14 research outputs found

    Data descriptor: a global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era

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    Reproducible climate reconstructions of the Common Era (1 CE to present) are key to placing industrial-era warming into the context of natural climatic variability. Here we present a community-sourced database of temperature-sensitive proxy records from the PAGES2k initiative. The database gathers 692 records from 648 locations, including all continental regions and major ocean basins. The records are from trees, ice, sediment, corals, speleothems, documentary evidence, and other archives. They range in length from 50 to 2000 years, with a median of 547 years, while temporal resolution ranges from biweekly to centennial. Nearly half of the proxy time series are significantly correlated with HadCRUT4.2 surface temperature over the period 1850-2014. Global temperature composites show a remarkable degree of coherence between high-and low-resolution archives, with broadly similar patterns across archive types, terrestrial versus marine locations, and screening criteria. The database is suited to investigations of global and regional temperature variability over the Common Era, and is shared in the Linked Paleo Data (LiPD) format, including serializations in Matlab, R and Python. (TABLE) Since the pioneering work of D'Arrigo and Jacoby1-3, as well as Mann et al. 4,5, temperature reconstructions of the Common Era have become a key component of climate assessments6-9. Such reconstructions depend strongly on the composition of the underlying network of climate proxies10, and it is therefore critical for the climate community to have access to a community-vetted, quality-controlled database of temperature-sensitive records stored in a self-describing format. The Past Global Changes (PAGES) 2k consortium, a self-organized, international group of experts, recently assembled such a database, and used it to reconstruct surface temperature over continental-scale regions11 (hereafter, ` PAGES2k-2013'). This data descriptor presents version 2.0.0 of the PAGES2k proxy temperature database (Data Citation 1). It augments the PAGES2k-2013 collection of terrestrial records with marine records assembled by the Ocean2k working group at centennial12 and annual13 time scales. In addition to these previously published data compilations, this version includes substantially more records, extensive new metadata, and validation. Furthermore, the selection criteria for records included in this version are applied more uniformly and transparently across regions, resulting in a more cohesive data product. This data descriptor describes the contents of the database, the criteria for inclusion, and quantifies the relation of each record with instrumental temperature. In addition, the paleotemperature time series are summarized as composites to highlight the most salient decadal-to centennial-scale behaviour of the dataset and check mutual consistency between paleoclimate archives. We provide extensive Matlab code to probe the database-processing, filtering and aggregating it in various ways to investigate temperature variability over the Common Era. The unique approach to data stewardship and code-sharing employed here is designed to enable an unprecedented scale of investigation of the temperature history of the Common Era, by the scientific community and citizen-scientists alike

    Multicentennial Variability of the Sea Surface Temperature Gradient across the Subpolar North Atlantic over the Last 2.8 kyr

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    A 2800-yr-long August sea surface temperature (aSST) record based on fossil diatom assemblages is generated from a marine sediment core from the northern subpolar North Atlantic. The record is compared with the aSST record from the Norwegian Sea to explore the variability of the aSST gradient between these areas during the late Holocene. The aSST records demonstrate the opposite climate tendencies toward a persistent warming in the core site in the subpolar North Atlantic and cooling in the Norwegian Sea. At the multicentennial scale of aSST variability of 600–900 yr, the records are nearly in antiphase with warmer (colder) periods in the subpolar North Atlantic corresponding to the colder (warmer) periods in the Norwegian Sea. At the shorter time scale of 200–450 yr, the records display a phase-locked behavior with a tendency for the positive aSST anomalies in the Norwegian Sea to lead, by ~30 yr, the negative aSST anomalies in the subpolar North Atlantic. This apparent aSST seesaw might have an effect on two major anomalies of the European climate of the past Millennium: Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). During the MWP warming of the sea surface in the Norwegian Sea occurred in parallel with cooling in the northern subpolar North Atlantic, whereas the opposite pattern emerged during the LIA. The results suggest that the observed aSST seesaw between the subpolar North Atlantic and the Norwegian Sea could be a surface expression of the variability of the eastern and western branches of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) with a possible amplification through atmospheric feedback

    Deuterium excess record from a small Arctic ice cap

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    In this paper we present a deuterium excess (d) record from an ice core drilled on a small ice cap in Svalbard in 1997. The core site is located at Lomonosovfonna at 1255 m asl, and the analyzed time series spans the period 1400-1990 A. D. The record shows pronounced multidecadal to centennial-scale variations coherent with sea surface temperature changes registered in the subtropical to southern middle-latitude North Atlantic during the instrumental period. We interpret the negative trend in the deuterium excess during the 1400s and 1500s as an indication of cooling in the North Atlantic associated with the onset of the Little Ice Age. Consistently positive anomalies of d after 1900, peaking at about 1950, correspond with well-documented contemporary warming. Yet the maximum values of deuterium excess during 1900-1990 are not as high as in the early part of the record (pre-1550). This suggests that the sea surface temperatures during this earlier period of time in the North Atlantic to the south of approximately 45 degrees N were at least comparable with those registered in the 20th century before the end of the 1980s. We examine the potential for a cold bias to exist in the deuterium excess record due to increased evaporation from the local colder sources of moisture having isotopically cold signature. It is argued that despite a recent oceanic warming, the contribution from this local moisture to the Lomonosovfonna precipitation budget is still insufficient to interfere with the isotopic signal from the primary moisture region in the midlatitude North Atlantic

    Modelling the regional climate and isotopic composition of Svalbard precipitation using REMOiso: a comparison with available GNIP and ice core data

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    Simulations of a regional (approx. 50 km resolution) circulation model REMOiso with embedded stable water isotope module covering the period 1958-2001 are compared with the two instrumental climate and four isotope series (δ18O) from western Svalbard. We examine the data from ice cores drilled on Svalbard ice caps in 1997 (Lomonosovfonna, 1250 m asl) and 2005 (Holtedahlfonna, 1150 m asl) and the GNIP series from Ny-Ålesund and Isfjord Radio. The surface air temperature (SAT) and precipitation data from Longyearbyen and Ny-Ålesund are used to assess the skill of the model in reproducing the local climate. The model successfully captures the climate variations on the daily to multidecadal times scales although it tends to systematically underestimate the winter SAT. Analysis suggests that REMOiso performs better at simulating isotope compositions of precipitation in the winter than summer. The simulated and measured Holtedahlfonna δ18O series agree reasonably well, whereas no significant correlation has been observed between the modelled and measured Lomonosovfonna ice core isotopic series. It is shown that sporadic nature as well as variability in the amount inherent in precipitation process potentially limits the accuracy of the past SAT reconstruction from the ice core data. This effect in the study area is, however, diminished by the role of other factors controlling δ18O in precipitation, most likely sea ice extent, which is directly related with the SAT anomalies.

    Tropical Pacific–high latitude south Atlantic teleconnections as seen in δ18O variability in Antarctic coastal ice cores

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    We use a network of eight ice cores from coastal Dronning Maud Land (DML), Antarctica, to examine the role of the tropical ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) in the temporal variability of δ 18O in annual accumulation. The longest record from the S100 ice core covering the period 1737–1999 is used to analyze the teleconnections between the tropical Pacific and coastal DML on decadal scales and longer. A shorter stacked coastal DML δ 18O series spanning 1955–1999 is constructed to assess the variability of ENSO teleconnection on interannual scales. Results suggest that, on typical ENSO timescales of 2–6 years, the strength of the teleconnection varies in time, being stronger for years with generally negative phase of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). On the timescales of approximately two decades (bidecadal), positive isotope anomalies are associated with oceanic warming and a westward sea surface temperature (SST) gradient in the equatorial Pacific. Bidecadal variability in SAM, forced by the tropical Pacific, is proposed as a critical element in the teleconnection. Our analysis suggests that a multidecadal positive trend in the annual mean δ 18O values from the analyzed cores can be indicative of the atmospheric warming that begun in this part of the DML already in the 1910s. The trend in δ 18O, quantified in terms of long-term surface air temperature (SAT) changes, is consistent with the instrumental data. Yet, we speculate that the accurate estimation of SAT trends requires an assessment of the potential role of secular SAM and sea ice extent changes in shaping the isotopic signal

    (Table 1) Deuterium excess record during different time periods in Lomonosovfonna ice core

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    Abstract: In this paper we present a deuterium excess (d) record from an ice core drilled on a small ice cap in Svalbard in 1997. The core site is located at Lomonosovfonna at 1255 m asl, and the analyzed time series spans the period 1400-1990 A.D. The record shows pronounced multidecadal to centennial-scale variations coherent with sea surface temperature changes registered in the subtropical to southern middle-latitude North Atlantic during the instrumental period. We interpret the negative trend in the deuterium excess during the 1400s and 1500s as an indication of cooling in the North Atlantic associated with the onset of the Little Ice Age. Consistently positive anomalies of d after 1900, peaking at about 1950, correspond with well-documented contemporary warming. Yet the maximum values of deuterium excess during 1900-1990 are not as high as in the early part of the record (pre-1550). This suggests that the sea surface temperatures during this earlier period of time in the North Atlantic to the south of approximately 45°N were at least comparable with those registered in the 20th century before the end of the 1980s. We examine the potential for a cold bias to exist in the deuterium excess record due to increased evaporation from the local colder sources of moisture having isotopically cold signature. It is argued that despite a recent oceanic warming, the contribution from this local moisture to the Lomonosovfonna precipitation budget is still insufficient to interfere with the isotopic signal from the primary moisture region in the midlatitude North Atlantic. Supplemental Information: Data extracted in the frame of a joint ICSTI/PANGAEA IPY effort, see http://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.150150 Coverage: EVENT LABEL: Lomonosovfonna * LATITUDE: 78.864700 * LONGITUDE: 17.424400 * DATE/TIME: 1997-01-01T00:00:00 * ELEVATION: 1255.0 m * Recovery: 121 m * LOCATION: Svalbard * METHOD/DEVICE: Ice dril

    Dataset: Deuterium excess record during different time periods in Lomonosovfonna ice core

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    In the paper we present a deuterium excess (d) record from an ice core drilled on a small ice cap in Svalbard in 1997. The core site is located at Lomonosovfonna at 1255 m asl, and the analyzed time series spans the period 1400-1990 A.D. The record shows pronounced multidecadal to centennial-scale variations coherent with sea surface temperature changes registered in the subtropical to southern middle-latitude North Atlantic during the instrumental period. We interpret the negative trend in the deuterium excess during the 1400s and 1500s as an indication of cooling in the North Atlantic associated with the onset of the Little Ice Age. Consistently positive anomalies of d after 1900, peaking at about 1950, correspond with well-documented contemporary warming. Yet the maximum values of deuterium excess during 1900-1990 are not as high as in the early part of the record (pre-1550). This suggests that the sea surface temperatures during this earlier period of time in the North Atlantic to the south of approximately 45°N were at least comparable with those registered in the 20th century before the end of the 1980s. We examine the potential for a cold bias to exist in the deuterium excess record due to increased evaporation from the local colder sources of moisture having isotopically cold signature. It is argued that despite a recent oceanic warming, the contribution from this local moisture to the Lomonosovfonna precipitation budget is still insufficient to interfere with the isotopic signal from the primary moisture region in the midlatitude North Atlantic
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