HR: 09:00h
AN: PP51A-05    [PDF]
TI: Solar Forcing of Polar Atmospheric Circulation: A Mechanism for Global Scale Abrupt Climate Change
AU: * Mayewski, P A
EM: paul.mayewski@maine.edu
AF: Climate Change Institute, University of Maine 303 Bryand Global Science Ctr, Orono, ME 04469-5790 United States
AU: Maasch, K
EM: kirk@iceage.umeqs.maine.edu
AF: Climate Change Institute, University of Maine 303 Bryand Global Science Ctr, Orono, ME 04469-5790 United States
AU: Meyerson, E
EM: eric.meyerson@maine.eud
AF: Climate Change Institute, University of Maine 303 Bryand Global Science Ctr, Orono, ME 04469-5790 United States
AB: Abrupt climate change events come in a variety of temporal and spatial scales ranging from the massive events of the last glacial period to the more subtle versions of the Holocene. The impact of even relatively subtle Holocene abrupt climate change events can be extremely dramatic leading to the disruption of ecosystems and human civilization. The most recent Holocene abrupt climate change event is classically referred to as the Little Ice Age. Examination of ice core records suggest that a precursor for this event may have affected Antarctica hundreds of years before the classic, globally distributed onset of the LIA in the late 14th to early 15th centuries. Comparison of several multi-centennial, sub-annually resolved, instrumentally-calibrated ice core proxy records from Greenland representing behavior of the Icelandic Low and Siberian High and from Antarctica representing behavior of the Amundsen Sea Low and East Antarctic High and a variety of proxies for solar variability offer intriguing associations. These associations validate solar-climate associations that involve changes in UV, greenhouse gases, and N compounds and consequent changes in atmospheric circulation. Set in the context of the longer term perspective provided by our ice core records, recent anomalies in the climate of the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, may be indicative of the complex involvement of natural and anthropogenic controls on climate.
DE: 1610 Atmosphere (0315, 0325)
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
DE: 3309 Climatology (1620)
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting