a 160 k y old record of el nino southern oscillation in marine production and coastal runoff from santa barbara basin california usa a 160 k y old laminated sediment record from the santa barbara basin california analyzed using scanning electron microscope techniques provides a history of interannual variability of marine production and coastal runoff we used backscatter electron imagery to measure the components of the varve these include a terrigenous lamina formed by seasonal runoff from winter rains together with a diatomaceous lamina that records marine production during the spring and early summer spectral analysis of terrigenous and diatomaceous laminae thickness reveals significant periodicities of 3 1 and 8 4 yr in the terrigenous series these are indistinguishable within the frequency resolution of the spectra from significant periodicities of 3 5 and 7 6 yr in the diatomaceous series the 3 1 and 3 5 yr periodicities record el nino modulation of coastal runoff and marine production the 8 4 and 7 6 yr periodicities are consistent with modulation by strong to very strong el nino events this is supported by the results of cross spectral analysis of the terrigenous and diatomaceous records which reveal inverse or antiphase relationships at 3 5 and 7 6 yr our work adds to a body of evidence that suggests that el nino has been a persistent feature of late quaternary climate variability

el nino la nina and sahel precipitation during the middle holocene simulations with a synchronously coupled atmo sphere land ocean sea ice model indicate el nino la nina like events in the eastern tropical pacific ocean during the middle holocene 6 ka with similar intensities and frequencies as at present 0 ka july august september sahel precipitation shifts northward as expected from proxy data for present day interannual decadal variability of western sahel precipi tation is correlated with both pacific el nino la nina sea sur face temperature sst anomalies and the atlantic dipole teleconnections at 6 ka between sahel precipitation and el nino la nina sst anomalies are absent with tropical atlantic ssts asserting a dominant influence these results illustrate potential problems with using present day teleconnection patterns in interpreting past climate variability from proxy data

an 15 000 year record of el nino driven alluviation in southwestern ecuador debris flows have deposited inorganic laminae in an alpine lake that is 75 kilometers east of the pacific ocean in ecuador these storm induced events were dated by radiocarbon and the age of laminae that are less than 200 years old matches the historic record of el nino events from about 15 000 to about 7000 calendar years before the present the periodicity of clastic deposition is greater than or equal to 15 years thereafter there is a progressive increase in frequency to periodicities of 2 to 8 5 years this is the modern el nino periodicity which was established about 5000 calendar years before the present this may reflect the onset of a steeper zonal sea surface temperature gradient which was driven by enhanced trade winds

the last british ice sheet a review of the evidence utilised in the compilation of the glacial map of britain this paper reviews the evidence presently available as at december 2003 for the compilation of the glacial map of britain see clark c d evans d j a khatwa a bradwell t jordan c j marsh s h mitchell w a bateman m d 2004 map and gis database of glacial landforms and features related to the last british ice sheet boreas 33 359 375 and http www shef ac uk geography staff clark chris britice html in an effort to stimulate further research on the last british ice sheet and promote a reconstruction of ice sheet behaviour based on glacial geology and geomorphology the wide range of evidence that has been scrutinized for inclusion on the glacial map is assessed with respect to the variability of its quality and quantity and the existing controversies in ice sheet reconstructions landforms interpreted as being of unequivocal ice marginal origin moraines ice contact glacifluvial landforms and lateral meltwater channels and till sheet margins are used in conjunction with available chronological control to locate former glacier and ice sheet margins throughout the last glacial cycle subglacial landforms drumlins flutings and eskers have been used to demarcate former flow patterns within the ice sheet the compilation of evidence in a regional map is crucial to any future reconstructions of palaeo ice sheet dynamics and will provide a clearer understanding of ice sheet configuration ice divide migration and ice thickness and coverage for the british ice sheet as it evolved through the last glacial cycle

a high resolution proxy record of rainfall and enso since ad 1550 from layering in stalagmites from anjohibe cave madagascar two stalagmites from anjohibe cave have annual layers made up of inclusion rich calcite over inclusion free calcite or of darker aragonite over clear aragonite geochemical evidence indicates that the basal units are deposited slowly in the wet season and the upper units more rapidly in the dry season for the period with rainfall and temperature data ad 1951 1992 layer thickness correlates well with the southern oscillation index soi as well as rainfall water surplus and actual evapotranspiration aet at nearby majunga com parison of the layer record for one stalagmite with 1866 1994 soi data indicates that layer thickness correlates best with the frequency and intensity of warm low phase so el nino events not with average soi conditions in addition the 415 year layer thickness time series from that speleothem agrees remarkably well with historical records of el nino frequency with galapagos ecuador coral records of sea surface temperature in the eastern pacific and with accumulation

the late devensian 22 000 bp irish sea basin the sedimentary record of a collapsed ice sheet margin the late devensian 20 ka bp glacial geology of the irish sea basin 4000 km2 is an event stratigraphy recording the entry of marine waters into a glacio isostatically depressed basin and the rapid retreat of the irish sea glacier as a tidewater ice margin marine limits occur up to 140 m o d across much of the central basin the ice margin was uncoupled from its bed exposing a subglacially scoured topography to glaciomarine processes the irish sea glacier was a major drainage conduit of the last british ice sheet calving of the marine ice margin resulted in fast flow surging of ice streams recorded by drumlin fields around the northern basin margin and tunnel valleys rapid evacuation of the basin may have stranded large areas of dead ice in peripheral zones e g cheshire shropshire lowlands and initiated the collapse of the ice sheet thick wedges of ice contact glaciomarine sediments were deposited during ice retreat as morainal bank complexes by successive tidewater ice margins stabilized at pinning points around the irish sea coast where morainal banks occur on the seaward side of drumlin swarms there is a clear sequential relationship between rapid ice loss from calving ice margins the development of fast flowing ice streams drumlinization and the pumping of subglacial sediment to tidewater raised delta complexes are locally associated with marine limits along the high relief coastal margins of wales east central ireland and the lake district associated valley infill complexes record downslope resedimentation of heterogenous sediments into the marine environment during ice retreat co eval offshore deposits are represented by well stratified glaciomarine complexes that infill a subglacially scoured topography that shows networks of tunnel valleys glaciomarine mud drapes occur well to the south of the maximum limit of grounded ice in the basin e g north devon scilly islands southern ireland the age of these distal sediments previously mapped as pre devensian tills is constrained by amino acid ratios basin rebound following deglaciation was rapid with over 100 m recovery in 3 ka and was followed by a low marine still stand peat accumulating in offshore areas now as much as 55 m below sea level has been drowned by the postglacial eustatic rise in sea level the glacio sedimentary model identified in this paper involving rapid ice retreat and related sedimentation triggered by rising relative sea level suggests that isotatic downwarping is an important mechanism for deglaciating continental shelves

