HR: 1340h
AN: PP43A-0590    [Abstracts]
TI: Long Distance Pollen Transport to the Arctic: a Useful Proxy to Calibrate Atmospheric Circulation?
AU: * Rousseau, D
EM: denis@dstu.univ-montp2.fr
AF: Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Universit‚ Montpellier II, case 61, place EugŠne Bataillon, Montpellier, 34095 France
AU: Schevin, P
EM: schevin@isem.univ-montp2.fr
AF: Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Universit‚ Montpellier II, case 61, place EugŠne Bataillon, Montpellier, 34095 France
AU: Duzer, D
EM: duzer@isem.univ-montp2.fr
AF: Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Universit‚ Montpellier II, case 61, place EugŠne Bataillon, Montpellier, 34095 France
AU: Jolly, D
EM: jolly@isem.univ-montp2.fr
AF: Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Universit‚ Montpellier II, case 61, place EugŠne Bataillon, Montpellier, 34095 France
AU: Cambon, G
EM: cambon@isem.univ-montp2.fr
AF: Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution, Universit‚ Montpellier II, case 61, place EugŠne Bataillon, Montpellier, 34095 France
AB: Tracing modern atmosphere dynamics is important to constrain models used for past climate reconstruction. The main types of tracers of arctic air masses are chemical and show different patterns. Dust in the ice at the summit of the Greenland ice cap has been shown, through isotope analyses, to have originated from Chinese deserts, mostly the Takla Makan and Gobi. Conversely, the chemical composition of the aerosols reaching the summit of the ice cap associated with backward air masses trajectories points to source areas in North America, Europe and Asia. A total of four pollen traps have been displayed on both western and eastern coasts of Greenland during the last four years in order to assess long distance transport in the Arctic domain and to identify potential vegetation source areas associated with air mass pathways. We are demonstrating the long distance transport of pollen originating from North America, Great Lakes area to southern Greenland at least during two consecutives years, 2002 and 2003. Thus a regular pattern of air masses responsible for the transport of pollen grains from North America to Greenland should be constant, as already described for anthropogenic pollutants. Another pollen trap was installed on the sea ice during the ice-sea drift expedition from North Pole of French explorer Dr. Jean-Louis Etienne in 2002. In that case we demonstrate two long distance transport to the North Pole from two different Eurasian regions during 2002: western Europe and eastern Siberia. Until now the use of pollen as an air mass tracer had not yet been investigated. Here we show that first evidence pollen represents a biological alternative to understand both present and past air mass dynamics in the Arctic and its associated relationship with biosphere changes.
DE: 9315 Arctic region
DE: 3322 Land/atmosphere interactions
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
DE: 4215 Climate and interannual variability (3309)
DE: 1851 Plant ecology
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting