Climate change and groundwater conditions in the Mekong Region–A review

Changes in the climatic system introduce uncertainties in the supply and management of water resources. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) predicts an increase of 2 to 4 °C over the next 100 years. Temperature increases will impact the hydrologic cycle by directly increasing the evaporation of surface water sources. Consequently, changes in precipitation will indirectly impact the flux and storage of water in surface and subsurface reservoirs(i.e., lakes, soil moisture, groundwater, etc.). In addition, increases in temperature contribute to increases in the sea level, which may lead to sea water intrusions, water quality deterioration, potable water shortages, etc. Climate change has direct impacts on the surface water and the control of storage in rivers, lakes and reservoirs, which indirectly controls the groundwater recharge process. The main and direct impact of climate change on groundwater is changes in the volume and distribution of groundwater recharge. The impact of climate change on groundwater resources requires reliable forecasting of changes in the major climatic variables and accurate estimations of groundwater recharge. A number of Global Climate Models(GCMs) are available for understanding climate and projecting climate change.These GCMs can be downscaled to a basin scale, and when they are coupled with relevant hydrological models, the output of these coupled models can be used to quantify the groundwater recharge, which will facilitate the adoption of appropriate adaptation strategies under the impact of climate change.     

The Geological Significance of a Tuffite Interlayer in the Cretaceous Port Island Formation in Northeastern Hong Kong

The Port Island Formation(PIF), a typical Cretaceous red bed in Hong Kong, is dominated by non-fossiliferous, reddish clastic rocks, making it difficult to determine the sedimentary age of PIF precisely. Previous studies assigned the PIF to Late Cretaceous provisionally only on the basis of its stratigraphic sequence and lithology. This study identified a tuffite interlayer in the PIF and a zircon UPb age of 128.2±2.7 Ma by LA-ICP-MS method was obtained. It's the first time to date the depositional age of the PIF with a reliable chronological constraint. With the support of stratigraphic evidence, we concluded that the geological age of PIF should be Early Cretaceous rather than Late Cretaceous. Based on the volcanic history of Hong Kong and Southeast China and the distribution of the PIF in Mirs Bay, it is believed that there was no volcanic activity in Hong Kong in ca. 128 Ma. The tuffite interlayer discovered in PIF was formed by the deposition of volcanic ash, which might originate from remote region outside Hong Kong, in an aquatic environment on Port Island. The identification of the tuffite interlayer, as the response to a volcanic event, has great significance not only to the studies of establishment and regional correlation of the strata system and the geological evolution in Hong Kong,but also to the study of volcanic activities in Southeast China.     

Human migration and occupation of Eurasia

The main current benefit of collaboration between Quaternary scientists and palaeoanthropologists （especially palaeolithic archaeologists） lies in providing a unique perspective on how human populations respond to longterm climate change. Eurasia has a superlative record of climatic changes over the last two million years, and an archaeological record that is regionally variable in quality, but which is drawn from a wide range of environmental and chronological contexts.     

A Preliminary Study of Holocene Climate Change and Human Adaptation in the Horqin Region

Abstract: Human activity during the Holocene in the Horqin region, northeastern China, has been widely documented. As an important proxy record of human activity, black carbon (BC) in sediments has been linked to climate change and human adaptation. A loess-paleosol section located in south Horqin was chosen for this study. Holocene climate change and human adaptation to the environment were discussed by analyzing BC, organic carbon (OC) and other proxies. The conclusions included: (1) before 3900 cal BP, human activity was closely related to the natural environment and cultural development was dominated by climate change. For example, the rapid decline of the agrarian Hongshan culture was caused by a slight decrease in temperature at ~5000 cal BP; (2) during 3900-3200 cal BP, the heavy dependence of human societies on nature gradually lessened and the ability of those human societies to adapt to the environment was enhanced. However, the farming-dominated Lower Xiajiadian culture was nonetheless replaced by the pastoralist Upper Xiajiadian culture due to an extremely cooling event at ~3200 cal BP; (3) during the late Holocene period, the marked influence of climate change on human activity might have lessened as a result of a clear improvement in human labor skills. After this, human living styles were influenced by cultural developments rather than climate change because humans had mastered more powerful means of productivity.     