ocean wave dynamics and the time scale of enso abstract a reexamination of the coupled delayed action oscillator model of suarez and schopf for the el nino southern oscillation enso phenomenon is made by deriving it using a parameterized atmosphere and explicit linear ocean wave dynamics the derivation attempts to clarify the role of boundary reflections damping and scale sensitivity in determining the characteristic timescale of the model making the assumption that sst anomalies are related to thermocline perturbations in the central to eastern part of the basin and that wind anomalies are related to sst anomalies ocean wave dynamics are invoked to solve for the relationship between wind anomalies and the relevant thermocline displacement a perturbation to sst causes wind anomalies which drive kelvin waves eastward thereby increasing the sst perturbation the wind perturbations also generate rossby waves in the ocean which propagate westward eventually reflecting from the western boundary as kelvin waves the thermocline displacements of

post glacial sea level rise from a coral record at huon peninsula papua new guinea dating of coral reef terraces can provide a record of changes in sea level which should be pronounced during the transition between glacial and interglacial periods cores drilled from coral reefs at barbados in the equatorial west atlantic1have revealed the sea level changes that occurred during the younger dry as event at the end of the last glacial maximum 11 000 yr bp it has not been known however whether pacific coral reefs can grow at a rate sufficient to keep up with the rise in sea level during such a transition here we report results obtained from a 52 m drill core from the post glacial reef at huon peninsula papua new guinea spanning the interval from 7 000 to 11 000 14c yr bp which show that coral growth kept pace while the relative sea level rose by 50m although the tectonic environment is very different from that at barbados the two records compare well when corrections are made for local tectonic uplift showing that sea level rise was similar at both locations the rate of rise was greatest between 9 000 and 10 00014c yr bp corresponding to the time of the younger dryas

rapid flooding of the sunda shelf a late glacial sea level record the increase in sea level from the last glacial maximum has been derived from a siliciclastic system on the tectonically stable sunda shelf in southeast asia the time from 21 to 14 thousand calendar years before the present has been poorly covered in other records the record generally confirms sea level reconstructions from coral reefs the rise of sea level during meltwater pulse 1a was as much as 16 meters within 300 years 14 6 to 14 3 thousand years ago

a geotechnical correction for post depositional sediment compression examples from the forth valley scotland fine grained sediments usually suffer post depositional compression compaction which reduces bed thickness and lowers the elevations of sample positions and marker horizons this reduction has been calculated for two general cases using geotechnical theory and a correction decompaction factor is presented that can be applied to many field situations its use is illustrated by two examples from the clay sediments of the claret formation of the forth valley in the first the correction is calculated for 14c samples from the bothkennar research site near grangemouth and the effect on the reconstruction of water depths is discussed in the second example corrections are obtained for published sea level index points from former shorelines in the forth valley using a method for a postiori estimation of geotechnical data general conclusions are drawn between the size of the correction and the sample position relative to the local depocentre some applications to palaeotidal modelling are also suggested 1998 john wiley sons ltd

the present rate of uplift of fennoscandia implies a low viscosity asthenosphere the rate of displacement in fennoscandia has been intensively discussed for many years it is now widely accepted to be an isostatic response of the glacial history of the area the earth s present response to deglaciation in fennoscandia is simulated using a three dimensional 3d viscoelastic model in which the asthenosphere and mantle viscosity are allowed to vary so that the maximum rate of present uplift matches its observed value the deglaciation history is considered to be known and the c14 datings are converted to sidereal years the pattern of the present uplift gives a firm match with the observed data when a low viscosity asthenosphere is introduced assuming a 15 000 years load cycle i e the glacier was applied to the surface for 15 000 years before the melting started the best fitting earth viscosity model is a 1024 nm lithosphere overlying a 75 km thick 2 0 1019 pas asthenosphere and a 1 2 1021 pas mantle the simulations suggest a remaining maximum uplift of 40 m

on the evolution of the southern oscillation abstract the evolution of the southern oscillation so is examined in the time domain by computing lagged cross correlations between sea level pressures at darwin and sea level or surface pressures at selected stations also in the northern hemisphere the historical and u s navy sea level pressure analyses are used all monthly time series are low pass filtered to retain periodicities greater than 20 months in order to highlight the interannual fluctuations which are primarily associated with the so a detailed analysis of the post 1941 period results in plotted maps of the phase lead or lag and magnitude of the maximum cross correlations with darwin in a manner analogous to a broadband coherence and phase spectrum the relationships within the so are further examined where possible back to 1882 using time series of running decadal cross covariances the dominant pattern reveals the two poles of the traditional standing oscillation or seesaw of the so with centers of opposite sign over indonesia

the last glacial maximum in the north sea basin micromorphological evidence of extensive glaciation despite a long history of investigation critical issues regarding the last glacial cycle in northwest europe remain unresolved one of these refers to the extent timing and dynamics of late devensian weichselian glaciation of the north sea basin and whether the british and scandinavian ice sheets were confluent at any time during this period this has been the result of the lack of the detailed sedimentological data required to reconstruct processes and environment of sediments recovered through coring this study presents the results of seismic sedimentological and micromorphological evidence used to reconstruct the depositional processes of regionally extensive seismic units across the north sea basin thin section micromorphology is used here to provide an effective means of discriminating between subglacial and glacimarine sediments from cored samples and deriving process based interpretations from sediment cores on the basis of micromorphology critical formations from the basin have been reinterpreted with consequent stratigraphic implications within the current stratigraphic understanding of the north sea basin a complex reconstruction is suggested with a minimum of three major glacial episodes inferred on at least two occasions during the weichselian devensian the british and scandinavian ice sheets were confluent in the central north sea whilst micromorphology can provide much greater confidence in the interpretation of late quaternary offshore stratigraphic sequences it is noted that a much better geochronology is required to resolve key stratigraphic issues between the onshore and offshore stratigraphic records copyright 2006 john wiley sons ltd

