Palaeoclimate articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    The fluvial response in western Colorado to the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum involves a large increase in sediment flux that lasted much longer than the vegetation, monsoon and carbon dioxide changes of the thermal maximum.

    • Brady Z. Foreman
    • , Paul L. Heller
    •  & Mark T. Clementz

  • Letter |

    Profiles of sulphate fluxes over the past 300,000 years from an Antarctic ice core show that, whereas the flux of sulphate-adhered dust has remained almost constant, that of sulphate salts correlates inversely with temperature, suggesting a coupling between particulate sulphur and temperature.

    • Yoshinori Iizuka
    • , Ryu Uemura
    •  & Takeo Hondoh

  • Article |

    A detailed reconstruction of the calcium carbonate compensation depth—at which calcium carbonate is dissolved—in the equatorial Pacific Ocean over the past 53 million years shows that it tracks ocean cooling, increasing as the ocean cools.

    • Heiko Pälike
    • , Mitchell W. Lyle
    •  & Richard E. Zeebe

  • Letter |

    An ice-core record from the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula shows that the present warming period in the region is unusual in the context of natural climate variability over the past two thousand years, and that continued warming could cause ice-shelf instability farther south along the peninsula.

    • Robert Mulvaney
    • , Nerilie J. Abram
    •  & Susan Foord

  • Letter |

    Measurements from several ocean cores reveal that ocean warmth persisted throughout the late Miocene epoch despite CO2 levels of only 200–350 p.p.m.v., probably driven by a deep thermocline that isolated climate responses from CO2 variations.

    • Jonathan P. LaRiviere
    • , A. Christina Ravelo
    •  & Michael W. Wara

  • News & Views |

    The exact origin, timing and amplitude of a rapid period of sea-level rise known as meltwater pulse 1A, about 14,500 years ago, have remained unclear. An analysis of coral samples from Tahiti delivers some answers. See Article p.559

    • Robert E. Kopp

  • News & Views |

    An analysis of fossil imprints of ancient raindrops suggests that the density of the atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago was much the same as that today. This result casts fresh light on a long-standing palaeoclimate paradox. See Letter p.359

    • William S. Cassata
    •  & Paul R. Renne

  • News & Views |

    A study suggests that hydrocarbons released from sedimentary basins formed part of a climatic feedback mechanism that exacerbated global warming during the Eocene epoch.

    • Henrik Svensen

  • News |

    As the next IPCC assessment nears, scientists use palaeoclimatic data to hone their models.

    • Jeff Tollefson

  • Letter |

    A continuous record of hydrologic variability for the past 17,000 years at the mouth of the Zambezi River shows that hydrologic conditions in southeast Africa were controlled by variations in local insolation and migrations of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, rather than by Indian Ocean temperature.

    • Enno Schefuß
    • , Holger Kuhlmann
    •  & Jürgen Pätzold

  • News & Views Forum |

    The collapse of the Maya civilization is often attributed to drought, but is the explanation really as simple as that? On the basis of evidence from their respective fields, an archaeologist and a palaeoclimatologist call for a more nuanced assessment.

    • James Aimers
    •  & David Hodell

  • News |

    A shift in tropical ocean circulations could explain a historical shift in global climate.

    • Jeff Tollefson

  • Letter |

    One of the most remarkable global warming events in the history of the Earth was the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 56 million years ago, which is thought to have been caused by the release of greenhouse gases from mineral weathering. Several other, less severe warming periods occurred around 6–8 million years after the PETM. This paper shows that these smaller events were brief and surprisingly frequent, to a tempo paced by the Earth's orbit. Their rapid onset and recovery indicates a mechanism primarily dependent on shuffling carbon between the atmosphere and a dissolved, organic form in the ocean, in sharp contrast to the PETM's more sluggish greenhouse gas release from buried carbon reservoirs.

    • Philip F. Sexton
    • , Richard D. Norris
    •  & Samantha Gibbs

  • News & Views |

    A novel explanation for the long-term temperature record in Antarctic ice cores invokes local solar radiation as the driving agent. This proposal will prompt palaeoclimate scientists to pause and to go back to basics. See Letter p.91

    • Koji Fujita

  • Letter |

    According to the Milankovitch theory, glacial to interglacial climate variability — as recorded in Antarctica ice cores — is governed by summer insolation at high northern latitudes. It is now shown that accumulation of Antarctic snow is biased towards austral winter and may be explained simply by variations in local insolation, with no recourse to northern influences. Although not constituting a complete negative proof, the results show that the Antarctic ice core records do not, in themselves, provide sufficient support for the Milankovitch theory.