Feasibility study of CO_2 geological storage in China

It has been proved to be one effective means to reduce emissions of CO2 to mitigate the worsening global climate change through lots of projects and tests about CO2 geological storage. The sites that are suitable for CO2 geological storage include coal seams that can not be mined, deep saline aquifers, oil fields, and depleted gas fields. The emission of CO2 from fuel combustion is about 3.54 Gt in China in 2003, which is the second biggest in the world. Because the energy consumption in C…     

Climate change impacts on environmental geosciences: Introduction

正Climate change and its impacts have become topical issues of global news, scientific research and conferences. Environmental Geosciences incorporate the various disciplines of geosciences and their multifaceted interactions with life. Research discussions on the interaction of climate change, geosciences and environment may often be blur, and Schmidt-Thoméet al.(2010) stated that"Often past climate changes that can be deduced from geological records may help in understanding the speed of potential climate change effects, i.e. how quickly have sea levels changed, how drastic has nature reacted to ups and downs in temperature, etc. These analyses of past events help in giving outlooks on potential changes in our living environment. It is also of important to understand the magnitude and potential effects of extreme events, such as droughts and floods".     

Oxygen Isotope Records of Core 8KL of the South China Sea and Sea - level Change

Based on a comparison between the oxygen isotope records of benthic and plank tonic foraminifers from core 8KL of the South China Sea and sea-level change records derived from the Huon Peninsula, New Guinea, it is found that both records are very similar from 72 K a B.P. to the present, especially for the benthic oxygen isotope record. The linear regression shows that δ18O changes (0.9995‰ for benthic foraminifers and 1.022‰ for planktonic foraminifers) are equal to 100 m in sea-level fluctuation. After making temperature correction in the δ18O record of benthic foraminifers from 72 to 120 Ka B.P., the curve of sea-level oscillation of the South China Sea since 186 Ka B.P. has been reconstructed. The lowermost sea - level that occurred in the last glacial maximum and oxygen isotope stage 6 is approximately - 130 m.     

东南极Lambert冰川流域表面雪层中稳定同位素分布及近几十年来的气候变化(英)

The Lambert Glacier basin is one of particular regions in East Antarctica, because of its distinctive topography. During the repeat inland traverses carried out in recent several years, surface 2 m snow samples and shallow (10～27 m deep) cores were collected at several ten stations and at near ten stations, respectively. The stable isotopic ratios of these samples and cores were measured in order to investigate the relation of isotopes with temperature and to study the climatic change in recent decades over this area. The correlation between isotopic ratios and mean annual temperature gives that δ-temperature gradient is relatively close to that along a traverse route between Vostok and Mirnyy stations. The inconsistency of δ18O profiles of these cores makes it difficult to distinguish an overall trend of climatic change in past decades. After incorporating the result of snow accumulation variability and temperature record over 30 years at the coast station, it is believed that climate was in a little cooling and drying from 1950s to 1980s and has been in a warming period since then.     

Climate change detection and attribution in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basins

Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna(GBM) river basin is the third-largest and one of the most populated river basins in the world. As climate change is affecting most of the hydrometeorological variables across the globe, this study investigated the existence of climate change signal in all four climatological seasons in the GBM river basin and assessed the contribution of anthropogenic activities, i.e., Greenhouse Gases(GHGs) emission in the change. Significant decreasing trends in the monsoon and a small increase in pre-monsoon precipitation were observed. Negligible change was detected in post-monsoon and winter season precipitation. CMIP5 GCMs were used for climate change detection, change point estimation, and attribution studies. Support Vector Machine(SVM) regression method was adopted to downscale GCM variables at the local scale. Monte-Carlo simulation approach was used to detect changes in different seasons. The climate change ‘signals' were detectable after the year 1980 using Signal to Noise ratio(SNR)method in the majority of central and north-western regions. The change point was detectable only in annual monsoon precipitation at the basin level. Attribution analysis indicated 50% contribution of anthropogenic activities(GHGs) to annual monsoon precipitation changes. So, there is high confidence that monsoon precipitation in GBM has significantly changed due to anthropogenic activities. Different mitigation and adaption measures are also suggested, which may be adopted to manage the growing demand and water availability in the basin.     

Notes from the first workshop of the IGCP 543 Low temperature thermochronology： applications and interlaboratory calibration

Quantification of geological processes is a demanding task of primary importance in many Earth science studies. One valuable tool is low-temperature thermochronology （mainly fission-track and U-Th/He analyses） which finds many applications in the oil industry, in the exploration and sustainable management of water and mineral resources and in the analysis of the relationships between tectonics and climate change. The IGCP 543 project has two primary aims：     

Evidence for progressive Holocene aridification in southern Africa recorded in Namibian hyrax middens: Implications for African Monsoon dynamics and the ‘‘African Humid Period’’

Presented here are stable nitrogen isotope data from a rock hyrax (Procavia capensis) middens from northwestern Namibia that record a series of rapid aridification events beginning at ca. 3800 cal yr BP, and which mark a progressive decrease in regional humidity across the Holocene. Strong correlations exist between this record and other terrestrial and marine archives from southern Africa, indicating that the observed pattern of climate change is regionally coherent. Combined, these data indicate hemispheric synchrony in tropical African climate change during the Holocene, with similar trends characterising the termination of the ‘African Humid Period’ (AHP) in both the northern and southern tropics. These findings run counter to the widely accepted model of direct low-latitude insolation forcing, which requires an anti-phase relationship to exist between the hemispheres. The combined dataset highlights: 1) the importance of forcing mechanisms influencing the high northern latitudes in effecting low-latitude climate change in Africa, and 2) the potential importance of solar forcing and variations in the Earth's geomagnetic shield in determining both long-term and rapid centennial-scale climate changes, identifying a possible mechanism for the variations marking the AHP termination in both the southern and northern tropics.     

Sea level,climate change and coastal evolution in Morar,northwest Scotland

Analyses of geomorphologically contrasting sites in Morar, NW Scotland, describe the forcing mechanisms of coastal change. Isolation basins (i.e. basins behind rock sills and now isolated from the sea following isostatic uplift) accumulated continuous marine and freshwater sediments from c.12 to 2 ka BP. Raised dune, marsh and wetland sites register breaching, migration and stability of dunes from c. 9 to 2 ka BP. High-resolution methods designed to address issues of macroscale and microscale sea-level changes and patterns of storminess include 1-mm sampling for pollen, dinocyst and diatom analyses, infra-red photography, X-ray photography and thin-section analysis. The data enhance the record of relative sea-level change for the area. Major phases of landward migration of the coast occurred during the period of low sea-level rise in the mid-Holocene as the rate of rise decreased from c. 3 to < 1 mm/year. Relative sea-level change controls the broad pattern of coastal evolution at each site; local site-specific factors contribute to short-term process change. There is no record of extreme events such as tsunami. Within a system of dynamic metastable equilibrium, the Holocene records show that site-specific factors determine the exact timing of system breakdown, e.g. dune breaching, superimposed on regional sea-level rise. The global average sea-level rise of 3 to 6 mm/yr by AD 2050 predicted by IPCC would only partly be offset in the Morar area by isostatic uplift of about 1 mm/yr. A change from relative sea-level fall to sea-level rise, in areas where the regional rate of uplift no longer offsets global processes, is a critical factor in the management of coastal resources.     