deglacial sea level record from tahiti corals and the timing of global meltwater discharge the timing of the last deglaciation is important to our understanding of the dynamics of large ice sheets1 and their effects on the earth s surface2 3 moreover the disappearance of the glacial ice sheets was responsible for dramatic increases in freshwater fluxes to the oceans which probably disturbed the ocean s thermohaline circulation and hence global climate4 7 sea level increases bear witness to the melting of continental ice sheets but only two such records from barbados8 9 and new guinea10 11 corals have been accurately dated but these corals overlie active subduction zones where tectonic movements are large and often discontinuous especially in new guinea so the apparent sea level records may be contaminated by a complex tectonic component here we date fossil corals from tahiti which is far from plate boundaries and thus is likely to be tectonically relatively stable and remote from the locations of large former ice sheets the resulting record indicates a large sea level jump shortly before 13 800 calendar years bp which corresponds to meltwater pulse 1a in the barbados coral records8 9 the timing of this event is more accurately constrained in the tahiti record revealing that the meltwater pulse coincides with a short and intense climate cooling event12 15 that followed the initiation of the bolling allerod warm period12 16 but preceded the younger dryas cold event by about 1 000 years

rapid rise of sea level 19 000 years ago and its global implications evidence from the irish sea basin supports the existence of an abrupt rise in sea level meltwater pulse at 19 000 years before the present b p climate records indicate a large reduction in the strength of north atlantic deep water formation and attendant cooling of the north atlantic at this time indicating a source of the meltwater pulse from one or more northern hemisphere ice sheets warming of the tropical atlantic and pacific oceans and the southern hemisphere also began at 19 000 years b p these responses identify mechanisms responsible for the propagation of deglacial climate signals to the southern hemisphere and tropics while maintaining a cold climate in the northern hemisphere

late quaternary sea level changes crustal movements and coastal evolution in northumberland uk northumberland lies in the transition between holocene emergence and submerg ence and is thus a critical zone for testing models of isostatic rebound we have collected data from this area to reconstruct relative sea level changes and lateral coastline movements for the last 14000 y these are deposits from tidal marsh back barrier wetland and terrestrial environ ments producing 47 sea level index points from 12 sites there is no unequivocal evidence for late devensian sea levels above present and the reliable sea level index points are restricted between 26 m and 12 5 m relative to present and 9 0 2 5 kyr cal bp analysis of these quantifies differential responses to glacio and hydroisostatic rebound with the northern sites recording a mid holocene sea level maximum ca 2 5 m above present whereas the southern sites show a maximum ca 0 5 m above present these observations show a reasonable fit with the predictions from quantitative models of glacio and hydroisostatic rebound but there is currently no unique solution of earth and ice model parameters that will explain all the sea level observations copyright 2000 john wiley sons ltd

global glacial isostatic adjustment palaeogeodetic and space geodetic tests of the ice 4g vm2 model analyses of the global process of glacial isostatic adjustment and post glacial relative sea level change continue to deliver important insights into earth system form and process one successful model of the related phenomenology is based upon a spherically symmetric internal viscoelastic structure for the solid earth which has been denoted vm2 and a model of the most recent deglaciation event of the current ice age denoted ice 4g the primary purpose of this paper is to describe several new a posteriori tests that have recently been performed to further investigate the quality of this global solution to the inverse problem for both mantle viscosity and deglaciation history that is posed by the observables associated with this large scale geodynamic phenomenon i focus especially upon the misfits of observations to the theoretical predictions of this model which i am currently using to further refine its properties and upon predictions made using it of geophysical signals that should soon become visible in the context of the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace satellite mission among the required refinements to ice 4g one that is necessary to eliminate a recently revealed misfit to space geodetic constraints on the present day rate of radial motion at the yellowknife location well to the west of hudson bay and a similar misfit to absolute gravity measurements to the southwest of the bay is the insertion of a keewatin dome of thick ice centred over yellowknife with a ridge of ice extending to the south east in the geomorphological literature the existence of such a keewatin dome previously has been hypothesised but chronological control was lacking on the surface features that suggested its former existence an important additional constraint that requires the late glacial existence of this important feature consists of new inferences of the last glacial maximum lowstand of the sea from sites in the far field of the main concentrations of land ice copyright 2002 john wiley sons ltd

the melting history of the late pleistocene antarctic ice sheet spatial and temporal variations in the sea levels of the past 20 000 years around the globe place constraints on the melting history of the major late pleistocene ice sheets the antarctic ice sheets provided a significant contribution to the sea level rise at a rate that was approximately synchronous with the melting of the laurentide ice sheet except for the interval 9 000 6 000 years ago when it may have lagged behind minor melting of the antarctic ice sheet continued throughout the holocene

contrasting eastern pacific and central pacific types of enso abstract surface observations and subsurface ocean assimilation datasets are examined to contrast two distinct types of el nino southern oscillation enso in the tropical pacific an eastern pacific ep type and a central pacific cp type an analysis method combining empirical orthogonal function eof analysis and linear regression is used to separate these two types correlation and composite analyses based on the principal components of the eof were performed to examine the structure evolution and teleconnection of these two enso types the ep type of enso is found to have its sst anomaly center located in the eastern equatorial pacific attached to the coast of south america this type of enso is associated with basinwide thermocline and surface wind variations and shows a strong teleconnection with the tropical indian ocean in contrast the cp type of enso has most of its surface wind sst and subsurface anomalies confined in the central pacific and tends to onset develop and decay in situ

low frequency changes in el nino southern oscillation abstract although there are indications from numerical models that el nino southern oscillation enso may be an internal mode of the coupled pacific ocean atmosphere system sensitive to climatic background parameters it has not yet been possible to find significant changes in enso variability between the little ice age and the present yet a number of authors have found qualitative indications in anecdotal and proxy records of shorter century scale variations in the return interval statistics for el nino episodes to objectively determine what nonstationarities exist we statistically examine the el nino occurrences since 1525 compiled by quinn et al we have stratified the return intervals both for strong events and for all events according to two null hypotheses 1 return intervals are stationary over periods of 200 500 years and 2 the intervals are stationary on a centenary time scale between epochs of contrasting solar variability two parameter weibull distributions are fit to subsamples of

el nino southern oscillation enso and decadal scale climate variability at 10 n in the eastern pacific from 1893 to 1994 a coral based reconstruction from clipperton atoll we have developed a 101 year 1893 1994 subseasonal oxygen 18o and carbon 13c isotopic time series from clipperton atoll in the eastern pacific using the coral porites lobata in agreement with linsley et al 1999 we find that seasonal and interannual coral 18o variability at clipperton results from variability in both water temperature and salinity three new coral time series demonstrate the reproducibility of a secular coral 18o trend of 0 35 since 1910 but show varying 13c trends strong decadal scale variability in the 18o record appears related to the pacific decadal oscillation pdo through postulated changes in the strengths of the equatorial counter current and north equatorial current interannual variability in this coral 18o record is directly related to the el nino southern oscillation enso and isolation of this frequency band indicates reduced enso variability in the eastern equatorial pacific in the period 1925 to 1940 in agreement with instrumental and other pacific coral records

patterns of isostatic land uplift during the holocene evidence from mainland scotland preliminary results of a lengthy and detailed investigation into middle and late holocene raised shorelines in mainland scotland indicate that three shorelines are sufficiently widely distributed to permit an examination of their extent and of the patterns of uplift which they indicate the shorelines are the storegga tsunami shoreline reached at c 7100 14c years bp at the culmination of the main postglacial transgression and the blairdrummond shoreline reached after the main postglacial shoreline at c 2000 4200 14c years bp at the time of a tsunami believed to have been caused by the second storegga submarine slide the main postglacial shoreline reached at c 5800 6850 14c years bp the main postglacial shoreline previously believed to be the highest holocene raised shoreline in scotland is now believed to be overlapped around the periphery of the uplifted area by the later blairdrummond shoreline isobase models based upon quadratic trend surface analysis of available comparable height dat

estimating past continental ice volume from sea level data we predict sea level change since the last glacial maximum lgm at four far field sites barbados bonaparte gulf huon peninsula and tahiti using a revised theoretical formalism this formalism includes a time varying shoreline geometry an accurate treatment of sea level variations near regions of ice retreat and the influence of glacial cycle perturbations in earth rotation we elucidate the physics of far field sea level change by de constructing the predicted signal into spatially uniform versus spatially varying components as well as isolating contributions due to the ice load the ocean load and the rotational potential we demonstrate that the sum of these three contributions plus the spatially uniform sea level fall associated the with retreat of grounded marine ice sheets can produce a significant difference between predictions of sea level change at far field sites and the eustatic or meltwater curve associated with the adopted ice model this difference is site and time dependent for example the total sea level rise since the lgm predicted using our ice earth model can be either smaller e g barbados or larger e g tahiti than the eustatic sea level change finally we review procedures that have been applied to estimate continental ice volume from far field sea level observations and apply these procedures to data from barbados and bonaparte gulf applying an ice earth model that is tuned to fit the barbados data we estimate a change in grounded ice volume from the lgm to the present of 43 5 51 106 km3 based on barbados data and an lgm ice volume estimate of 51 106 km3 based on bonaparte gulf data our results for the bonaparte gulf data are consistent with the recent study by yokoyama et al nature 406 2000 713 these lgm ice volume estimates map into a eustatic or meltwater sea level rise of 115 135 m taking into account plausible variations in the adopted radial earth model introduces uncertainties in the range of 1 5 106 km3 for ice volume estimates based on the barbados data

eastern pacific sea surface temperature since 1600 a d the δ18o record of climate variability in galapagos corals we measured stable oxygen isotope ratios and skeletal growth rates in the massive corals pavona clavus and p gigantea from the west coast of isabela island galapagos to assess interannual to decadal climate variability in the eastern pacific comparisons of instrumental data sets show that sea surface temperatures sst in the galapagos region are representative of a broad portion of the eastern equatorial pacific the site is especially well suited for long term studies of the el nino southern oscillation enso phenomenon as it lies within the eastern pacific center of action for thermal anomalies associated with enso the p gigantea isotope record is nearly monthly in resolution spans the period 1961 1982 and shows strong correlation with a galapagos instrumental sst record r 0 90 for annual averages cross spectral analysis shows that sst can explain greater than 80 of the variance in 18o at both the annual cycle and within the high frequency portion of the enso band 3 5 years the p clavus record is annual in resolution extends from 1587 to 1953 a d and was obtained from a 10 m diameter colony preserved within the urvina bay uplift because seawater 18o variations in the region are very small we interpret the urvina bay coral 18o record in terms of annual average sst the isotopic record appears to be a very good but not perfect indicator of enso events and shows good correspondence with the historical enso reconstruction of quinn et al 1987 a number of low 18o excursions that we observe during the 17th and 18th centuries very likely represent enso events that are missing from the historical tabulations most interannual 18o variations between 1607 and 1953 a d represent annual average temperature excursions of 1 to 2 5 c during the little ice age the annual 18o series correlates well with many north american tree ring records and shows low temperatures during the early 1600s and early 1800s and relatively warmer conditions during the 1700s unlike most northern hemisphere tree ring and instrumental records we see no evidence at this site for warming between 1880 and 1940 but rather observe a slight cooling 28 of the total variance the main enso mode is centered at 4 6 years and accounts for 12 of the total variance additional significant oscillations occur at periods of 3 3 6 8 11 17 22 and 34 years both annual growth rate and 18o show variance at periods equivalent to the solar and solar magnetic periods e g 11 and 22 years respectively in addition the amplitude of the 11 year 18o cycle generally varies with the amplitude of the solar cycle supporting previous suggestions that the solar cycle may modulate interannual to decadal climate variability in the tropics the dominant oscillatory modes both within the enso and interdecadal frequency bands shift to shorter periods from the early to middle 1700s and again from the middle to late 1800s this may reflect major reorganizations within the tropical ocean atmosphere system and suggests that tropical pacific climate variability is linked across timescales ranging from years to decades

