Lateglacial vegetation development in Denmark – New evidence based on macrofossils and pollen from Slotseng,a small-scale site in southern Jutland

This paper presents the first unambiguous terrestrial palaeoecological record for the late glacial “Bølling warming” in Denmark. Pollen and macrofossil stratigraphies from pre-Bølling to 10,800 cal yr BP are presented from a small kettle hole in Southwest Denmark, during which the lake basin developed from an immature stage after the deglaciation to complete infilling in the early Holocene. Results show that the recently deglaciated landscape bore a discontinuous vegetation of pioneer plants. After the Bølling warming, an open Dryas octopetala-Betula nana community developed with Helianthemum oelandicum. Subarctic species were dominant and local successions were probably delayed by relatively unstable and infertile soils. There is no indication of a climate cooling during the period corresponding to the Older Dryas, but the occurrence of several drought tolerant and steppe species indicates that the period was relatively dry. In the Allerød period the Dryas-B. nana vegetation was initially replaced by an open Salix and grass dominated vegetation and some 400 years later, the first tree birches were documented presumably occupying moist and sheltered soils while drier land remained open. In the Younger Dryas period trees disappeared and the vegetation became open again and dominated by subarctic species. Following climate warming at the Younger Dryas–Holocene transition a shrub community of Empetrum and Juniperus developed. After approximately 200 years it was replaced by birch forest. Overall, the late-glacial vegetation cover had a more open and patchy character than inferred from previous pollen studies as assessment of the vegetation succession based on macrofossil evidence is essential. The inferred general vegetation development corresponds well with results of other studies in the region. Canonical ordinations (RDA) indicate that vegetation changes at the landscape scale during the Lateglacial period were driven by changes in climate, soils and competition for light.     

Palaeoceanographic development in Storfjorden,Svalbard, during the deglaciation and Holocene: evidence from benthic foraminiferal records

Brines can have a profound influence on the relative abundance of calcareous and agglutinated foraminiferal faunas. Here we investigated the distribution of benthic foraminiferal species in four cores from a brine‐enriched environment in Storfjorden, Svalbard. Stratigraphically, the cores comprise the last 15 000 years. The purpose of the study was to reconstruct changes in the palaeoecology and palaeoceanography of Storfjorden in relation to past climate changes, and to identify potential indicator species for brine‐affected environments. The benthic foraminifera in Storfjorden all have widespread occurrences in the Arctic realm. Calcareous species dominated Storfjorden during the deglaciation and early Holocene until c. 8200 a BP. However, agglutinated species increased in abundance whenever conditions became colder with more sea ice and stronger brine formation, such as during the Older Dryas, the Intra‐Allerød Cold Period and the Younger Dryas. Following a moderately cold period with numerous agglutinated foraminifera from c. 8200–4000 a BP, conditions became more changeable from c. 4000 a BP with repeated shifts between warmer periods dominated by calcareous species and colder periods dominated by agglutinated species. The warmer periods show a stronger influence of Atlantic Water, with reduced brine formation and less corrosive conditions at the sea bottom. Conversely, the colder periods show a stronger influence of Arctic water, with higher brine production and more corrosive bottom water. The distribution patterns of the calcareous species are basically the same whether calculated relative to the total fauna (including agglutinated specimens) or relative to calcareous specimens alone. Moreover, the patterns are similar to the patterns found elsewhere along western Svalbard in areas without the influence of brines. No particular species appear to be specifically linked to brine formation. However, the most persistent agglutinated species R. scorpiurus and A. glomerata are also the species most tolerant of the acidic bottom water that normally is associated with brine formation.     

Velocity interpolation and streamline tracing on irregular geometries

Streamline tracing on irregular grids requires reliable interpolation of velocity fields. We propose a new method for direct streamline tracing on polygon and polytope cells. While some numerical methods provide a basis function that can be used for interpolation, other methods provide only the fluxes at the faces of the elements. We introduce the concept of full- and raw-field methods. Full-field methods have built-in interpolation but are often not defined on general grids such as polygonal and polyhedral grids which we examine here. Also, reliability issues may arise on non-simplicial meshes in terms of not being able to reproduce constant velocity fields. We propose an interpolation in H(div) and H(curl) valid on general grids that is based on barycentric coordinates and that reproduces uniform flow. The interpolation can be used to compute the streamline directly on the complex cell geometry. The method generalizes to convex polytopes in 3D, with a restriction on the polytope topology near corners that is shown to be satisfied by several popular grid types. Numerical results confirm that the method is applicable to general grids and preserves uniform flow.     

Removal of barometric pressure effects and earth tides from observed water levels

The effects of barometric pressure and earth tide changes are often observed in ground water level measurements. These disturbances can make aquifer test interpretation difficult by masking the small changes induced by aquifer testing at late times and great distances. A computer utility is now available that automatically removes the effects of barometric pressure and earth tides from water level observations using regression deconvolution. This procedure has been shown to remove more noise then traditional constant barometric efficiency techniques in both confined and unconfined aquifers. Instead of a single, instantaneous barometric efficiency, the procedure more correctly accounts for the lagged responses caused by barometric pressure and earth tide changes. Simultaneous measurements of water levels (or total heads) and nearby barometric pressures are required. As an additional option, the effects of earth tides can also be removed using theoretical earth tides. The program is demonstrated for two data sets collected at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, New Mexico. The program is available free by request at http://www.hydrology.uga.edu/tools.html.     

Influence of upper air conditions on the Patagonia icefields

Upper-air conditions archived in the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis have been used to investigate changes in precipitation and snowfall over the Patagonia icefields during 1960–99. Apparently, whereas total precipitation has not changed, warming has caused a decrease in the amount falling as snow. Precipitation at a site is taken to be proportional to the product of the relative humidity and the component of the wind in a particular critical direction, both at 850 hPa ( 1400 m) at a point over the ocean to the west of the icefields; whether it falls as rain or snow is assumed to depend on whether the temperature at the elevation of the site is above or below + 2 °C. The critical direction is assumed to be 270°, which is perpendicular to the north–south trending Andes and is also the prevailing wind direction in this zone of strong westerlies. Because of the scarcity of precipitation records on or near the icefields, the constant of proportionality cannot be determined, so the investigation is limited to examining relative changes in those upper air variables. Warming at 850 hPa has been 0.5 °C over the 40 years, both winter and summer, with the effects that it has: (1) shifted from snow to rain 5% of the precipitation, the total of which has changed little, and (2) increased annual melt in the ablation areas by 0.5 m w.e. The icefields have been losing mass since at least 1870, so this 40-year trend represents only an acceleration of the longer-term trend of adjusting to climate change since the Little Ice Age.     

Evaluating the salinity distribution of a shallow coastal aquifer by vertical multielectrode profiling (Denmark)

A monitoring system, including five groups of piezometers and five vertical multielectrode profiling probes (VMEP), has been installed in an aquifer beneath a coastal dune in Denmark. In order to assess the salinity distribution within the aquifer, geoelectrical data were gathered in March, June and September 2008, by measuring a dipole-dipole and gradient array using multielectrode profiling. Interpretation of the processed resistivity data was performed by regularized inversion using a one-dimensional, horizontally layered model of formation resistivity. The standard deviation on estimated layer log-resistivity was 0.01–0.03. By estimating two parameters of a power function, observed fluid conductivities derived from samples of porewater were related to corresponding estimated formation resistivities. The conductivity profiles correlate with a winter situation in March with high sea level, active recharge and significant wave activity, causing increased hydraulic heads, a thicker freshwater lens and salt water overlying freshwater close to the sea. In June, the thickness of the freshwater lens is reduced due to less recharge and prevailing offshore winds, imposing density-stable conditions and a sharper transition between fresh and brackish water. During the autumn, aquifer recharge is enhanced and hydraulic heads increase, resulting in a thicker freshwater lens.     

Controls on the East Asian monsoon during the last glacial cycle,based on comparison between Hulu Cave and polar ice-core records

Previous studies have suggested a sound chronological correlation between the Hulu Cave record (East Asian monsoon) and Greenland ice-core records, which implies a dominant control of northern hemisphere climate processes on monsoon intensity. We present an objective, straightforward statistical evaluation that challenges this generally accepted paradigm for sub-orbital variability. We propose a more flexible, global interpretation, which takes into account a broad range of variability in the signal structures in the Hulu Cave and polar ice-core records, rather than a limited number of major transitions. Our analysis employs the layer-counted Greenland Ice-Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05), which was developed for Greenland records and has since been applied – via methane synchronisation – to the high-resolution δ¹⁸O_ice series from EPICA Dronning Maud Land (EDML). The GICC05 chronology allows these ice-core records to be compared to the U–Th dated Hulu Cave record within relatively narrow (～3%) bounds of age uncertainty. Following previous suggestions, our proposed interpretation suggests that the East Asian monsoon is influenced by a combination of northern hemisphere ‘pull’ (which is more intense during boreal warm periods), and southern hemisphere ‘push’ (which is more intense monsoon during austral cold periods). Our analysis strongly suggests a dominant control on millennial-scale monsoon variability by southern hemisphere climate changes during glacial times when the monsoon is weak overall, and control by northern hemisphere climate changes during deglacial and interglacial times when the monsoon is strong. The deduced temporally variable relationship with southern hemisphere climate records offers a statistically more plausible reason for the apparent coincidence of major East Asian monsoon transitions with northern hemisphere (Dansgaard–Oeschger, DO) climate events during glacial times, than the traditional a priori interpretation of strict northern hemisphere control.