    • Thomas Laepple
    • , Martin Werner
    •  & Gerrit Lohmann

  • News & Views |

    A long climate record reveals abrupt hydrological variations during past interglacials in southwestern North America. These data set a natural benchmark for detecting human effects on regional climates. See Letter p.518

    • John Williams

  • Letter |

    Droughts of tens of years are known to have occurred in the southwestern United States over the past two millennia, but model simulations suggest that much longer 'megadroughts' might occur in a future, warmer climate. So far, the presence of such droughts in the palaeoclimatic record has been unclear. Now, a lake sediment core from northern New Mexico is analysed, showing that millennial-scale megadroughts were a regular feature of Pleistocene interglacials. The results suggest that, in the absence of anthropogenic warming, the southwestern United States would probably be entering a cool and wet phase.

    • Peter J. Fawcett
    • , Josef P. Werne
    •  & Craig D. Allen

  • News & Views |

    Sediments at the edge of Antarctica are a largely unexploited source of information about climate change. They have now provided a valuable local record of sea surface temperatures for the past 12,000 years. See Letter p.250

    • James Bendle

  • Letter |

    The source of what seems to be an anomalous increase in atmospheric methane concentrations about 5,000 years ago compared to methane levels during previous interglacial periods has puzzled researchers. Possible explanations for the rise in methane levels include very early agricultural activity. Climate and wetland simulations of global methane levels over the last glacial cycle now suggest that the increase in methane concentrations can be explained by natural changes in the Earth's orbital configuration, with enhanced emissions in the Southern Hemisphere tropics linked to precession-induced modification of seasonal precipitation

    • Joy S. Singarayer
    • , Paul J. Valdes
    •  & David J. Beerling

  • Letter |

    The Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) is a well-known abrupt warming that occurred at about 55.8 Myr ago and is usually thought to have been caused by a large release of greenhouse gases, as recorded in a large carbon isotope excursion. Yet some marine evidence suggests that in fact the warming came first. Here it is shown that continental warming of about 5 °C preceded the excursion in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. Thus the PETM seems to have been caused by at least two separate warming events.

    • Ross Secord
    • , Philip D. Gingerich
    •  & Kenneth G. MacLeod

  • Letter |

    The Younger Dryas — during which Northern Hemisphere temperatures cooled drastically in just a few years — is perhaps the best-known example of abrupt climate change, but its global extent is under debate, particularly in the record of glacial behaviour in New Zealand. These authors present evidence for glacial retreat in New Zealand during the Younger Dryas, supporting the hypothesis that Northern Hemisphere climate changes caused Southern Hemisphere warming through a series of climate feedbacks.

    • Michael R. Kaplan
    • , Joerg M. Schaefer
    •  & Alice M. Doughty

  • News Feature |

    A project to drill a 10-kilometre-deep hole in China will provide the best view yet of the turbulent Cretaceous period. Jane Qiu reports.

    • Jane Qiu

  • Letter |

    Many large mammals became extinct worldwide at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, around 12,000 years ago. Here, it is shown that smaller mammals, which often provide much more comprehensive fossil records than large mammals, were much less likely to respond to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition by becoming extinct. Instead, diversity and evenness suffered, so that less abundant species became rarer, with more generalist 'weedy' species becoming more common.

    • Jessica L. Blois
    • , Jenny L. McGuire
    •  & Elizabeth A. Hadly

  • News & Views |

    Given that the Sun was dimmer in its youth, our planet should have been frozen over for much of its early history. That it evidently wasn't is a puzzle that continues to engage the attention of Earth scientists.

    • James F. Kasting

  • Letter |

    Palaeoclimate data show that 3–5 million years ago in the early Pliocene the equatorial Pacific experienced persistent warm, El Niño conditions. Here a hurricane model and a coupled climate model show a feedback between sea surface temperature and frequent hurricanes that could account for such conditions.

    • Alexey V. Fedorov
    • , Christopher M. Brierley
    •  & Kerry Emanuel

  • News Feature |

    Like any other field, research on climate change has some fundamental gaps, although not the ones typically claimed by sceptics. Quirin Schiermeier takes a hard look at some of the biggest problem areas.

    • Quirin Schiermeier

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