on post glacial sea level i general theory summary modern analyses of sea level changes due to glacial isostatic adjustment gia are based on the classic sea level equation derived by farrell clark 1976 geophys j r astr soc 46 647 667 the connection between global sea level variations and changes to ocean height that is assumed within this equation breaks down in the presence of a time varying shoreline geometry we present a generalized sea level equation that overcomes this difficulty we also derive analytic expressions for and present schematic illustrations of the error in the ocean height change over finite time intervals introduced in published efforts to incorporate shoreline evolution into the theory of gia induced sea level change this comparison includes studies of shoreline migration due to either local sea level changes or the growth and ablation of marine based ice we conclude that the theories applied by johnston 1993 geophys j int 114 615 634 milne 1998 phd thesis university of toronto toronto and co workers are more accurate than the procedure advocated by peltier 1994 science 265 195 201 1998a geophys res lett 25 3955 3958 1998b rev geophys 114 615 634 although an improvement in the latter has recently been reported peltier drummond 2002 geophys res lett 29 10 1029 2001gl014273 our generalized theory is valid for any earth model in a companion paper we derive the equations necessary to treat the special case of a spherically symmetric linear viscoelastic and rotating earth and we quantify errors associated with previous work

quaternary glaciations in southern fennoscandia evidence from southwestern norway and the northern north sea region abstract based on records from the northern north sea and southern norway quaternary fennoscandian glaciations are described and discussed maximum glaciation defined as the presence of shelf edge glaciation an ice stream flowing out of the norwegian channel and most likely an ice divide over the central part of fennoscandia sweden gulf of bothnia occurred for the first time in the late cenozoic at ca 1 1 myr the fedje glaciation this glaciation was followed by a ca 600 kyr period with at least two glaciations with ice extension somewhat larger than the younger dryas event in the region the first maximum glaciation of the bruhnes chron was during isotope stage 12 and was followed by repeated maximum glaciations within each of the light isotopic stages until stage 2 during the weichselian the southwestern part of the fennoscandian ice sheet reached maximum position three times sometime between 22 and 28 37 and 50 and 60 and 80 ka limited glaciations probably occurred during stadials between the early and middle weichselian interstadials between 500 ka and 1 1 myr and most likely also prior to 1 1 myr deep norwegian sea ice rafted detritus ird records reflecting contributions from several different ice sheets fennoscandian barents sea iceland and greenland each with large variations in history of ice extent to their respective margins yet to some degree they reflect the glaciation of the northern north sea region with an increasing ird input around 1 1 myr and a relatively low input of north sea components during some cycles around the b m boundary maximum glaciations occurred during insolation minima in the earlier part of the middle pleistocene however not all such minima are reflected by maximum glaciation in southern parts of fennoscandia the relatively poor chronological control and non continuous character of the data on weichselian interstadials stadials precludes a clear relationship to atmospheric changes recorded in greenland ice cores as well as to precession and or obliquity cycles in insolation

the last ice sheet in north west scotland reconstruction and implications recent models of the last scottish ice sheet suggest that nunataks remained above the ice surface in areas peripheral to the main centres of accumulation this proposition has been investigated on 140 mountains over an area of 10 000 km2 in nw scotland outside the limits of the later loch lomond readvance in this area there is evidence for a single high level weathering limit that separates glacially eroded terrain from higher areas of in situ frost debris this limit occurs at altitudes ranging from 425 to 450 m in the outer hebrides to 950 m on the mainland and is best developed on lithologies that resisted breakdown after ice sheet downwastage interpretation of this weathering limit as a periglacial trimline cut by the last ice sheet at its maximum thickness is supported by 1 joint depth and schmidt hammer measurements that indicate significantly more advanced rock breakdown above the weathering limit 2 a much greater representation of gibbsite a pre late devensian weathering product in the clay fraction of soils above the limit 3 cosmogenic isotope dating of the exposure ages of rock outcrops above and below the limit 4 the sharpness of the limit at some sites and its regular decline along former ice flowlines and 5 shear stress calculations based on the inferred altitude and gradient of the former ice surface reconstruction of the ice surface based on trimline evidence indicates that the mainland ice shed lay near or slightly east of the present watershed and descended northwards from 900 m to ca 550 m at the north coast independent dispersion centres fed broad ice streams that occupied major troughs on skye an ice dome 800 m deflected the northwestwards movement of mainland ice but the mountains of rum were over ridden by mainland ice up to an altitude of ca 700 m the outer hebrides supported an independent ice cap that was confluent with mainland ice in the minches extrapolation of the trimline evidence indicates that most reconstructions of ice extent are too conservative and suggests that low gradient ice streams extended across the hebridean shelf offshore wider implications of this research are 1 that blockfields and other periglacial weathering covers are not all of the same age or significance depending on the resistance of different lithologies to frost weathering 2 that the contrasting degree of glacial modification in the western and eastern highlands of scotland may reflect a former cover of predominantly warm based ice in the former and predominantly cold based ice in the latter and 3 that the approach and techniques developed in this study have potential application for constraining ice sheet models not only in areas peripheral to the main centres of ice accumulation in britain and ireland but also in other mountain areas where nunataks protruded through warm based late pleistocene ice masses