Phase-lagged warming and the disruption of climatic rhythms during the Matuyama–Brunhes magnetic polarity transition

The influence of the geomagnetic field on climate, a long hotly disputed issue, was examined for the Matuyama–Brunhes (MB) magnetic polarity transition using palynological and paleomagnetic data sets from a high accumulation rate (ca. 50 cm/kyr) sediment core from Osaka Bay. During the period from marine oxygen isotope stages (MIS) 20 to 18, climate change is well correlated with global ice volume variation in the precession cycle, with the exception of the early half of MIS 19. The postglacial warming after substage 20.2 was interrupted by cooling that began just before the sea-level highstand correlated with substage 19.3 and persisted until about a mid-point between 19.3 and 19.2, followed by a rapid warming. The thermal maximum clearly postdates the highest sea-level highstand by 6–7 kyr, and the connection between orbital forcing and climate was disrupted. The cooling event coincided with the center of the paleointensity low during the MB transition. This unusual climate cooling across a sea-level peak is very likely related to the field intensity decrease. The data from Osaka Bay may suggest an instance where the geomagnetic field has influenced climate in the past.     

Optically stimulated luminescence age controls on late Pleistocene and Holocene coastal lithosomes, North Carolina, USA

Luminescence ages from a variety of coastal features on the North Carolina Coastal Plain provide age control for shoreline formation and relative sea-level position during the late Pleistocene. A series of paleoshoreline ridges, dating to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5a and MIS 3 have been defined. The Kitty Hawk beach ridges, on the modern Outer Banks, yield ages of 3 to 2 ka. Oxygen-isotope data are used to place these deposits in the context of global climate and sea-level change. The occurrence of MIS 5a and MIS 3 shorelines suggests that glacio-isostatic adjustment (GIA) of the study area is large (ca. 22 to 26 m), as suggested and modeled by other workers, and/or MIS 3 sea level was briefly higher than suggested by some coral reef studies. Correcting the shoreline elevations for GIA brings their elevation in line with other sea-level indicators. The age of the Kitty Hawk beach ridges places the Holocene shoreline well west of its present location at ca. 3 to 2 ka. The age of shoreline progradation is consistent with the ages of other beach ridge complexes in the southeast USA, suggesting some regionally contemporaneous forcing mechanism.     

Is There Evidence for Solar Forcing of Climate in the GISP2 Oxygen Isotope Record?

Changes in solar constant over an 11 yr cycle suggest a certain, but limited, degree of solar forcing of climate. The high-resolution climate (oxygen isotope) record of the Greenland GISP2 (Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2) ice core has been analyzed for solar (and volcanic) influences. The atmospheric¹⁴C record is used as a proxy of solar change and compared to the oxygen isotope profile in the GISP2 ice core. An annual oxygen isotope profile is derived from centimeter-scale isotope measurements available for the post-A.D. 818 interval. Associated extreme summer and winter isotope ratios were found to yield similar climate information over the last millennium. The detailed record of volcanic aerosols, converted to optical depth and volcanic explosivity change, was also compared to the isotope record and the oxygen isotope response calibrated to short-term volcanic influences on climate. This calibration shows that century-scale volcanic modulation of the GISP2 oxygen isotope record can be neglected in our analysis of solar forcing. The timing, estimated order of temperature change, and phase lag of several maxima in¹⁴C and minima in¹⁸O are suggestive of a solar component to the forcing of Greenland climate over the current millennium. The fractional climate response of the cold interval associated with the Maunder sunspot minimum (and¹⁴C maximum), as well as the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age temperature trend of the past millennium, are compatible with solar climate forcing, with an order of magnitude of solar constant change of 0.3%. Even though solar forcing of climate for the current millennium is a reasonable hypothesis, for the rest of the Holocene the century-scale events are more frequent in the oxygen isotope record than in the¹⁴C record and a significant correlation is absent. For this interval, oceanic/atmospheric circulation forcing of climate may dominate. Solar forcing during the surprisingly strong 1470 yr climate cycle of the 11,000–75,000 yr B.P. interval is rather hypothetical.     

