Search results for "lcsh:TD172-193.5"
showing 10 items of 24 documents
The impact of the Little ice age on coccolithophores in the central Mediterranea Sea
2010
The Little Ice Age (LIA) is the last episode of a series of Holocene climatic anomalies. There is still little knowledge on the response of the marine environment to the pronounced cooling of the LIA and to the transition towards the 20th century global warming. Here we present decadal-scale coccolithophore data from four short cores recovered from the central Mediterranean Sea (northern Sicily Channel and Tyrrhenian Sea), which on the basis of <sup>210</sup>Pb activity span the last 200–350 years. The lowermost part of the record of one of the cores from the Sicily Channel, Station 407, which extends down to 1650 AD, is characterized by drastic changes in productivity. Specific…
LANDFILL SITE SELECTION FOR MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE BY USING AHP METHOD IN GIS ENVIRONMENT: WASTE MANAGEMENT DECISION-SUPPORT IN SICILY (ITALY)
2018
The goal of this work was to test a methodology, based on multi-criteria analysis and geographic information systems, aimed at identifying areas potentially suitable to host landfills for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). Although the above-mentioned methodology was applied to three different areas (Western, South-western and Eastern) of Sicily, in this paper, we present the results of the western sector. The first step consisted of the division of the study area in excluded and potentially suitable sites, on the basis of the Italian current legislation. The suitable sites were subsequently re-evaluated based on additional criteria in order to choose the most suitable ones. This second step cons…
Seasonal changes in glacial polynya activity inferred from Weddell Sea varves
2013
Abstract. The Weddell Sea and the associated Filchner–Rønne Ice Shelf constitute key regions for global bottom-water production today. However, little is known about bottom-water production under different climate and ice-sheet conditions. Therefore, we studied core PS1795, which consists primarily of fine-grained siliciclastic varves that were deposited on contourite ridges in the southeastern Weddell Sea during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). We conducted high-resolution X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis and grain-size measurements with the RADIUS tool (Seelos and Sirocko, 2005) using thin sections to characterize the two seasonal components of the varves at sub-mm resolution to distingui…
An extra-urban soil cadastre for Italy: a first guide for the introduction of soil information
2020
Assuming a positive outcome of the parliamentary procedure for laws and, thus, the transformation of the official cadastre for buildings and land into a soil cadastre (urban, extra-urban and cadastre for the conservation of natural or semi-natural soil diversity) would start a new era for pedology. Finally, after many decades of activity to expand soil culture in Italy, almost all Italian families would be in contact with a soil specialist. Land use and redefined plots would be handled with greater care and responsibility. Experts in agricultural and forestry and biodiversity conservation would have a new impetus in their activity. Furthermore, economists will also have to address new issue…
Regional climate model simulations for Europe at 6 and 0.2 k BP: sensitivity to changes in anthropogenic deforestation
2014
International audience; This study aims to evaluate the direct effects of anthropogenic deforestation on simulated climate at two contrasting periods in the Holocene, ∼ 6 and ∼ 0.2 k BP in Eu-rope. We apply the Rossby Centre regional climate model RCA3, a regional climate model with 50 km spatial resolution, for both time periods, considering three alternative descriptions of the past vegetation: (i) potential natural vegetation (V) simulated by the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS, (ii) potential vegetation with anthro-pogenic land use (deforestation) from the HYDE3.1 (History Database of the Global Environment) scenario (V + H3.1), and (iii) potential vegetation with anthropogenic land …
The magnesium isotope record of cave carbonate archives
2012
Here we explore the potential of magnesium (&delta;<sup>26</sup>Mg) isotope time-series data as continental climate proxies in speleothem calcite archives. For this purpose, a total of six Pleistocene and Holocene stalagmites from caves in Germany, Morocco and Peru and two flowstones from a cave in Austria were investigated. These caves represent the semi-arid to arid (Morocco), the warm-temperate (Germany), the equatorial-humid (Peru) and the cold-humid (Austria) climate zones. Changes in the calcite magnesium isotope signature with time are compared against carbon and oxygen isotope records from these speleothems. Similar to other proxies, the non-trivial interaction of a …
The reconstruction of easterly wind directions for the Eifel region (Central Europe) during the period 40.3–12.9 ka BP
2010
Abstract. A high resolution continuous reconstruction of last glacial wind directions is based on provenance analysis of eolian sediments in a sediment core from the Dehner dry Maar in the Eifel region (Germany). This Maar is suitable to archive easterly wind directions due to its location west of the Devonian carbonate basins of the Eifel-North-South-Zone. Thus, eolian sediments with high clastic carbonate content can be interpreted as an east wind signal. The detection of such east wind sediments is applied by a new module of the RADIUS grain size analyze technique. The investigated time period from 40.3–12.9 ka BP can be subclassified in three units: The first unit covers the periods of …
Blue intensity and density from northern Fennoscandian tree rings, exploring the potential to improve summer temperature reconstructions with earlywo…
2014
Abstract. Here we explore two new tree-ring parameters, derived from measurements of wood density and blue intensity (BI). The new proxies show an increase in the interannual summer temperature signal compared to established proxies, and present the potential to improve long-term performance. At high latitudes, where tree growth is mainly limited by low temperatures, radiodensitometric measurements of wood density, specifically maximum latewood density (MXD), provides a temperature proxy that is superior to that of tree-ring widths. The high cost of developing MXD has led to experimentation with a less expensive method using optical flatbed scanners to produce a new proxy, herein referred t…
Temperature variability in the Iberian Range since 1602 inferred from tree-ring records
2017
Abstract. Tree rings are an important proxy to understand the natural drivers of climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin and hence to improve future climate scenarios in a vulnerable region. Here, we compile 316 tree-ring width series from 11 conifer sites in the western Iberian Range. We apply a new standardization method based on the trunk basal area instead of the tree cambial age to develop a regional chronology which preserves high- to low-frequency variability. A new reconstruction for the 1602–2012 period correlates at −0.78 with observational September temperatures with a cumulative mean of the 21 previous months over the 1945–2012 calibration period. The new IR2Tmax reconstr…
Bunker Cave stalagmites: an archive for central European Holocene climate variability
2012
Holocene climate was characterised by variability on multi-centennial to multi-decadal time scales. In central Europe, these fluctuations were most pronounced during winter. Here we present a record of past winter climate variability for the last 10.8 ka based on four speleothems from Bunker Cave, western Germany. Due to its central European location, the cave site is particularly well suited to record changes in precipitation and temperature in response to changes in the North Atlantic realm. We present high-resolution records of &delta;<sup>18</sup>O, &delta;<sup>13</sup>C values and Mg/Ca ratios. Changes in the Mg/Ca ratio are attributed to past meteoric p…