U.S. Earth System History Science
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PAGES International Project Offi ce Sulgeneckstrasse 38 3007 Bern Switzerland Tel: +41 31 312 31 33 Fax: +41 31 312 31 68 [email protected] Text Editing: Leah Christen News Layout: Christoph Kull Julie Brigham-Grette, Christoph Kull and Circulation: 3700 Thorsten Kiefer, Editors VOL.14, N°2 – AUGUST 2006 U.S. Earth System History Science An unusual debris ladened iceberg photographed off the coast of East Greenland close to the site of JM96- 1205 (see Fig. 1 on page 8). It appears that the iceberg has turned over thus revealing what was probably the basal debris zone of a tidewater outlet glacier (photographer: Anne E. Jennings, Sept. 1996). Contents 2 Announcements www.pages-igbp.org - Editorial: U.S. Earth System History Program - Models and abrupt climate change - Inside PAGES - Late Holocene hydrologic variability in - PAGES-LOTRED-SA meeting in Argentina North American peatlands 3 Program News 29 Science Highlights (open section) - DAYACLIM: A Sahara climate program - San Valentin Glacier ice core (Chile) - Holocene climate change (Yemen) 4 National Page - Climate and human evolution (Africa) - Indonesia - Surface temperatures over the past two millennia 5 ESH Science Highlights - East Pacifi c production during the 37 Workshop Reports last deglaciation - HOLIVAR open science meeting - UK - Holocene IRD in the North Atlantic - PAGES/CLIVAR workshop - Switzerland - Dendrochronology and the Asian Monsoon - ICDP workshop PASADO - Argentina - Tropical Pacifi c climate, solar forcing and - Climate change challenge - Sweden the last millennium - LUCIFS workshop - Germany - The mystery interval 17.5 - 14.5 kyr ago - Ocean-Land INQUA workshop - Spain - South American Monsoon and the LGM - Indonesian throughfl ow - Germany - U.S. lake drilling projects - Post glacial oaks in North America 44 Last Page - Consolidating high and low frequency - Calendar information for climate reconstructions - New on the PAGES bookshelf ISSN 1563–0803 The PAGES International Project Offi ce and its publications are supported by the Swiss and US National Science Foundations and NOAA. 2 Announcements Editorial: U.S. Earth System History Program in Transition A significant portion of paleoclimate science conducted by the United States over the past 14 years has been carried out through proposals to the Earth System History (ESH) Program of the U.S. National Science Founda- tion (NSF). This cross-disciplinary program has been jointly supported under the Directorate for Geosciences with contributions from its divisions, including Earth Sciences, Ocean Sciences and Atmospheric Sciences. Initially developed under the U.S. Global Change Research Program involving a number of federal agencies, NSF acutely acknowledged the need for a program to promote pioneering research on the temporal and spatial scales of natural climate variability, climate proxies, and modeling in order to better understand the forcing mechanisms, systemic sensitivities, and feedbacks responsible for past climate change on regional and global scales. Partnerships for shared support of selected proposals were also fostered in the earlier years with the NSF Office of Polar Programs and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) former Paleoclimate element in the Office of Global programs (now known as the Climate Change Data and Detection element in the Climate Program Office). Since its inception, the ESH program has been guided by an adhoc advisory group composed of scientists on rotation from a range of disciplines who periodically sought community input to guide program manag- ers in developing targeted areas of emphasis for annual solicitations as the science evolved. The program has supported a vast range of projects world-wide, primarily but not exclusively, aimed at high-resolution climate records using a variety of sedimentary, geochemical, and biogeochemical paleo-proxies from diverse environments to develop both qualitative and quantitative estimates of past change. The program has par- ticularly encouraged over time the integration of empirical and observational data with a variety of model simulations of regional and global climate change. Recent initiatives of emphasis within the ESH program have focused on topics including Holocene change, abrupt change on a variety of timescales, and regional vs. global scale change. Because the solicitation for the ESH program expires September 30, 2006, NSF and the science commu- nity are now poised to determine how this successful program might evolve in the coming years to address ongoing and future scientific needs (see www.nsf.gov/pubs/2006/nsf06029/nsf06029.jsp). Plans are now be- ing formulated for an official review, during which time the Directorate for Geosciences will continue to seek community input during the decision making process. An initial workshop held in November 2005 focused on a few relevant cross-cutting science questions and the workshop recommendations are available at www. mesh.usc.edu/workshop.htm for community comment. The short articles presented in this issue were volunteered at large from ESH-funded researchers and repre- sent only a small cross-section of the range of science address by the ESH initiative. To learn more about past ESH initiatives, go to the ESH website at www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5750&org=ATM. JULIE BRIGHAM-GRETTE PAGES SSC Chair [email protected] Tales from the field Do you have an interesting and humorous story from your paleoenvironmental fieldwork? Send us your tale (max. 500 words) so that we can publish it in PAGES News! ��������������������������������������������������� ������������������ ������ ����� ��� ����� ���������� ���������������� ��� ���� ���������� ��� ���� �������� ������������ ��� ����� ����� ���� ��� ������ ����� ����� �� ���� ������ ��� ����������� ����� ���� ����� ��� ���� �������� ������ ���� ���� ��������� �� ����� ��� ������ ����������� �������� ����� ��� ���� ������ ����� ��� ����� ��� ���� ���� �������� ��������� ���������������������������������������������������������������� PAGES NEWS, VOL.14, N°2, AUGUST 2006 Announcements 3 In early June, the PAGES-CLIVAR tions will close 15 September 2006. workshop on Past Millennia Variabil- We particularly encourage nomina- Inside PAGES ity, organized by the PAGES office, tions of paleoscientists from eastern was held in Wengen, Switzerland. Asia, and from Russia and former This very successful event will al- Soviet Union countries, since these This spring, the PAGES office was so have some follow-up activities. geographic regions will be under- busy keeping different PAGES proj- Read more in the workshop report represented when current members ects on track: on page 38. leave at the end of this year. For de- Several guest scientists spent Finally, the PAGES office has tails, please go to: www.pages-igbp. a few days to a few weeks at the been engaged in organizing several org/people/sscleaders/nominations. PAGES office. Bert Rein compiled an upcoming fall activities. The IGBP- html. extensive National PAGES Germany SCOR Fast Track Initiative on Ocean website and Sri Yudawati Cahyarini Acidification will hold its first work- Next issue of PAGES News: set up the Indonesian PAGES (page shop at the end of September in the The next issue of the PAGES news- 5, this issue). All 18 of the currently USA (http://igbp-scor.pages.unibe. letter will be published in December. available national PAGES websites ch/firstworkshop.html). Regional It will contain an open section on are online at: www.pages-igbp.org/ Variability workshops will be held general paleoscience themes and a about/national/. A few more Nation- for the Mediterranean area, together special section on radiocarbon chro- al PAGES are in the pipeline and will with the MEDCLIVAR program, in nometry. Please send your contribu- be ready in autumn this year. Spain in November, and for South tions of science highlights, program In May, the IPO, with the help America, alongside the annual news, workshop reports and humor- of Isabelle Larocque, organized the PAGES SSC meeting, in Argentina ous tales from the field to Christoph second Databoard meeting, at the in October. Information is available Kull ([email protected]) by 31 Oc- PAGES office in Bern. This project, on our calendar webpage (www. tober 2006. Guidelines can be found which aims to develop a better da- pages-igbp.org/calendar/). at www.pages-igbp.org/products/ ta network in the near future, will newsletters/instructions.html. be of special benefit to the paleo- SSC nominations community. Further information is At the upcoming SSC meeting, two available at www.pages-igbp.org/ new SSC members will be elected. services/data/. The related Open Call for Nomina- Regional Climate Variations in South America over the late Holocene October 4-7, 2006; Malargüe, Mendoza, Argentina The aim of this meeting is to deepen the academic interactions among paleoclimatologists of South America, without neglecting the presence of notable investigators from outside the region. During the four day meeting, the conference will be organized around 8 thematic sessions related to climatic, high-resolution paleoclimatic and numerical modeling studies in South America. The preliminary sessions are related to: - Documentary data and early instrumental data - Tree rings - Lake and marine sediments - Ice cores - Glaciers - Pollen and vegetation records - Multi-proxy reconstruction methods - Climate and modeling Abstract Deadline: 8 September, 2006 Further Infromation: www.pages-igbp.org/science/initiatives/lotred-sa Claudia