Two decadally resolved records from north‐west European peat bogs show rapid climate changes associated with solar variability during the mid–late Holocene

Two ¹⁴C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) wiggle‐match dated peat sequences from Denmark and northern England record changes in mire surface wetness reconstructed using plant macrofossil and testate amoebae analyses. A number of significant mid–late Holocene climatic deteriorations (wet shifts) associated with declines in solar activity were recorded (at ca. 2150 cal. yr BC, 740 cal. yr BC, cal. yr AD 930, cal. yr AD 1020, cal. yr AD 1280–1300, cal. yr AD 1640 and cal. yr AD 1790–1830). The wet shifts identified from ca. cal. yr AD 930 are concurrent with or lag decreases in solar activity by 10–50 years. These changes are replicated by previous records from these and other sites in the region and the new records provide improved precision for the ages of these changes. The rapidly accumulating (up to 2–3 yr cm^?1, ～1310 yr old, 34 ¹⁴C dates) Danish profile offers an unprecedented high‐resolution record of climate change from a peat bog, and has effectively recorded a number of significant but short‐lived climate change events since ca. cal. yr AD 690. The longer time intervals between samples and the greater length of time resolved by each sample in the British site due to slower peat accumulation rates (up to 11 yr cm^?1, ～5250 yr old, 42 ¹⁴C dates) acted as a natural smoothing filter preventing the clear registration of some of the rapid climate change events. Not all the significant rises in water table registered in the peat bog archives of the British and Danish sites have been caused by solar forcing, and may be the result of other processes such as changes in other external forcing factors, the internal variability of the climate system or raised bog ecosystem. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mid‐ and late‐Holocene climatic changes: a test of periodicity and solar forcing in proxy‐climate data from blanket peat bogs

A wide range of palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Holocene has suggested periodicities in the Earth's climate of 10s to 1000s of years. Identifying these millennial‐, century‐ and decadal periodicities, and their impacts, is critical in developing a fuller understanding of natural climate variability. Any solar‐induced climatic change needs to be distinguished from other causes of natural climate variability and from short‐term catastrophic events induced either by external or internal processes. Such events might themselves generate a periodicity, or in combination with other forcing factors they may contribute towards a periodicity (and so spuriously imply a universal and continuing periodicity in the climate record), or they may resonate with a solar‐induced periodicity. Here, evidence from peat records for periodicity in climate change over the mid to late Holocene is reviewed and this is followed by a test of the replicability of claimed periodicities using blanket peat data covering the past 2000 yr from four sites in the British Isles. Results suggest that the mires studied do go through phases of being responsive to periodic forcing factors, with ca. 200, ca. 80 and 60–50 yr wavelengths reflected in some data sets. However, the patterns shown are not consistent. This could be the result of local conditions at individual mires (human impact, sensitivity and vegetation succession) or of changes in the strength or nature of global forcing factors. Assessing a solar–mire link remains difficult because the century‐scale variations of the Sun show different intervals between solar minima, the durations of which are themselves unequal, and because the proxy‐climate data‐sets from peat profiles may themselves not be dated with sufficient precision and/or accuracy. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mid- to late Holocene environmental and climatic changes in New Caledonia, southwest tropical Pacific, inferred from the littoral plain Gouaro-Déva