sea level change glacial rebound and mantle viscosity fornorthern europe northwestern europe remains a key region for testing models of glacial isostasy because of the good geological record of crustal response to the glacial unloading since the time of the last glacial maximum models for this rebound and associated sea level change require a detailed knowledge of the ice sheet geometry including the ice thickness through time existing ice sheet reconstructions are strongly model dependent and inversions of sea level data for the mantle response may be a function of the model assumptions thus inverse solutions for the sea level data are sought that include both ice and earth model parameters as unknowns sea level data from fennoscandia the north sea the british isles and the atlantic and english channel coasts have been evaluated and incorporated into the solutions the starting ice sheet for fennoscandia is based on a reconstruction of a model by denton hughes 1981 that is characterized by quasi parabolic cross sections and symmetry about the load centre both global northwestern europe as a whole and regional subsets of the data solutions have been made for earth model parameters and ice height scaling parameters the key results are as follows 1 the response of the upper mantle to the changing ice and water loads is spatially relatively homogenous across scandinavia the north sea and the british isles 2 this response can be adequately modelled by an effective elastic lithosphere of thickness 65 85 km and by an effective upper mantle viscosity from the base of the lithosphere to the 670 km depth seismic discontinuity of about 3 4 1020 pa s the effective lower mantle viscosity is at least an order of magnitude greater 3 the ice thickness over scandinavia at the time of maximum glaciation was only about 2000 m much less than the 3400 m assumed in the denton hughes model 4 the ice profiles are asymmetric about the centre of the ice sheet with those over the western part being consistent with quasi parabolic functions whereas the ice heights over the eastern and southern regions increase much more slowly with distance inwards from the ice margin

electron spin resonance dating of the pleistocene coral reef tracts of barbados abstract the reef tracts of barbados have been investigated by electron spin resonance dating all parameters necessary for esr dating including effective efficiency and thermal stability were determined without cross checking with another independent dating method in addition some u series analyses were carried out in order to test the reliability of esr in most cases the results show a satisfactory agreement between esr and both these and previously published u series dates m l bender r g fairbanks f w taylor r k matthews j g goddard and w s broecker 1979 geological society of america bulletin 90 577 594 for the oldest samples esr dates tend to exceed he u dates suggesting that there might have been he loss from aragonite raised reef tracts are assigned to high sea stands from successive interglacial stages 5 7 9 11 13 and 15 esr and u series 230th 234u dates for corals and molluses in north barbados do not support the suggestion of n p james 1971 unpublished thesis mcgill university montreal that this region has subsided during part of the past 125 000 yr whereas the experimentally determined mean life of trapped electrons is only 500 000 yr for the ambient temperature in barbados there is no evidence from the comparison between esr and other dates for thermal fading this emphasizes the difficulty of experimental measurement of

relative sea level observations in western scotland since the last glacial maximum for testing models of glacial isostatic land movements and ice sheet reconstructions observations of relative sea level change and local deglaciation in western scotland provide critical constraints for modelling glacio isostatic rebound in northern britain over the last 18 000 years the longest records come from skye arisaig and knapdale with a shorter holocene record from kintail biostratigraphic diatom pollen dinoflagellate foraminifera and thecamoebian lithological and radiocarbon analyses provide age and elevation parameters for each sea level index point all four sites reveal relative sea level change that is highly non monotonic in time as the local vertical component of glacio isostatic rebound and eustasy or global meltwater influx dominate at different periods copyright 2006 john wiley sons ltd

on postglacial geoid subsidence over the equatorial oceans we develop two new spectral formalisms for the gravitationally self consistent solution of the sea level equation which governs the redistribution of glacial meltwater on a visco elastic earth the first is a purely spectral technique based on an extension of theory outlined by dahlen 1976 for determining the equilibrium oceanic tide on an elastic planet using this technique with a feasible spherical harmonic truncation level l 30 we can obtain convergence in the computed sea level variations within the degree range l 10 we also develop a second pseudospectral technique however which permits the construction of gravitationally self consistent solutions to much higher degree and order l 100 the pseudospectral formalism is employed here to develop a comprehensive physical explanation for the global pattern of present day sea level variations due to ongoing glacial isostatic adjustment in particular we focus upon a mechanism which we term equatorial ocean syphoning that acts to draw water toward the oceanic portion of the collapsing peripheral bulge that encircles previously glaciated regions the collapse of the forebulge induces a flow of water which is required to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium the syphoning mechanism dominates the relative sea level rsl variation in oceans in the far field of the ice sheets that is beyond the peripheral bulge during periods such as the interglacial of the past 4000 years during which the volume of the ice sheets has not apparently changed appreciably while at the same time isostatic adjustment persists the rsl change in the near field is in contrast dominated by the local vertical displacement of the solid surface finally comparison of gravitationally self consistent predictions of rsl change in the far field with the observational data at small pacific island sites has provided an upper bound of 1 to 2 m for the eustatic sea level rise produced by any recent last 3000 years melting of the antarctic ice sheet

glaciation and sea level change for ireland and the irish sea since late devensian midlandian time the sea level change around the coast of ireland and the irish sea for the past 20 000 years is primarily the combined result of the glacio isostatic adjustment of the crust to the removal of ice over the british isles and the total eustatic change from the global ice sheets however the isostatic effects due to the removal of ice from northern europe and north america and the addition of meltwater into the oceans also make a significant contribution predictions of sea level change based on glacio hydro isostatic models are compared with observations to constrain the ice volume over ireland at the time of the last glacial maximum and the maximum ice height appears to have been of the order of 600 m the models predict well the spatial variability in sea level change observed across the region for holocene and lateglacial time with levels above present being predicted only for northeastern ireland and north of about morecambe bay the models do not support suggestions that lateglacial levels along the east coast of ireland or the coast of wales were 50 150 m above their present levels consistent models that would produce such large lateglacial highstands are incompatible with all other sea level and glacial evidence for the british isles palaeobathymetry and palaeoshoreline reconstructions for the irish sea indicates that a tenuous landbridge between britain and ireland developed only across the celtic sea between about 18000 and 14000 years bp

