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Abrupt Climate Change (abrupt + climate_change)
Selected AbstractsThe impacts of climate change on the risk of natural disastersDISASTERS, Issue 1 2006Maarten K. Van Aalst Abstract Human emissions of greenhouse gases are already changing our climate. This paper provides an overview of the relation between climate change and weather extremes, and examines three specific cases where recent acute events have stimulated debate on the potential role of climate change: the European heatwave of 2003; the risk of inland flooding, such as recently in Central Europe and Great Britain; and the harsh Atlantic hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005. Furthermore, it briefly assesses the relation between climate change and El Niño, and the potential of abrupt climate change. Several trends in weather extremes are sufficiently clear to inform risk reduction efforts. In many instances, however, the potential increases in extreme events due to climate change come on top of alarming rises in vulnerability. Hence, the additional risks due to climate change should not be analysed or treated in isolation, but instead integrated into broader efforts to reduce the risk of natural disasters. [source] The microstratigraphic record of abrupt climate changes in cave sediments of the Western MediterraneanGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 5 2001Marie-Agnès Courty The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how calcareous sediments from Pleistocene and Holocene rockshelters and open caves of the Western Mediterranean can provide a stratigraphic record of abrupt climate change. The method proposed here is based on microstratigraphic examination of sedimentary sequences using microscopic techniques. The most important processes for characterizing the sensitivity of each cave to climate variables are: (1) the modes and rate of carbonate sediment production, (2) the nature and intensity of the pedogenic processes responsible for the synchronous alteration of carbonate materials (either those derived from the cave walls or those deposited on the ground surface), and (3) the supply of allogenic sediments, particularly by eolian activity. The cave sediment sequences presented record the marked coolings known as Dansgaard-Oeschger stadials and Heinrich events that occurred during the Pleistocene and the Holocene, as demonstrated by the high resolution records from ice and deep sea cores. At Abric Romanì in northeastern Spain, a series of sharp climatic deteriorations of increasing severity is shown to have occurred synchronously with the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, with a period of seasonal frost and strong winds at ca. 37,000 yr B.P., tentatively correlated with Heinrich event 4. At Pigeon Cave, Taforalt (northern Morocco), the transition from the Aterian to Ibero-Maurusian/Epipalaeolithic cultures is dated to around 24,000,20,000 yr B.P. and is punctuated by a series of short cold pulses with evidence for seasonal freezing, soil erosion, and minimal evapotranspiration. In El Miron cave in north-central Spain, the exceptional nature of the Younger Dryas cooling produced a marked destabilization of the cave walls and roof. At El Miron, the stratigraphic evidence for sediment removal due to the rapid percolation of snow melt under a degraded soil cover allows us to reconstruct the nature of the negative excursion at ca. 8200 yr B.P. This example also illustrates how climate-controlled pedogenic processes can create a stratigraphic signature which has often been confused with a sedimentary hiatus. We conclude that cave sediments provide a valuable record of Pleistocene and Holocene climate changes. In appropriate contexts, these sequences allow us to examine the ecological stress generated by these unique global events at a local and regional level and improve our understanding of the complex anthropological processes that occurred at the same time. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] The chronology of abrupt climate change and Late Upper Palaeolithic human adaptation in Europe,JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE, Issue 5 2006S. P. E. Blockley Abstract This paper addresses the possible connections between the onset of human expansion in Europe following the Last Glacial Maximum, and the timing of abrupt climate warming at the onset of the Lateglacial (Bölling/Allerød) Interstadial. There are opposing views as to whether or not human populations and activities were directly ,forced' by climate change, based on different comparisons between archaeological and environmental data. We review the geochronological assumptions and approaches on which data comparisons have been attempted in the past, and argue that the uncertainties presently associated with age models based on calibrated radiocarbon dates preclude robust testing of the competing models, particularly when comparing the data to non-radiocarbon-based timescales such as the Greenland ice core records. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to the steps that will be necessary if more robust tests of the models are to be developed in the future. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The microstratigraphic record of abrupt climate changes in cave sediments of the Western MediterraneanGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 5 2001Marie-Agnès Courty The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how calcareous sediments from Pleistocene and Holocene rockshelters and open caves of the Western Mediterranean can provide a stratigraphic record of abrupt climate change. The method proposed here is based on microstratigraphic examination of sedimentary sequences using microscopic techniques. The most important processes for characterizing the sensitivity of each cave to climate variables are: (1) the modes and rate of carbonate sediment production, (2) the nature and intensity of the pedogenic processes responsible for the synchronous alteration of carbonate materials (either those derived from the cave walls or those deposited on the ground surface), and (3) the supply of allogenic sediments, particularly by eolian activity. The cave sediment sequences presented record the marked coolings known as Dansgaard-Oeschger stadials and Heinrich events that occurred during the Pleistocene and the Holocene, as demonstrated by the high resolution records from ice and deep sea cores. At Abric Romanì in northeastern Spain, a series of sharp climatic deteriorations of increasing severity is shown to have occurred synchronously with the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, with a period of seasonal frost and strong winds at ca. 37,000 yr B.P., tentatively correlated with Heinrich event 4. At Pigeon Cave, Taforalt (northern Morocco), the transition from the Aterian to Ibero-Maurusian/Epipalaeolithic cultures is dated to around 24,000,20,000 yr B.P. and is punctuated by a series of short cold pulses with evidence for seasonal freezing, soil erosion, and minimal evapotranspiration. In El Miron cave in north-central Spain, the exceptional nature of the Younger Dryas cooling produced a marked destabilization of the cave walls and roof. At El Miron, the stratigraphic evidence for sediment removal due to the rapid percolation of snow melt under a degraded soil cover allows us to reconstruct the nature of the negative excursion at ca. 8200 yr B.P. This example also illustrates how climate-controlled pedogenic processes can create a stratigraphic signature which has often been confused with a sedimentary hiatus. We conclude that cave sediments provide a valuable record of Pleistocene and Holocene climate changes. In appropriate contexts, these sequences allow us to examine the ecological stress generated by these unique global events at a local and regional level and improve our understanding of the complex anthropological processes that occurred at the same time. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] Rhone River flood deposits in Lake Le Bourget: a proxy for Holocene environmental changes in the NW Alps, FranceBOREAS, Issue 4 2005Emmanuel Chapron The Holocene evolution of Rhone River clastic sediment supply in Lake Le Bourget is documented by sub-bottom seismic profiling and multidisciplinary analysis of well-dated sediment cores. Six high-amplitude reflectors within the lacustrine drape can be correlated to periods of enhanced inter- and underflow deposition in sediment cores. Based on the synthesis of major environmental changes in the NW Alps and on the age-depth model covering the past 7500 years in Lake Le Bourget, periods of enhanced Rhone River flood events in the lake can be related to abrupt climate changes and/or to increasing land use since c. 2700 cal. yr BP. For example, significant land use under rather stable climate conditions during the Roman Empire may be responsible for large flood deposits in the northern part of Lake Le Bourget between AD 966 and 1093. However, during the Little Ice Age (LIA), well-documented major environmental changes in the catchment area essentially resulted from climate change and formed basin-wide major flood deposits in Lake Le Bourget. Up to five ,LIA-like' Holocene cold periods developing enhanced Rhone River flooding activity in Lake Le Bourget are documented at c. 7200, 5200, 2800, 1600 and 200 cal. yr BP. These abrupt climate changes were associated in the NW Alps with Mont Blanc glacier advances, enhanced glaciofluvial regimes and high lake levels. Correlations with European lake level fluctuations and winter precipitation regimes inferred from glacier fluctuations in western Norway suggest that these five Holocene cooling events at 45°N were associated with enhanced westerlies, possibly resulting from a persistent negative mode of the North Atlantic Oscillation. [source] East Asian monsoon instability at the stage 5a/4 transitionBOREAS, Issue 2 2002SHANGFA XIONG The physics involved in the abrupt climate changes of the late Quaternary have eluded paleoclimatologists for many years. More paleoclimatic records characteristic of different elements of the global climate system are needed for better understanding of the cause-feedback relationships in the system. The East Asian monsoon is an important part of the global climate system and the mechanical links between the East Asian monsoon and other climatic elements around the world may hold a key to our knowledge of abrupt climate changes in East Asia and probably over a larger part of the globe. Previous studies have detected millennial-scale winter monsoon oscillations during the last glaciation and probably also during the last interglaciation in loess sequences across China. However, less attention has been paid to the abrupt summer monsoon changes and the stage 5a/4 transition, an important period for the evolution of the East Asian monsoon when the global climate shifted towards the last glaciation. Here we report on two loess sections from eastern China which were dated using a thermoluminescence (TL) technique. The pedogenic and other sediment parameters suggest that the summer monsoon experienced a two-step abrupt retreat at the stage 5a/4 transition. The variations in the proxies for the winter monsoon are synchronized with the summer monsoon proxies during this brief interval, implying a direct and immediate link between high latitude and low latitude mechanisms. These changes may be correlated with similar climatic oscillations observed in the North Atlantic, Europe and Antarctica, raising the possibility that the forcing factors that induced these changes are global in extent. [source] | |||||||||||||