Week #4: Climate of the Past

GEOG1003
Week Date Coursework Topics Lectures

1 01-Sep Introduction Introduction to global environmental issues

#1 released
2 08-Sep Climate Change Introduction to climate change
(Due 22-Sep)

3 15-Sep Climate Change Causes of climate change

4 22-Sep Climate Change Climates of the past

5 29-Sep Climate Change Global atmospheric change
Progress Report
6 06-Oct Climate Change Consequences of climate change
(Due 20-Oct)
7 13-Oct NO CLASS! Reading Week
#2 released
8 20-Oct Water resources crisis Water resources and pollution
(Due 3-Nov)
9 27-Oct Overpopulation Overpopulation and urbanization

10 03-Nov Air/land pollution Air pollution, acid deposition, land pollution

Earthquake, Tsunami, Thunderstorm and

11 10-Nov Natural hazards
Tornado
12 17-Nov Energy crisis Energy sources and crisis
Final Project
13 24-Nov Course review Course review
(Due 3-Dec)
14 01-Dec NO CLASS! Revision Period
 Climate Change and Your Major
Progress Report

Write in a few sentences:

• What will your project be about?
• What interests you to do such a project?
• What data/information have you collected?
• What exciting findings do you expect to achieve?
• What are the remaining challenges?
 Climate Change and Your Major
Progress Report

 Your chosen topic may not be necessarily about your own

major. It could be about a subject of your interest, as long
as you relate it to climate change.
 Regular literature-based project is fine, but original study
will be encouraged.

• Progress report is not required but strongly encouraged.

• There will be a one-point bonus for submission, and two-
point bonus for those well prepared.
• No specific requirement on length (<500 words) and format.

Due: 20-October, 5:00 PM

 Project Report Samples

N.B.: These are final report samples, NOT progress report samples.
Which forcing is causing global warming?

 Variations in solar output

 Orbital variations

 Volcanic eruptions

 Continent Drift

 Meteors

 Greenhouse Gases (to the extent that they are not

part of the climate system itself)
Contribution of each GHG to greenhouse effect

• In order, the most abundant greenhouse • Ranked by their direct

gases in Earth's atmosphere are: contribution to the GH effect

Gas Contribution(%)
H2O 36 – 72%
CO2 9 – 26%
CH4 4 – 9%
O3 3 – 7%
N2 O 1 – 4%

• Water vapor accounts for the largest percentage of the GH effect

(Then why we are not much concerned?)
• The residence time of water vapor in the air is only nine days.
• Human activity does not significantly affect water vapor concentration at the
global scale.
• The atmospheric concentration of water vapor depends largely on
temperature (high temp-->more water vapor).
Global warming potential (GWP)

• A relative measure of how much heat a GHG traps in the air.

• It compares the amount of heat trapped by a certain mass of
the gas in question to the amount of heat trapped by a similar mass
of CO2.
• A GWP is calculated over a specific time interval, commonly 20, 100
or 500 years.

Chemical Lifetime GWP for given time horizon

Gas name
formula (years)
20-yr 100-yr 500-yr
Carbon
CO2 30-95 1 1 1
dioxide
Methane CH4 12 72 25 7.6

Nitrous oxide N2O 114 289 298 153

CFC-12 CCl2F2 100 11 000 10 900 5 200

HCFC-22 CHClF2 12 5 160 1 810 549

Past Climate Change
 Instruments For Measuring Climate Parameters
Weather Station

Satellite

CO2 Station (Mauna Loa) Air Monitoring Station

 Observed Climate Change

1000 AD. 1805 AD. 2005

satellite
instruments
• Is recent change unusual/unprecedented?
• What was past climate like?
• What are the characteristics of climate
variability?
• What controls climate variability?
• etc……
Instrumental data are way too short
for studying climate….
 "The Past Is The Key To The Future"

The past builds up one’s reputation/credentials

Past climate allows for studing climate variability,

forcing mechanism, and future change

“The farther backward you can look, the

farther forward you are likely to see."
- Winston Churchill
Paleoclimate: Climate in the past
(paleo = Greek word for “ancient”)
Paleoclimatology: The study of past climate prior to the
period of instrumental measurements.
 Informs about long-term (multi-centennial and longer) climate
variability, against which the recent changes can be compared to
assess whether or not they are unusual.
 Documents transitions between different climate states, including
abrupt events.
 Provides quantitative information on the Earth system response to
external forcings.
 Facilitates understanding of Earth system feedbacks on time scales
longer than a few centuries.
 How To Study Past Climate?

 Natural archives:
• Scientists use indirect evidence (data) during past time
periods to determine the climate at that time period.
• These climate imprints are referred to as proxies.

• Be sensitive to changes in certain climate

parameter (T, P, wind, moisture, etc).
• Be existent beyond the 20th century.
• Be found over a large area (optional).
 How To Study Past Climate?

 Climate modeling:
• Scientists use climate models to understand forcings
and feedbacks of climate system.
• Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project Phase III
(PMIP3) and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project
Phase 5 (CMIP5) simulations .
 Types of Paleo Data
Tree
rings Lake sediments Loess

Pollen
Ice cores
Cave deposits
Corals

Historical

Ocean
sediments
 Types of Paleo Data
Tree
Observe
ringsnature carefully. You mightLoess
Lake sediments get a chance to
find a new proxy, becoming a great climate
scientist……

Pollen
Ice cores
Cave deposits
Corals

Historical

Ocean
sediments
 How do we know past climate?

1. Changes in growth (e.g., tree rings)

2. Changes in organism/plant distributions (e.g.
pollen)
3. Changes in isotope ratios (e.g. corals, ice cores,
sediments)
4. Historical records (descriptions, measurements)
 Dating Methods

(Mt/Ag/EnSc/EnSt 404/504 - Global Change) Paleoclimate (from IPCC WG-I, Chapter 6)

Proxy Records of Climate

• Uses of proxy records of

climate depend on both
- time span of record
- resolution of record
Proxy Records of Climate
 Proxies that record annual
growth patterns can indicate year
to year variations in climate
-tree rings
-ice cores
-coral reefs
Generally limited to the last
2000 years

 Proxies going back more

than 2000-yrs generally have
low resolution
- lake/ocean sediments
 • Weather and climate information can be found in ships logs,
farmers’ diaries, local gazetteers (地方誌), and other written
records, and art work (painting).
Europe: Grape Harvest Date
Warm summer means early grape harvest date
China: 晴雨錄 (Rain Record), 雨雪分寸 (Amount of Rain/Snow)

Official Record

晴雨錄 (Rain Record, Qing Dynasty)

China:

Winter half-year temperature anomaly change in eastern

China with 30-year resolution during the past 2000 years

Ge et al. (2003)
South America: El Niño events record since late 1500's

Data sources: Ship logs, presence of red tide, destruction of agricultural crops, etc
 Tambora, 1815, produced the “Year Without a
Summer” (July 1816)

“Darkness” I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

by Byron The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings—the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face; . . .
 Pros and Cons

Pros:
• A source of independent information, especially
for regions where other proxies are not available

Cons:
• Mostly descriptive, providing qualitative, not
quantitative information
• Non-continuous
• Confined to several regions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NENZ6TSc1fo
• As snow and ice accumulate in
polar glaciers a paleoclimate
record accumulates of the
environmental conditions of the
time of formation.

• Ice cores can be analyzed:

-- stable isotope approaches for
water as a record of temperature

-- air bubbles within the ice as a

record of past atmospheric gas
concentrations (e.g. CO2, CH4,
N2O, dust)
 How to reconstruct past temperature
from ice cores?
Oxygen Isotope analysis:

Isotope = atoms of the same element with a different

number of neutrons (different mass)

Name Electrons Protons Neutrons Abundance

16O 8 8 8 99.76%
18O 8 8 10 0.20%
Water with light oxygen (H2O16) evaporates more
readily than water with heavy oxygen (H2O18).
Hence oceans will be relatively rich in O18 when
glaciers grow and hold the precipitated O16
The Vostok Ice Core
• The Vostok Ice Core is a
Russian Station near the
South Pole.

• Their ice cores have

produced climate data
for the past 420,000
years!
Temperature: the last 420,000 years
From the Vostok ice core (Antarctica)

8
Dome C,
Antarctica
Ice Core Drilling Depths
Ice Core Recovery
Antarctica Dome C
 2002

1977

Thompson et al., 2013 Science

Thompson et al., 2013 Science
 Climate Records from Ice Cores
Major Points
• Ice cores have provided the best record of climate change over the
last 800K years, but limited to polar regions.
• The most important climate characteristics recovered from ice cores
are air temperature, atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations and dust.
• One key unanswered question is the cause of the atmospheric CO2
shifts between glacial and interglacial periods.
• Another key question, still not completely answered, is the sequence
of events that occur that cause the earth to shift from glacial to
interglacial periods.
• Tree growth is influenced by climate. These patterns can
be seen in tree ring width and isotopic composition.

• Trees generally produce one ring each year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAOYkx8E-Gc
 Latewood (Autumn)

Earlywood (Spring)
Limiting Factors: Conditions of a
tree’s environment that have the
most control on the rate at which
a tree grows.
Selection of trees
Life’s Life’s
good! tough, I
can tell!
Tree Rings
 Applications of Tree-ring Records

Archeology

Forest fire Earthquake

Climate Change

Glacial movements

Volcanoes Drought/Riverflow Forest insects & pests

 TREE-RING RECORD

PROS:
• Annually (even seasonally) resolved.
• Exactly dated.
• Largely available on lands.
• Sensitive to climate at many locations.

CONS:
• Covering only past ~2000 yrs at most locations.
• Climate signal may be intervened by biological trends.
https://docs.google.com/a/connect.hku.hk/file/d/0Bzh_G81I
Ya4kTWdCU1ltSnNxNjg/edit?usp=drive_web&pli=1
Tree-Rings Provide Evidence on Global Warming

1900 1950 2000

Larix sibirica
East Tien Shan, NW China
Tree-Ring Sample Distribution in China and Mongolia

400+
 Tree-rings reveal the history of Asian monsoon
and its effects on human society

Li, J., et al., 2009: Summer monsoon moisture variability over China and Mongolia during the past four
centuries. Geophysical Research Letters 36, L22705, doi:10.1029/2009GL041162.
El Nino Will Get More Extreme, Study Suggests

El Niño

La Niña

Li et al., 2013
• Corals are composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO3).

• This carbonate contains isotopes of oxygen that can be

used to determine the water temperature when and
where the corals grew.
 Corals: The geologic record of El Niño
Living Porites corals provide records
for the last 200 years CORALS from the tropical Pacific
record El Niño’s in the geochemistry
of their skeletons

Fossil Porites corals enable us to extend

the record back many centuries
Current Coral Sites
A millennium-long reconstruction of tropical Pacific temperature

Key climate observations:

1) late 20th century warming is unprecedented in the last millennium
2) no cooling during the Northern Hemisphere’s “Little Ice Age”
3) significant cooling implied during the NH’s “Medieval Warm Period”
 CORAL RECORD

PROS:
• Annually (even seasonally) resolved.
• Sensitive to SST at many locations.
• Key proxy for understanding tropical climate.

CONS:
• Confined to tropical oceans.
• Covering only past ~200 yrs at most locations.
• Climate signals may be intervened by changes in water salinity.
• Sediment cores can be taken from
lakes, shallow/deep oceans.
• In some cases the thickness of
these layers can be used to infer
past climate.
• In most cases, these layers are
composed of organic materials
that can be used for climate
studies (carbon, pollen, etc).
• All flowering plants produce pollen.
• Pollen grains have distinct shapes that can be used to
identify which plant they came from.
• Pollen grains are well
preserved in lake and ocean
sediments.
• The analysis of each of these
sediment layers provides
information on the vegetation
present at that time.
• Scientists can infer past
climates (warm or cold) based
on the distribution and changes
in plant species.
Cave Deposits (Speleothems)
• Composed of calcium carbonate, so oxygen isotope can be analyzed to
indicate past climate change.
• Unique ability to be accurately dated over much of the
late Quaternary period using the uranium-thorium dating technique.
• Provide clues to past precipitation, temperature, and vegetation
changes over the last ~ 500,000 years.
Did Chinese dynasties rise and fall with monsoons?
• The Asian monsoon was generally strong during the Medieval Warm
Period, especially during the first several decades of the Northern Song
Dynasty, a period of increased rice cultivation and dramatic population
increase.
• Weak during the Little Ice Age, as well as during the final decades of the
Tang, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties, all times that were characterized by
popular unrest.

Zhang et al. (2008, Science)

 Understanding the limitations

• Reconstruction (proxy) uncertainty

• Age uncertainty
Understanding the limitations, cont’d.

The magnitude of change in temperature is different for different proxies. Boreholes (black)
indicate a range (difference from today) of one degree, reconstructions based mostly on tree rings
about a half a degree (red, brown), and a different tree ring reconstruction about a degree (green).
Understanding these differences will eventually yield more accurate reconstructions
Understanding the limitations, cont’d.
Layer counting
5,000 @ 5% uncertainty

U/Th
Age error (years) Layer counting-ice core
Best achievable
accuracy (dashed line)

Radiocarbon dating
0
10,000 yrs 100,000 yrs

1. Age uncertainty increases going farther back in time

2. Some dating methods are less accurate than others.

How well can we know the timing of an event that

occurred thousands of years ago?
 Understanding the limitations
A. Reconstruction (proxy) uncertainty
Strategies:
• Reduce uncertainty with additional measurements (uncertainty decreases with
increasing sample size n)
• Use multiple proxies
• Quantify uncertainty (add error bars where possible!)
 Understanding the limitations
A. Reconstruction (proxy) uncertainty
Strategies:
• Reduce uncertainty with additional measurements (uncertainty decreases with
increasing sample size n)
• Use multiple proxies
• Quantify uncertainty (add error bars where possible!)

B. Age uncertainty
Strategies:
• Apply best method to all sites
• Develop databases where ages can be updated or re-calculated
 Types of Paleo Data
Tree
rings Lake sediments Loess

Pollen
Ice cores
Cave deposits
Corals

Historical

Ocean
sediments