holocene tides of the wash u k the influence of water depth and coastline shape changes on the record of sea level change abstract tidal simulations are conducted using a numerical model to investigate the relative influence of water depth and coastline shape changes on the holocene tides of the wash tidal input to this model is obtained by running a nested series of models commencing with a model of the northeast atlantic results of both types of simulations are compared with those of other simulations incorporating all the palaeogeographic information available on both past water depths and coastline shapes around the wash the model employs six harmonic tidal constituents to obtain mean high water of spring tides mhwst altitudes the wash was a depositional embayment during the holocene and results of model simulations are compared with sea level indicators in the stratigraphy which record past mhwst altitudes tidal simulations for water depths reduced by 2 5 and 10 m compared with present sea levels generally give lower tidal amplitudes around the wash than found at present mhwst altitudes simulating the coastline shape for 3000 4000 and 5000 yrs b p utilising present water depths show similar patterns of tidal changes to those obtained from the palaeogeographic simulations however reduced water depth tidal simulations accord more closely with the palaeogeographic simulation results in terms of the magnitude of changes to mhwst altitudes than the palaeocoastline simulations this is due to the fact that the rise in mean sea level during the holocene is far greater than any change in the amplitude of tides in the wash palaeogeographic simulation model results for mhwst agree within experimental errors with sea level curve altitudes reasons for discrepancies include inaccuracies in model parameters or measurement errors in obtaining mhwst altitudes from the stratigraphy overall tidal heights increase with sea level rise towards the present day alterations to coastline shape and non uniform water depth changes for example due to sediment movements or coastal defence schemes must be taken into consideration when assessing changes to the tidal regime for different sea levels in coastal embayments in order to determine both the pattern and magnitude of tidal changes this applies to both past and possible future tidal simulations

tropical pacific variability in the ncar climate system model a 300 yr simulation with the ncar climate system model csm version 1 captured only 60 of the observed enso signal and exaggerated the interannual variability of sst in the western tropical pacific here a simulation with a new version of the csm which significantly improves the spatial and temporal patterns of tropical pacific variability is described maximum sst variability is shifted to the central and eastern pacific a better simulation of the equatorial pacific thermocline structure results in nino 3 and nino 4 statistics com parable to the observed estimates for the last century the evolution of sst and subsurface temperature anomalies is in excellent agreement with observed events the majority of events evolve as a standing mode with weak sst anomalies occurring in the northern spring in the eastern tropical pacific and maximum anomalies covering the eastern tropical pacific ocean to the date line by the following northern winter at the same time subsurface temperature anomalies spread eastward and upward along the tropical thermocline the delayed oscillator and wyrtki s buildup hypothesis are consistent with aspects of the csm simulation on the equator a westerly wind stress anomaly in the central pacific forces off equatorial upwelling anomalies which propagate westward reaching the western boundary about one half year later this upwelling signal then propagates eastward along the equator arriving 2 months before cooling in the eastern pacific basin the tropical pacific atmospheric response to warm oceanic events also agrees with observational analyses with a negative southern oscillation pattern in sea level pressure wind stress anomalies and low level convergence to the west of the maximum sst anomalies and enhanced deep convection and precipitation in the central and eastern tropical pacific

on eustatic sea level history last glacial maximum to holocene abstract this paper addresses the question of the magnitude and time dependence of the globally averaged eustatic rise of sea level that occurred subsequent to the time of last glacial maximum lgm at approximately 21 000 calendar years before present through the analysis of relative sea level rsl histories predicted by a realistic mass conserving and gravitationally self consistent theory of postglacial sea level change it is demonstrated that there are preferred oceanic locations at which this eustatic function is well approximated by local sea level history one such location is the island of barbados in the caribbean sea a site from which a coral based record exists that extends from mid holocene to lgm because of the sea level ambiguity that is inherent to coral based records however it is important that the global ice equivalent eustatic sea level curve inferred on the basis of the barbados data be tested against observations at other locations from which similarly extensive records are also available but which are derived on the basis of sea level indicators which are not subject to the ambiguities inherent to corals it is shown that when the eustatic function employed in the global theoretical model is tuned so as to enable the model to fit the barbados observations where the maximum relative sea level rsl depression is assumed to be near 120 m then the theory misfits the record from the sunda shelf in the indonesian archipelago as well as the record from j bonaparte gulf in northern australia both of these recently published records appear to constrain the lgm low stand of rsl to a value above 120 m the implications of these results for interpretation of the long coral derived records from the huon peninsula of papua new guinea and the island of tahiti are also discussed

poleward ocean heat transports sea ice processes and arctic sea ice variability in noresm1 m simulations results from the noresm1 m coupled climate model were used to examine relationships between arctic sea ice area and ocean heat transports through the primary arctic gateways comparisons were made with two other models cnrm cm5 and mri cgm3 that are part of the cmip5 archive which have the required outputs for calculating ocean heat transports based on an evaluation noresm1 m was found to be best suited to study the effects of heat transports on sea ice area and conclusions are based on results from this model the arctic ocean was divided into two regions the barents sea and the central arctic ocean the sea ice area variability was further analyzed in terms of frazil and congelation growth top and bottom melting and heat transports in the barents sea opening bso and the fram strait fs in the barents sea increased heat transport in the bso has a strong influence on sea ice area in terms of reduced congelation growth while bottom melting is important for the variability in the central arctic ocean the negative trend in sea ice area is considerably greater in the barents sea than in the central arctic ocean despite the central arctic ocean area being much larger and reflects the major trend in the bso heat transport the model results in this study suggest that the ocean has stronger direct impact on changes in sea ice mass in terms of freezing and melting than the atmosphere both in the mean and with respect to variability

glacial rebound and sea level change in the british isles observations of sea levels around the coastline of the british isles for the past 10 000 15 000 years exhibit a major regional variation and provide an important data base for testing models of glacial rebound as well as models of the late devensian ice sheet a high resolution rebound model has been developed which is consistent with both the spatial and temporal patterns of sea level change and which demonstrates that the observations are the result of i the glacio isostatic crustal rebound in response to the unloading of the ice sheet over britain and to a lesser degree of the ice sheet over fennoscandia and ii the rise in sea level from the melting late pleistocene ice sheets including the response of the crust to the water loading the hydro isostatic effect the agreement between model and observations is such that there is no need to invoke vertical crustal movements for great britain and ireland of other than glacio hydro isostatic origin the rebound contributions are important throughout the region and nowhere is it sufficiently small for the sea level change to approximate the eustatic sea level rise the observational data distribution around the periphery as well as from sites near the centre of the former ice sheet is sufficient to permit constraints to be established on both earth model parameters specifying the mantle viscosity and lithospheric thickness and the extent and volume of the ice sheet at the time of the last glaciation preliminary solutions are presented which indicate an upper mantle viscosity of 3 5 1020 pas a lithospheric thickness of about 100 km or less and an ice model that was not confluent with the scandinavian ice sheet during the last glaciation and whose maximum thickness over scotland is unlikely to have exceeded about 1500 m