Multiproxy analysis of three littoral cores from western New Caledonia supports the hypothesis that the main controlling factors of environmental changes are sea-level change, ENSO variability and extra-tropical phenomena, such as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) marked by a tendency for La Niña-like conditions in the tropical Pacific. The record starts during the late Holocene sea-level rise when the terrestrial vegetation indicated wet and cool conditions. The site was a coastal bay definitely transformed into a freshwater swamp at around 3400 cal yr BP, after the rapid drawdown of sea level to its current level. Sediments and foraminiferal assemblages indicated subsequent episodes of freshwater infillings, emersion or very high-energy conditions, likely related to climatic changes and mostly controlled by ENSO variability. Between 2750 and 2000 cal yr BP, relatively dry and cool climate prevailed, while wetter conditions predominated between ca. 1800 and 900 cal yr BP. The Rhizophoraceae peak between ca. 1080 and 750 cal yr BP, coeval with the MWP, may indicate a global phenomenon. Microcharcoal particles present throughout the record increased after 1500 cal yr BP, suggesting an anthropogenic source. From ca. 750 cal yr BP the appearance of current type of vegetation marks the human impact.     

A multiproxy climate record from a raised bog in County Fermanagh,Northern Ireland: a critical examination of the link between bog surface wetness and solar variability

A proxy climate record from a raised bog in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, is presented. The record spans the interval between 2850 cal. yr BC and cal. yr AD 1000 and chronological control is achieved through the use of tephrochronology and ¹⁴C dating, including a wiggle‐match on one section of the record. Palaeoclimatic inferences are based on a combination of a testate amoebae‐derived water table reconstruction, peat humification and plant macrofossil analyses. This multiproxy approach enables proxy‐specific effects to be identified. Major wet shifts are registered in the proxies at ca. 1510 cal. yr BC, 750 cal. yr BC and cal. yr AD 470. Smaller magnitude shifts to wetter conditions are also recorded at ca. 380 cal. yr BC, 150 cal. yr BC, cal. yr AD 180, and cal. yr AD 690. It is hypothesised that the wet shifts are not merely local events as they appear to be linked to wider climate deteriorations in northwest Europe. Harmonic analysis of the proxies illustrates statistically significant periodicities of 580, 423–373, 307 and 265 years that may be related to wider Holocene climate cycles. This paper illustrates how the timing of climate changes registered in peat profiles records can be precisely constrained using tephrochronology to examine possible climatic responses to solar forcing. Relying on interpolated chronologies with considerable dating uncertainty must be avoided if the climatic responses to forcing mechanisms are to be fully understood. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A radiometric calibration of the SPECMAP timescale

The astronomical theory of climate change asserts that Earth's climate is affected by changes in its orbit, which vary the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of solar radiation. This theory is the basis of the orbitally tuned SPECMAP timescale. A key constraint for this important chronology was the mid-point of the Penultimate Deglaciation, initially dated to 127,000 years ago. Recent work suggests this event may be considerably older, casting doubt on the astronomical theory, the SPECMAP timescale, and the accuracy of orbitally tuned chronologies. Difficulties with U/Th coral dating of sea-level events have impeded progress on this problem, because most corals are not closed systems. Here, we use a new approach to U/Th dating that corrects for open-system behavior and produces a sea-level curve of sufficient resolution to confidently correlate with SPECMAP over the last 240,000 years, permitting a reassessment of both this critical chronology and a central tenet of climate change theory. High-precision ages for 24 oxygen isotope events provide a 240,000-year chronology for marine δ¹⁸O records that is independent of orbital tuning assumptions. Although there appear to be significant differences between the radiometric and orbitally tuned timescales near the lastglacial maximum and at the Marine Isotope Stage 7/6 boundary, a comparison of radiometric and SPECMAP ages for identical isotope events suggest that the SPECMAP timescale is quite accurate and that its errors were, in general, overestimated. Despite suborbital complexity, orbital cyclicity is clearly evident in our record. High-amplitude sea-level oscillations at periods greater than 20,000 years are very close in phase to summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere. Although sea-level changes cannot be uniquely tied to a specific season or latitude of insolation forcing, the simplest explanation is that long-period, high-amplitude sea-level change is linked to Northern Hemisphere insolation forcing. These results validate the principles of orbital tuning and suggest such timescales are generally robust.