HR: 09:20h
AN: PP31E-06    [Abstracts]
TI: Spatial complexity in the climatic response to solar forcing at 2800 cal. BP
AU: * Swindles, G T
EM: g.t.swindles@bradford.ac.uk
AB: A number of studies have proposed that a major climatic change to wetter/cooler conditions at 2800 cal. BP was triggered by a sudden decline of solar activity, inferred from an anomaly in the 14C record. It has been hypothesised that this climate shift, at the time of the subboreal-subatlantic transition, was global in nature. However, proxy climate records from peatlands in Northern Ireland reveal that a major shift to wetter/cooler climatic conditions post-dated the rapid decrease in solar activity at 2800 cal. BP by ~100 years. These findings are based on multiproxy palaeoecological data (testate amoebae, plant macrofossils and peat humification) and are precisely constrained using tephrochronology and 14C wiggle match dating. These replicated data may indicate marked spatial complexity in the climatic response to solar forcing, which has major implications for understanding how the Sun alters global climate.
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology (0473, 4900)
DE: 4900 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY (0473, 3344)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting