First cosmogenic 10Be age constraint on the timing of Younger Dryas glaciation and ice cap thickness,western Scottish Highlands

We use cosmogenic ¹⁰Be surface exposure age techniques at a locality close to Rannoch Moor, western Scottish Highlands, in order to establish the age and chronology of its most recent glaciation. Glacial erratics and an in situ bedrock quartz vein sampled from this site—the summit of Beinn Inverveigh—have yielded zero‐erosion exposure ages of 12.9 ± 1.5 ka to 11.6 ± 1.0 ka, implying complete ice cover of the mountain during the Younger Dryas, or Loch Lomond Stadial. These results fit closely with published ¹⁴C dates that bracket the maximum (lateral) extent of ice cap outlet glaciers, and are the first internally consistent ages to specifically address this period of glaciation in Scotland. Furthermore, the dates imply that previous palaeoglaciological reconstructions for this area may have underestimated both the thickness of the former ice cap and, by implication, its volume. © British Geological Survey/Natural Environment Research Council copyright 2007. Reproduced with the permission of BGS/NERC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do paleoclimate proxies agree? A test comparing 19 late Holocene climate and sea‐ice reconstructions from Icelandic marine and lake sediments

Geochemical, mineralogical and biological indicators preserved in sediments are widely used to reconstruct past climate change, but proxies differ in the degree to which their utility as climate indicators has been validated via laboratory experiments, modern spatial calibrations, or down‐core comparisons with instrumental climate data. Multi‐proxy studies provide another means of evaluating interpretations of proxies. This paper presents a multi‐proxy assessment comparing 19 sub‐centennially resolved late Holocene proxy records, covering the period 300–1900 AD, from seven Icelandic marine and lacustrine core sites. We employ simple statistical comparisons between proxy reconstructions to evaluate their correlations over time and, ultimately, their utility as proxies for regional climate. Proxies examined include oxygen isotopic composition of benthic and planktonic foraminifera, abundance of the sea‐ice biomarker IP₂₅, allochthonous quartz in marine sediments (a proxy for drift ice around Iceland), marine carbonate abundance, total organic carbon concentration, chironomid assemblages, lacustrine biogenic silica and carbon/nitrogen ratios in lake sediments. Most of the examined proxy records, including temperature and sea‐ice proxies, correlate strongly with each other over multi‐centennial timescales, and thus do appear to record changes in regional climate. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Diurnal timing of warmer air under climate change affects magnitude,timing and duration of stream temperature change

Stream temperature will be subject to changes because of atmospheric warming in the future. We investigated the effects of the diurnal timing of air temperature changes – daytime warming versus nighttime warming – on stream temperature. Using the physically based model, Heat Source, we performed a sensitivity analysis of summer stream temperatures to three diurnal air temperature distributions of +4 °C mean air temperature: i) uniform increase over the whole day, ii) warmer daytime and iii) warmer nighttime. The stream temperature model was applied to a 37‐km section of the Middle Fork John Day River in northeastern Oregon, USA. The three diurnal air temperature distributions generated 7‐day average daily maximum stream temperatures increases of approximately +1.8 °C ± 0.1 °C at the downstream end of the study section. The three air temperature distributions, with the same daily mean, generated different ranges of stream temperatures, different 7‐day average daily maximum temperatures, different durations of stream temperature changes and different average daily temperatures in most parts of the reach. The stream temperature changes were out of phase with air temperature changes, and therefore in many places, the greatest daytime increase in stream temperature was caused by nighttime warming of air temperatures. Stream temperature changes tended to be more extreme and of longer duration when driven by air temperatures concentrated in either daytime or nighttime instead of uniformly distributed across the diurnal cycle. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the Measurement Consistency Between the Jason-2/AMR and SARAL/AltiKa/DFMR Microwave Radiometers Using Simultaneous Nadir Observations

SARAL/AltiKa has a Dual Frequency Microwave Radiometer (DFMR), and Jason-2 has an Advanced Microwave Radiometer (AMR). Both microwave radiometer sensors include a 23.8 GHz primary water sensing channel. The measurement consistencies between DFMR and AMR are important for establishing a consistent altimetry data set between SARAL/AltiKa and Jason-2 in order to accurately assess sea level rise in a long-term time series. This study investigates the measurement consistency in the 23.8 GHz channel between DFMR and AMR at the Simultaneous Nadir Overpasses (SNO's) between the two satellites and also at coldest ocean brightness temperature locations. Preliminary results show that while both instruments show no significant trends over the one year since the launch of SARAL, a consistent relative bias of 2.88 K (DFMR higher than AMR) with a standard deviation of 0.98 K is observed. The relative bias at the lowest brightness temperature from the SNO method (-3.82 K) is consistent with that calculated from coldest ocean method (-3.74 K). The relative bias exhibits strong latitude (and scene temperature) dependency, changing from -3.82 K at high latitudes to -0.92 K near the equator. There also exists an asymmetry between the northern and southern hemisphere. The relative bias increases toward the lower end of brightness temperature.     

Emerging coral diseases: a temperature‐driven process?

In the last few decades there has been a surge in research focusing on coral disease. While climate change, specifically rising sea surface temperature, has been proposed as a major and growing driver of the emergence of marine diseases, to date a solid connection between disease epizootics and elevated sea surface temperature has not been established. However, a wealth of data now exists, compiled from many different perspectives, that may support such a connection. In this work we provide a comprehensive review targeting one coral disease, black band disease, that spans the infection process, pathobiology, and epizootiology, and links specific mechanisms of the disease process to increasing temperatures. This temperature‐driven pattern of infection can be expanded to include similar processes associated with other temperature‐related coral diseases. The conclusions presented here are based upon the results of many studies using a diverse suite of approaches that have been synthesized to argue that the emergence and continuing spread of black band disease is linked to warming sea surface temperatures. In summary, as global ocean temperatures increase seasonally and over decades, the environment shifts to become more favorable for the growth of potentially pathogenic microorganisms endemic to the immediate environment of the reef. The increase in the relative number of potential pathogens in the microbial community produces microenvironments conducive to the growth of other potential pathogens, leading to infection by a polymicrobial consortium. This consortium is easily perturbed by a (seasonal) temperature decrease, but remains associated with the coral host and can be reactivated with a subsequent seasonal increase in temperature, resulting in a cycle of temperature‐dependent disease emergence.