Full-glacial — late-glacial palaeoclimate of the Southern Andes: evidence from pollen,beetle and glacial records

Palaeoecological studies carried out in the Chilean Lake District and Chilotan Archipelago (41°–43°S) record full-glacial and late-glacial pollen assemblages beginning just after 21000 and beetle assemblages after 18000, both sets extending until 10000 ¹⁴C yr BP. Pollen records indicate that Subantarctic Parkland, the vegetation of the early millennia of record, changed after about 14000 yr BP to become open woodland and later North Patagonian Evergreen Forest. Assemblages of plants and beetles, responding more or less in unison to a strong rise in temperature (≥ 6°C), behaved in accord at around 14000 until 13000–12500 yr BP, the beetle fauna displaying a marked increase in obligate forest types. During full-glacial conditions (17400–16100 and 15300 and 14400 yr BP) and in the late-glacial interval (after about 13000 yr BP), however, climate evidently coerced populations dissimilarly, the pollen sequence showing an increase in plant taxa indicative of colder climate, whereas the beetle fauna underwent little or no variation. Contrasting climate modes implied by plants and beetles may be attributed to differential responses to apparent low-order temperature changes (≤ 2–3°C).     

Pressure image assimilation for atmospheric motion estimation

The complexity of the laws of dynamics governing 3-D atmospheric flows associated with incomplete and noisy observations make the recovery of atmospheric dynamics from satellite image sequences very difficult. In this paper, we address the challenging problem of estimating physical sound and time-consistent horizontal motion fields at various atmospheric depths for a whole image sequence. Based on a vertical decomposition of the atmosphere, we propose a dynamically consistent atmospheric motion estimator relying on a multilayer dynamic model. This estimator is based on a weak constraint variational data assimilation scheme and is applied on noisy and incomplete pressure difference observations derived from satellite images. The dynamic model is a simplified vorticity-divergence form of a multilayer shallow-water model. Average horizontal motion fields are estimated for each layer. The performance of the proposed technique is assessed using synthetic examples and using real world meteorological satellite image sequences. In particular, it is shown that the estimator enables exploiting fine spatio-temporal image structures and succeeds in characterizing motion at small spatial scales.     

Global ENSO-streamflow teleconnection,streamflow forecasting and interannual variability

Abstract

El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been linked to climate anomalies throughout the world. This paper presents an overview of global ENSO-streamflow teleconnection and identifies regions where the relationship may be exploited to forecast streamflow several months ahead. The teleconnection is investigated by fitting a first harmonic to 24-month El Niño streamflow composites from 581 catchments worldwide and the potential for forecasting is investigated by calculating the lag correlation between streamflow and two indicators of ENSO. The analyses indicate clear ENSO-streamflow teleconnections in many catchments, some of which are consistent across large geographical regions. Strong and regionally consistent ENSO-streamflow teleconnections are identified in Australia and New Zealand, South and Central America, and weaker signals are identified in some parts of Africa and North America. The results suggest that the ENSO-streamflow relationship and the serial correlation in streamflow can be used to successfully forecast streamflow. The streamflow forecasts can be used to help manage water resources, particularly in systems with high interannual variability in Australia, southern and drier parts of Africa and some areas of North America.     

A large-scale meandering submarine canyon: outcrop example from the late Proterozoic Adelaide Geosyncline, South Australia

The late Proterozoic Adelaide Geosyncline, along with overlying Cambrian strata, comprises a thick sequence of sediments and sparse volcanics which accumulated in a major rift and passive margin setting. During late syn-rift or early post-rift phases, large volumes of terrigenous and carbonate sediments of the late Proterozoic Umberatana and Wilpena Groups and Cambrian Hawker Group filled the rift. Submarine canyon development was related to at least four of these depositional cycles, the most notable of which resulted in incision and subsequent filling of the major (several kilometres in width and up to 1.5 km deep) submarine canyons by the Wonoka Formation. The Wonoka Formation canyons are not obviously fault controlled. They are interpreted to have been eroded by turbidity currents during a relative low-stand of sea-level. They were subsequently filled by a fining-upwards suite of sediments which reflects subsequent relative rise of sea-level and carbonate platform development. Ultimately the canyon complex was buried by north-westerly progradation of overlying fluvial and slope sequences (Billy Springs Beds and possibly correlative upper Pound Subgroup). It is considered likely that more distal elements of this prograding clastic wedge provided the necessary material for canyon erosion, prior to canyon filling and ultimate burial by what may have been elements of the same depositional cycle. It is considered possible that the series of isolated outcrops of canyon cross-sections within the Wonoka Formation are sections of a single canyon thalweg developed within a considerably broader zone of slope degradation. If this interpretation is correct, then the gorge-like Patsy Springs Canyon lies in more proximal regions of the basin-slope, whereas 40 km to the north-east the lower slope is cut by the Fortress Hill Canyon Complex. Palaeocurrent analyses of channel-fill turbidites within the canyons imply that the Fortress Hill Complex is in fact the outcropping western edge of a sinuous, incised canyon thalweg. The Wonoka Formation canyons, containing basal sedimentary breccias but only minor conglomerates, are considered typical of passive margin canyon development. They are contrasted with the generally highly conglomeratic channel-fills observed in outcropping Tertiary and Cretaceous examples of active margin canyons and upper fan valleys.     

Wind sedimentation in the Jafurah sand sea, Saudi Arabia

The Jafurah sand sea of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia extends along the Arabian Gulf coastline from Kuwait in the north to the Rub Al Khali in the south, a distance of about 800 km. Sand drifts southward to south-eastward from regions of high wind energy in the north to low wind energy in the south. The aeolian landscape is zoned, with areas of deflation, transport and deposition from north to south. Drift rates in the zone of transport, near Abqaiq, range from 2 m³ m-w^-1 yr^-1 on sabkhas, to 29 m³ m-w^-1 yr^-1 on the crests of dunes. Average drift rates of approximately 18 m³ m-w^-1 yr^-1 observed during the study can cause about 1 m of accumulation per 5500 yr in a 100 km zone of deposition downwind, not including the bulk transport represented by the forward advance of dunes. Dune advance ranged from 23 m (2.9 m high dune) to 3 m (23 m high dune) during April-October 1980. The study area consists of dune, interdune, sand sheet and siliciclastic sabkha terrains, each of which is characterized by differing drift rates, and differing rates of erosion or deposition. Sedimentation occurs by lateral movement of dunes and interdunes, and vertical accretion by sand sheets and sabkhas.     

Interpretation of grain-size distributions from measured sediment data, Platte River, Nebraska

Breaks in the slope of log-probability plots of cumulative grain-size distributions of bed material are compared with frequency distributions of bedload and suspended sediment over a range of discharges at two stations on the Platte River in south-central Nebraska. The break between suspension and intermittent suspension as determined from the bed-material curve coincides with the upper limit of the grain-size overlap between bedload particles and suspended-sediment particles, whereas the break between intermittent suspension and traction corresponds to the grain size at the lower limit of overlap of bedload particles and suspended-sediment particles. Although grain-size distributions of bedload change little with discharge, the size of the coarsest grains in suspension increases with increasing discharge. Thus, the length of overlap of bedload and suspended-sediment distributions increases with increasing discharge. The limits of grain-size overlap of bedload and suspended-sediment distribution curves associated with near-flood discharges most closely approximate the breaks in the bed material grain-size distribution.