Climate archive
The silver arum ( Dryas octopetala ) is an arctic-alpine glacial relic in Europe. The last phase in the late glacial, the Dryas period, is named after the species. In the picture: Location in a cold air lake of the Mediterranean ice (Opuvani do, Jastrebica).
A climate archive provides information about the climatic past, the climate history of the earth . Everything that stores information about previous climatic conditions is called a climate archive.
Climate archives are divided
- according to their origin in archives of nature and archives of society (including human archives ),
- in the case of human archives, whether they are written documents such as historical representations and chronicles , pictorial representations or archaeological sources,
- according to whether the meteorological information about a climate element is obtained directly through observation or measurement or indirectly from other data via a climate proxy ,
- in the case of indirect data, whether they relate to organic, inorganic or - especially in the case of human archives - cultural or material phenomena.
Natural manifestations that are stored on the earth's surface and which can be used to draw conclusions about climatic conditions at the time of their formation are also called climate witnesses . These include some weathering, sediments, fossils and many more.
| Climate archives (examples) | natural | human | |
|---|---|---|---|
| direct | Observations | n / A. |
|
| instrumental measurements |
n / A. |
|
|
| indirect | organic |
|
|
| inorganic |
|
|
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| cultural | n / A. | ||
These "archives" are analyzed with the most varied of methods and thus provide important data, so-called proxy data, from which elements of the climatic history in paleoclimatology and historical climatology can be reconstructed.
Climate archives differ in terms of their best temporal resolution, i. H. which are the smallest time intervals between two data points, about which time periods and about which climate elements they can provide information.
| archive | best temporal resolution | Range | Information about 1) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Historical documents | Hours / days | Jtsd. | T, H, B, VM, L, S |
| Tree rings | Season / year | 10 Jtsd. | T, H, C A , B, V, M, S |
| Lake sediments | 1-20 years | 10 mill. - mill. Years | T, H, C W , B, V, M |
| Ice cores | year | 100 Jtsd. | T, H, C A , B, V, M, S |
| Pollen | 100 years | 100 Jtsd. | T, H, B |
| loess | 100 years | Million yrs | H, B, M |
| Marine sediments | Jtsd. | 10 million years | T, C W , B, M |
| Corals | year | 10 Jtsd. | C W , L |
| Paleo soil | 100 years | 100 Jtsd. | T, H, C S , V |
| geomorphic features | 100 years | 10 million years | T, H, V, L |
| Sedimentary rocks | year | Billion yrs | H, C S , V, M, L |
1)T: temperature, H: humidity / precipitation, C A / W / S : chemical composition of air / water / soil, B: biomass and vegetation patterns, V: volcanic eruptions, M: geomagnetic changes , L: sea level, S: solar activity
literature
- Heinz Wanner : Climate and people - a 12,000 year history . Haupt Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-258-07879-3 , sections “The mysterious path to climate reconstruction” and “The most important climate archives” (introduction, also addressed to laypeople).
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Christian Pfister: Weather forecast. 500 years of climatic variations and natural disasters (1496-1995) . 1999. after Rudolf Brazdil, Christian Pfister, Heinz Wanner, Hans von Storch, Jürg Luterbacher: Historical Climatology in Europe - The State of the Art . In: Climatic Change . tape 70 , no. 3 , 2005, p. 372 , doi : 10.1007 / s10584-005-5924-1 .
- ^ Franz Mauelshagen: Climate history of the modern age . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2010, ISBN 978-3-534-21024-4 , pp. 40 .
- ↑ Climate witnesses. In: Lexicon of Geosciences. Spectrum academic publisher, accessed August 12, 2016 .
- ↑ Climate witnesses. In: PG-Net. The learning portal for an introduction to physical geography. Free University of Berlin, Faculty of Geosciences, accessed on August 12, 2016 .
- ^ Dryas-The Discovery of Global Warming
- ↑ E.g. on the floor of the Antarctic Ocean
- ^ Frank M. Chambers: natural archives . In: John A Matthews (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Environmental Change . SAGE, December 13, 2013.
- ↑ For frequently used ranges cf. also: Manfred Mudelsee: Climate Time Series Analysis . Springer, September 2010, 1.1 Climate archives, variables and dating, doi : 10.1007 / 978-90-481-9482-7 .