Climate change of the last millennium inferred from borehole temperatures: regional patterns of climatic changes in the Czech Republic — Part III

Accurate temperature–depth profiles may help to assess the temperature variations associated with the climate changes in the past. Ninety-eight ground surface temperature histories inverted from the temperature–depth borehole logs drilled on the territory of the Czech Republic [Bodri, L., ermák, V., 1995. Climate changes of the last millennium inferred from borehole temperatures: results from the Czech Republic — Part I. Global Planet. Change 11, pp. 111–125; Bodri, L., ermák, V., 1997. Climate changes of the last two millennia inferred from borehole temperatures: results from the Czech Republic — Part II. Global Planet. Change 14, pp. 163–173.] are used to reconstruct the regional patterns of the respective climate change. The climate was mapped for the following periods: 1100–1300 A.D. (Little Climatic Optimum), 1400–1500 A.D., 1600–1700 A.D. (main phase of the Little Ice Age), and for the most recent climate trend after year 1960. Comparison of the obtained maps with the meteorological observations and proxy climatic reconstructions confirmed good applicability of the “geothermal” paleoclimatic reconstructions for the regional studies.     

Volcanic eruption frequency over the last 45 ky as recorded in Epica-Dome C ice core (East Antarctica) and its relationship with climatic changes

The sulphate glacio-chemical profiles constitute a reliable proxy marker for reconstruction of past volcanic history, assuming a reliable method to distinguish sulphate spikes and to evaluate the flux of individual events is set up. The resulting volcanic event profile is used to reconstruct past event frequencies, and to investigate possible links between volcanism and climatic changes. Volcanic event signatures are useful also in comparing time scales from ice cores drilled at different locations. In this paper, a new method to pick out volcanic signals is proposed. It improves on methods based on the calculation of a threshold using a general mean value plus a multiple of the standard deviation by adding: (1) quantification of nonvolcanic sulphate contributions; (2) sulphate fluxes, instead of concentrations, accounting for accumulation rate changes; (3) data treatment using a log-normal statistic, instead of a Gaussian-type distribution, to take into account the real sulphate distribution; (4) a smoothed curve (weighted fitting) to better understand the residual variability of the sulphate background.This method is used to detect volcanic events throughout the 45 ky time span of the EDC96 ice core, drilled at Dome C on the East Antarctic plateau. A total of 283 volcanic signatures are recovered, with a mean of 6.3 events per millennium. The temporal event frequencies indicate that the last 2000 years were probably characterized by the highest volcanic activity in the period covered by the core and that there is no clear link between number of events recorded and climatic changes.