eastern North Atlantic and Europe back to 1500
Luterbacher et al., Climate Dynamics,
18, 545-561, 2002.
Reconstructions of gridded monthly sea level pressure (SLP) fields were developed using principal component regression analysis, based on the combination of early instrumental station series (pressure, temperature and precipitation) and documentary proxy data from Eurasian sites. An EOF analysis of the 1500-1999 winter SLP revealed, firstly, a zonal flow pattern with pronounced decadal to centenial time scale variations, secondly, a monopole pattern over northwest Europe and thirdly, a pattern modulating the meridional flow component over Europe.
Glueck and Stockton, International Journal of Climatology,
Volume 21, Issue 12, pp. 1453-1465, 2001.
The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is considered to be the dominant mode of winter atmospheric variability in the North Atlantic region. A 555-year (1429-1983) multi-proxy reconstruction of the cool season NAO, calibrated against the Lisbon-Iceland (LISJHI) NAO, is presented. Results suggest that the recent persistently high phase of the NAO are not unusual over the 555-year period of time, but that the magnitude of some of the instrumental values may be unique.
Through a Glacial-Interglacial Cycle
Tudhope et al. Science, v.291, pp 1511-1517, February 23, 2001.
Annually banded corals from Papua New Guinea show that ENSO has existed for the past 130,000 years, operating even during "glacial" times of substantially reduced regional and global temperature and changed solar forcing. During the 20th century, ENSO has been strong compared with ENSO of previous cool (glacial) and warm (interglacial) times.
Updated 2001 version of the database includes 837 sites worldwide. The database project has as its goal the design, assembly, analysis and interpretation of geothermal observations on continents relevant to understanding the nature and causes of climate change over the past five centuries.
for the Last 500 Years
Robertson et al. Journal of Geophysical Research, July 27, 2001: 14,783
A new compilation of annually resolved time series of atmospheric trace gas concentrations, solar irradiance, tropospheric aerosol optical depth, and stratospheric (volcanic) aerosol optical depth is presented for use in climate modeling studies of the period 1500 to 1999 A.D.
Maxima Linked to Climate Change on Land
Herbert et al. Science, July 6 2001: 71-76
Time series of alkenone unsaturation indices gathered along the California margin reveal large (4� to 8�C) glacial-interglacial changes in sea surface temperature (SST) over the past 550,000 years. Glacial warming along the California margin is a regional signal of the weakening of the California Current. Both the timing and magnitude of the SST estimates suggest that the Devils Hole (Nevada) calcite record represents regional but not global paleotemperatures, and hence does not pose a fundamental challenge to the orbital ("Milankovitch") theory of the Ice Ages.
Inspired by a recent workshop on Atlantic Basin Paleohurricane Reconstructions from High Resolution Records, this new series of webpages includes references, links and contact information relevant to this emerging cross-disciplinary field involving severe tropical storms in a paleoclimate and historical context.
Bonnefille and Chali� Global and Planetary Change, v.26, November 2000.
Palaeoclimatic estimates of mean annual rainfall in the equatorial highlands of Central East Africa have been established for the last 40 kyr, inferred from nine fossil pollen sequences. Large variations between low and high precipitation values are indicated over the past 4000 years.
Pederson et al. Journal of Climate, v.14, Number 5, March 2001.
Reconstructions of annual precipitation and streamflow, 345 years in length (AD 1651-1995), are presented for northeastern Mongolia based on tree-ring width data. There appear to be more frequent extended wet periods during the 20th century. Spectral analysis reveals statistically significant peaks which may reflect solar influences on the climate of Mongolia.
Dr. Janice Lough and colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science contributed skeletal extension, density, and calcification data from 35 coral cores along the entire length of the Great Barrier Reef, plus the Isdale et al. riverflow reconstruction for the Burdekin River, Queensland, based on coral fluorescence data.
Dr. Fritz Schweingruber and colleagues at WSL-Birmensdorf (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research) have recently made the largest data contribution in the history of The International Tree-Ring Data Bank. The data set contains nearly 500 sites from around the world, including ring width and wood density measurements, and site chronologies.
Data from the North American Plant Macrofossil Database are available in ASCII, Lotus (.wk1), or Tilia 2.0 format. To find the data of interest to you, use WebMapper for map-based searches, or our Search Engine for text-based searches.
Thompson et al. Science, v.282(5295), 1858-1864, 1998.
Ice cores that were recovered from the summit of Sajama mountain in Bolivia provide carbon-14-dated tropical records and extend to the Late Glacial Stage (LGS). Oxygen isotopic ratios of the ice decreased 5.4 per mil between the Early Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum, which is consistent with values from other ice cores. The abrupt onset and termination of a Younger Dryas-type event suggest atmospheric processes as the probable drivers. Regional accumulation increased during the LGS, during deglaciation and over the past 3000 years, which is concurrent with higher water levels in regional paleolakes. Unlike polar cores, Sajama glacial ice contains eight times less dust than the Holocene ice, which reflects wetter conditions and extensive snow cover.
Thompson et al. Science, v.269, 46-50, 1995.
Two ice cores from the col of Huascar�n in the northcentral Andes of Peru contain a paleoclimatic history extending well into the Wisconsinan (W�rm) Glacial Stage and include evidence of the Younger Dryas cool phase. Glacial stage conditions at high elevations in the tropics appear as much as 8-12°C cooler, the atmosphere was 200 times dustier, and the Amazon Basin forest cover may have been 40 to 50% less extensive. Differences in both del18O (8 per mil) and deuterium excess (4.5 per mil) from the Late Glacial Stage (LGS) to the Holocene are comparable with polar ice core records. These data imply that the tropical Atlantic was possibly 5-6°C cooler during the LGS, that the climate was warmest from 8400 to 5200 yr BP, and that it cooled gradually culminating with the Little Ice Age (200-500 yr BP). A strong warming has dominated the last two centuries.
the last glacial termination
Monnin et al. Science, v.291, 112-114, 5 January 2001.
A record of atmospheric CO2 concentration during the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene, obtained from the Dome Concordia (Antarctica) ice core, reveals that an increase of 76 parts per million by volume (ppmv) occurred over a period of 6 thousand years in four clearly distinguishable intervals. The close correlation between CO2 concentration and Antarctic temperature indicates that the Southern Ocean played an important role in causing the CO2 increase.
Antarctica and Greenland during the last glacial period
Blunier and Brook Science, v.291, 109-112, 5 January 2001.
A precise relative chronology for Greenland and West Antarctic paleotemperature is extended to 90,000 years ago, based on correlation of atmospheric methane records from the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 and Byrd ice cores. Over this period, the onset of seven major millennial-scale warmings in Antarctica preceded the onset of Greenland warmings by 1500 to 3000 years.
Biondi et al. Journal of Climate, v.14, Number 1, January 2001.
Climate in the North Pacific and North American sectors has experienced interdecadal shifts during the 20th century. A network of recently developed tree-ring chronologies for Southern and Baja California extends the instrumental record, and reveals decadal-scale variability back to AD 1661. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is closely matched by the dominant mode of tree-ring variability, which provides a preliminary view of multi-annual climate fluctuations spanning the past four centuries.
Contact UsNOAA Paleoclimatology Program
23 January 2002