Latest Paleoclimatology Stories

Annual strata in the Japanese Lake Suigetsu enable a more accurate calibration of radiocarbon datings By using a new series of measurements of radiocarbon dates on seasonally laminated sediments from Lake Suigetsu in Japan, a more precise calibration of radiocarbon dating will be possible. In combination with an accurate count of the seasonal layered deposits in the lake, the study resulted in an unprecedented precision of the known 14C method with which it is now possible to date older...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A research team from Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit has found a more accurate benchmark for dating materials, especially for older objects, from a series of radiocarbon measurements from Japan's Lake Suigetsu. As far back as 1993, researchers realized sediment cores from Lake Suigetsu would be useful for radiocarbon dating. However, the initial efforts encountered technical problems. The current team extracted...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from the University of Cambridge Department of Earth Sciences has successfully reconstructed temperature from the deep sea to reveal how global ice volume has varied over the glacial-interglacial cycles of the past 1.5 million years. The study, "Evolution of ocean temperature and ice volume through the Mid-Pleistocene Climate Transition," reported in the journal Science, announces a major breakthrough in understanding...

Palm trees once thrived on today's icy coasts 52 million years ago Given the predicted rise in global temperatures in the coming decades, climate scientists are particularly interested in warm periods that occurred in the geological past. Knowledge of past episodes of global warmth can be used to better understand the relationship between climate change, variations in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the reaction of Earth's biosphere. An international team led by scientists from the Goethe...

The calculations prepared by Mainz scientists will also influence the way current climate change is perceived An international team that includes scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has published a reconstruction of the climate in northern Europe over the last 2,000 years based on the information provided by tree-rings. Professor Dr. Jan Esper's group at the Institute of Geography at JGU used tree-ring density measurements from sub-fossil pine trees originating from...

Tree ring and oxygen isotope data from the U.S. Pacific Northwest do not provide the same information on past precipitation, but rather than causing a problem, the differing results are a good thing, according to a team of geologists. The researchers are trying to understand the larger spatial patterns and timing of drought in the arid and semiarid areas of the American West. "We generally understand that the Medieval Climate Anomaly, a warm period in much of the northern hemisphere...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com Ice samples that profile Greenland glaciers have long been used to give climate scientists historical temperature data, but those samples could be misleading, according to a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers found that the data gathered from the ice cores around Greenland varies greatly from other records of Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the...

A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation -- including stunted trees -- along the edges of the frozen continent. The team of scientists involved in the study, published online June 17 in Nature Geoscience, was led by Sarah J. Feakins of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and included researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion...

WASHINGTON, June 17, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new university-led study with NASA participation finds ancient Antarctica was much warmer and wetter than previously suspected. The climate was suitable to support substantial vegetation -- including stunted trees -- along the edges of the frozen continent. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) The team of scientists involved in the study, published online June 17 in Nature Geoscience, was led by Sarah...

Scientists have long believed that global warming and levels of CO2 were associated. As levels of carbon dioxide increased, so too did the Earth’s temperatures. Now, paleoclimate researchers have studied ancient skeletons from microscopic plankton from the Miocene period to better understand our climate 12 to 5 million years ago. They found warmer periods and increased levels of CO2 didn’t always operate hand in hand, saying the two effects once operated independently of one another....