18O) monitoring of rain at Douala (Cameroon), a humid tropical station in Western Africa. The main scope is to analyze the climate controls on precipitation isotopes at different timescales. Firstly, we examine the annual cycles of δ18O. Over the 11 years of survey, the annual cycle exhibits a W shape that is quite reproducible from year to year, with two minima in spring and autumn periods. Based on back trajectory calculations and remote sensing observations of water vapor isotopic composition, we show that the observed …
A global palaeoclimatic reconstruction for the Valanginian based on clay mineralogical and geochemical data
2020
International audience; High-resolution clay mineral and δ18Ocarb analyses have been performed on three sections of Valanginian age (Early Cretaceous), from northwestern (~20–30°N) and southern (~53°S) Tethyan realms. The data have been integrated in a large set of published mineralogical (clays), and geochemical (δ18Ocarb, δ18Obivalve, δ18Olenticulina, δ18Obelemnite, and TEX86) data from 17 sections, situated between ~45°N and ~53°S. Based on this data set, we provide new insights into Valanginian climate conditions from a wide range of palaeolatitudes. We highlight climate trends within specific areas and identify main climate belts. In the Proto-North Atlantic realm (~15–17°N) large amou…
Insolation cycles as a major control equatorial Indian Ocean primary production
1997
Analysis of a continuous sedimentary record taken in the Maldives indicates that strong primary production fluctuations (70 to 390 grams of carbon per square meter per year) have occurred in the equatorial Indian Ocean during the past 910,000 years. The record of primary production is coherent and in phase with the February equatorial insolation, whereas it shows diverse phase behavior with δ 18 O, depending on the orbital frequency (eccentricity, obliquity, or precession) examined. These observations imply a direct control of productivity in the equatorial oceanic system by insolation. In the equatorial Indian Ocean, productivity is driven by the wind intensity of westerlies, which is rel…
A sea surface temperature reconstruction for the southern Indian Ocean trade wind belt from corals in Rodrigues Island (19°S, 63°E)
2016
Abstract. The western Indian Ocean has been warming rapidly over recent decades, causing a greater number of extreme climatic events. It is therefore of paramount importance to improve our understanding of links between Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) variability, climate change and sustainability of tropical coral reef ecosystems. Here we present monthly resolved coral Sr ∕ Ca records from two different locations from Rodrigues Island (63° E, 19° S) in the south-central Indian Ocean trade wind belt. We reconstruct SST based on a linear relationship with the Sr ∕ Ca proxy with records starting from 1781 and 1945, respectively. We assess relationships between the observed long-ter…
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…
History of ancient megathrust earthquakes beneath metropolitan Tokyo inferred from coastal lowland deposits
2018
Abstract Metropolitan Tokyo is located directly above a subduction zone that has generated two megathrust earthquakes in the past 300 years. However, the timing of older megathrusts on this margin is poorly understood. In this study, we aim to constrain the timings of past megathrust earthquakes, using coastal stratigraphy, paleoecology, radiocarbon dating and archaeological records from coastal lowlands. An investigation of 13 boreholes in the southern coastal area of metropolitan Tokyo found evidence for 4 m of uplift in a 6000-year period. However, we found that net vertical displacement in the last 1000 years is approximately zero. Results suggest that preservation of usually ephemeral …
The response of a shallow lake and its catchment to Late Glacial climate changes — A case study from eastern Poland
2015
In this study we investigate how climate fluctuation in the Late Glacial period influenced the development of a lake and its catchment located in the East European Plain. We analyzed the sediments of the lake for pollen, subfossil Cladocera, macrofossils and chemical composition. We aimed at disentangling: (1) the climate changes and their limno-ecological responses, (2) temperature dynamics with the use of Cladocera-based transfer function (MJT) and macrofossil-based reconstruction of mean minimum July temperature (MMJT), (3) timing of the response of different proxies to environmental changes. The results of multiproxy analyses explicitly suggest that the main driver for changes in aquati…
Winter climate signal in boreal clastic-biogenic varves : a comprehensive analysis of three varved records from 1890 to 1990 AD with meteorological a…
2017
Clastic-biogenic varves are widely used for reconstructing past climate: in boreal environments, the accumulation of minerogenic clasts on the lake floor is generally considered a proxy for past variations in spring floods reflecting previous winter conditions. However, the physical mechanisms behind this winter climate sensitivity and the influence of catchment type on the varve formation are not fully investigated. Here, we present a winter climate record inferred from the clastic laminae of three lakes located on the region of fine-grained tills in Eastern Finland spanning from AD 1890 to 1990. The minerogenic varve data are compared with instrumental meteorological and hydrological time…
Shell sclerochronology and stable isotopes of the bivalve Anomalocardia flexuosa (Linnaeus, 1767) from southern Brazil: Implications for environmenta…
2017
Abstract This study presents the first stable isotopic and sclerochronological calibration of the bivalve Anomalocardia flexuosa (Linnaeus, 1767) in relation to environmental variables in a subtropical coastal area of southern Brazil. We investigate incremental shell growth patterns and δ18O and δ13C values of modern specimens collected alive from the Laguna Lagoonal System (LLS). Shells of Anomalocardia flexuosa are also one of the main biological components of pre-Columbian archaeological shell mounds and middens distributed along the Brazilian coastline. We therefore selected archaeological specimens from a local late Holocene shell mound (Cabecuda) to compare their stable carbon and oxy…
The paramount power of selection: From Darwin to Kauffman
1995
For approximately two decades now, the Darwinian interpretation of evolution has now been challenged in many ways. Modern criticisms make it difficult, even for the staunchest Darwinians, not to take a distance from Darwin’s bold phrases on the “power” of natural selection. Let me remind you of some famous declarations of Darwin on the subject: “It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and i…