Climate Variations at Millennial Timescales

A special issue of Geosciences (ISSN 2076-3263). This special issue belongs to the section "Climate".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2023) | Viewed by 6031

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, 116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Interests: climage change; speleothem science; U series analysis; geochemistry

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Co-Guest Editor
Department of Geography, Nantong University, Nantong 226007, China
Interests: glacial periods; stable isotopes; millennial-scale climatic events; Asian Monsoon

Special Issue Information

The intensifying effects of climate change on the Earth‘s system and modern life have attracted great attention from the whole world. Studies on the past climate could provide insight into the characteristics and underlying mechanisms of climate variation on different timescales. In particular, the variability of climate change on millennial timescales is a critical issue that is necessary to our understanding of the rapid collapse and rebuilding of the climate and/or the environment over the course of several to one hundred years, a finding that was extensively revealed in marine and terrestrial sediments as well as in ice core records. For example, the well-known Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events in Greenland and Antarctic Isotopic Maximum (AIM) events are thought to be closely related through oceanic and atmospheric systems. In-depth research, however, is still needed to elaborate upon the interaction process between different sub-climate systems on millennial scales.

This Special Issue invites contributions from a broad range of disciplines that use a variety of geologic archives to understand how climate has changed in the past. Such applications can be extended to understanding human adaptation to severe climate change. This Special Issue also welcomes new and novel methods that advance science to help us understand the past and the present climate. This application can help us to obtain high-resolution and/or precisely dated records and to gain knowledge from cutting-edge model simulation work.

Submissions can include original research articles or comprehensive reviews related to the title/description above. Each submission will undergo a formal peer review process, and the acceptance or rejection of the submitted article will be evaluated upon receiving the reviews.

Dr. Xianglei Li
Dr. Yijia Liang
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • millennial-scale events
  • rapid climate change
  • high-resolution records
  • internal interaction
  • phase lead/lag
  • modelling simulation
  • last glacial period
  • climate variabiltiy/stability

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 2703 KiB  
Article
Imprints of Millennial-Scale Monsoonal Events during the MIS3 Revealed by Stalagmite δ13C Records in China
by Rongyu Shen, Peng Zhang, Jiaqi Cong, Jing Liao, Xuelin Luo, Liangcheng Tan, Jinguo Dong and Yijia Liang
Geosciences 2023, 13(5), 136; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences13050136 - 8 May 2023
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Abstract
Regions located on the Chinese Loess Plateau are sensitive to changes in the Asian monsoon because they are on the edge of the monsoon region. Based on six 230Th experiments and 109 sets of stable isotope data of LH36 from Lianhua Cave, [...] Read more.
Regions located on the Chinese Loess Plateau are sensitive to changes in the Asian monsoon because they are on the edge of the monsoon region. Based on six 230Th experiments and 109 sets of stable isotope data of LH36 from Lianhua Cave, Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, we obtained a paleoclimate record with an average resolution of 120 years from 54.5 to 41.1 ka BP during the MIS3 on the Chinese Loess Plateau. Both the Hendy test and the replication test indicated an equilibrium fractionation of stable isotopes during the stalagmite deposition. Comparison with four other independently-dated, high-resolution stalagmite δ13C records between 29°N and 41°N in the Asian monsoon region shows that the stalagmite δ13C records from different caves have good reproducibility during the overlapped growth period. We suggest that speleothem δ13C effectively indicates soil CO2 production in the overlying area of the cave, reflecting changes in the cave’s external environment and in the Asian summer monsoon. Five millennial-scale Asian summer monsoon intensification events correspond to the Dansgaard–Oeschger 10–14 cycles recorded in the Greenland ice core within dating errors, and the weak monsoon processes are closely related to stadials in the North Atlantic. The spatial consistency of stalagmite δ13C records in China suggests that the Asian summer monsoon and the related regional ecological environment fluctuations sensitively respond to climate changes at northern high latitudes through sea-air coupling on the millennial timescale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Variations at Millennial Timescales)
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10 pages, 1830 KiB  
Article
Centennial-Scale Climatic Oscillations during the Dansgaard–Oeschger 14 Revealed by Stalagmite Isotopic Records from Shouyuangong Cave, Southern China
by Shushuang Liu, Zhenqiu Zhang, Xiumin Zhai, Jianshun Chen, Yuanhai Zhang, Ping Long and Zhiqiang Chen
Geosciences 2022, 12(11), 400; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12110400 - 27 Oct 2022
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Abstract
During the last glacial, Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events are mostly characterized by moderate and shorter fluctuations. Here, we present the three-year-resolution stalagmite isotopic record from Shouyuangong Cave (SYG), southern China, revealing a detailed history of Asian summer monsoon (ASM) and local environmental changes during [...] Read more.
During the last glacial, Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events are mostly characterized by moderate and shorter fluctuations. Here, we present the three-year-resolution stalagmite isotopic record from Shouyuangong Cave (SYG), southern China, revealing a detailed history of Asian summer monsoon (ASM) and local environmental changes during the middle and late period of DO 14. During this period, the SYG1 δ18O is characterized by the persistence of centennial-scale oscillations. These centennial δ18O enrichment excursions are clearly mirrored in the δ13C signal. This correlation suggests that changes in soil CO2 production at this site are closely correlated with centennial-scale ASM variability. Furthermore, power spectrum analysis shows that δ18O and δ13C display the common periodicities consistent with solar activity cycles, implicating a control of solar activity on the ASM and soil humidity. Particularly, weak solar activity generally corresponds to weak ASM and a decline in soil CO2 production. One possible link between them is that external forcing controls the ASM intensity via the thermal contrast between the ocean and land. Subsequently, the balance of soil moisture co-varies with the hydrological responses. Finally, the soil CO2 production is further amplified by ecological effect. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Variations at Millennial Timescales)
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22 pages, 3811 KiB  
Article
A Theory of Abrupt Climate Changes: Their Genesis and Anatomy
by Hsien-Wang Ou
Geosciences 2022, 12(11), 391; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences12110391 - 24 Oct 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1704
Abstract
We combine our ice-sheet and climate models to formulate a deductive theory of abrupt climate changes pertaining to Heinrich/Dansgaard–Oeschger (H/DO) cycles and the last deglaciation punctuated by the Younger Dryas (YD). Since they are all accompanied by ice-rafted debris, we posit their common [...] Read more.
We combine our ice-sheet and climate models to formulate a deductive theory of abrupt climate changes pertaining to Heinrich/Dansgaard–Oeschger (H/DO) cycles and the last deglaciation punctuated by the Younger Dryas (YD). Since they are all accompanied by ice-rafted debris, we posit their common origin in the calving of the ice sheet due to a thermal switch at its bed, which naturally endows abruptness to these climate signals of the millennial timescale characteristics of the ice-mass balance. To distinguish the H/DO cycles, we differentiate the thermal triggers by geothermal-heat/surface-melt in the calving of inland/coastal ice, which provide their respective freshwater sources. Since surface-melt requires post-H warmth during the glacial, but is already operative in the Holocene, the DO cycles are encased within the H cycle during the glacial, but self-sustaining in the Holocene. They otherwise share the same time signature, thus resolving this seeming puzzle of commonality without invoking unknown climate forcing. The DO cycles transcend deglaciation to produce the observed sequence, but the calving-induced freshwater flux needs to be boosted by the rerouting of continental meltwater to cause YD. We discern a key process of an eddying ocean in its millennial adjustment toward maximum entropy production (MEP), which would melt the H-induced sea ice to cause an abrupt post-H warming followed by a gradual cooling that anchors the DO cycles to form the hierarchical Bond cycle. Since the modelled anatomies resemble the observed ones, our theory may provide a robust and unified account of abrupt climate changes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Variations at Millennial Timescales)
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