el nino southern oscillation variability from the late cretaceous marca shale of california changes in the possible behavior of el nino southern oscillation enso with global warming have provoked interest in records of enso from past greenhouse climate states the latest cretaceous laminated marca shale of california permits a seasonal scale reconstruction of water column flux events and hence interannual paleoclimate variability the annual flux cycle resembles that of the modern gulf of california with diatoms characteristic of spring upwelling blooms followed by silt and clay and is consistent with the existence of a paleo north american monsoon that brought input of terrigenous sediment during summer storms and precipitation runoff variation is also indicated in the extent of water column oxygenation by differences in lamina preservation time series analysis of interannual variability in terrigenous sediment and diatom flux and in the degree of bioturbation indicates strong periodicities in the quasi biennial 2 1 2 8 yr and low frequency 4 1 6 3 yr bands both characteristic of enso forcing as well as decadal frequencies this evidence for robust late cretaceous enso variability does not support the theory of a permanent el nino in the sense of a continual el nino like state in periods of warmer climate

palaeoclimatic implications of a storm erosion record from late holocene lake sediments north island new zealand abstract a ca 2250 year storm history has been identified from a high resolution lake sediment record from the east coast of the north island new zealand this event based chronology identifies 340 storms in the pre european record the record is largely one of natural variability without human impacts layers of minerogenic sediment representing the products of individual storm events are clearly visible in lake cores these storm sediment pulses derived mainly from landslides record the frequency and magnitude of storms clusters of pulses identify six periods of high sedimentation and associated erosion before european settlement a d 1878 at least five of these are interpreted as periods of higher rainfall and probably warmer temperatures since historic records show that most large storms are derived from the subtropics tropics most of the storm periods correspond to warm climate intervals previously identified from new zealand and from southern hemisphere palaeoclimatic evidence the mapara 2 period ca 2090 1855 cal yr b p was the stormiest other periods were of shorter duration the mapara 2 period occurred at times of sustained warmth in the tasmanian and chilean tree ring records which might suggest hemispheric warming at this time one storm period burrell which occurred during the historical enso record was at a time of moderately high enso activity three earlier periods also appear to show responses to enso two storm periods correspond to previously proposed new zealand wide periods of increased erosion and sedimentation estimates of palaeo storm rainfalls from relationships between storm rainfall and sediment thickness of historical events suggest that storm pulses ca 12 mm thick represent palaeo storms of ca 450 mm rainfall

a critical review of the glaciomarine model for irish sea deglaciation evidence from southern britain the celtic shelf and adjacent continental slope in support of their glaciomarine model for the deglaciation of the irish sea basin eyles and mccabe cited the occurrence of distal glaciomarine mud drapes onshore in the isles of scilly and north devon and of arctic beach face gravels and sands around the shores of the celtic sea glacial and sea level data from the southern part of the irish sea in the terminal zone of the ice stream and the adjacent continental slope are reviewed here to test this aspect of the model the suggestion that the glacial sequences of both the isles of scilly and fremington in north devon are glaciomarine mud drapes is rejected an actively calving tidewater margin only occurred early in the deglacial sequence close to the terminal zone in the south central celtic sea relative sea levels were lower and therefore glacio isostatic depression less than envisaged in the glaciomarine model geochronological sedimentological and biostratigraphical data indicate that the raised beach sequences around the shores of the celtic sea and english channel were deposited at or during regression soon after interglacial eustatic highstands evidence for ice rafting at a time of high relative sea levels is restricted to a phase s earlier than the late devensian these data indicate that the raised beach sequences have no bearing on the style of irish sea deglaciation copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

global to local scale parameters determining relative sea level changes and the post glacial isostatic adjustment of great britain abstract observations of relative sea level rsl change in great britain since 16 kyr bp and models of post glacial isostatic adjustment provide constraints on reconstructions of the british and antarctic ice sheets from the last glacial maximum to the present we use the global model from an earlier investigation modified ice 4g vm2 with lithospheric thickness 90 km which gives good rsl fits globally as well as for much of the british data a revised ice model for great britain that fits with recently published observations on ice limits and heights fails to explain all the misfits between rsl observations and predictions much more significant improvements result from models that incorporate a different chronology for the partial deglaciation of antarctica while keeping the total ice melt 17 m the same as in ice 4g vm2 the results suggest antarctic melting of 3 m ice equivalent sea level by 15 kyr bp only 1 m contribution to the 24 m rise of mwp1a with the major melting 12 5 kyr bp and a small amount of melting 1 0 0 3 m between then and 3 or 2 kyr bp these modifications produce rsl predictions for barbados that show the major changes in rate of sea level rise but with an offset up to 1 kyr compared to the observations possible explanations that remain to be investigated further are a delay in the melting of ice from some other region a reduction in the total melt derived from antarctica and a refinement of the 1 kyr temporal resolution assumed in the construction of the theoretical solution

calibration of the c 14 timescale over the past 30 000 years using mass spectrometric u th ages from barbados corals uranium thorium ages obtained by mass spectrometry from corals raised off the island of barbados confirm the high precision of this technique over at least the past 30 000 years comparison of the u th ages with 14c ages obtained on the holocene samples shows that the u th ages are accurate because they accord with the dendrochronological calibration before 9 000 yr bp the 14c ages are systematically younger than the u th ages with a maximum difference of 3 500 yr at 20 000 yrbp the u th technique thus provides a way of calibrating the radiocarbon timescale beyond the range of dendrochronological calibration

modeling the contribution of m2 tidal amplification to the holocene rise of mean high water in the gulf of maine and the bay of fundy abstract increase in the m2 principal lunar semi diurnal component of the tidal range is an important contributor to the postglacial rise of the high tide level in the gulf of maine and the bay of fundy in addition to relative sea level rise the increase occurred as the shape of this semi enclosed embayment changed with sea level rise and its natural period approached resonance with the m2 tide a three dimensional tide model 3dens predicts the following m2 tidal ranges averaged for the gulf of maine bay of fundy as a percentage of the present range 54 59 at 7000 yrs b p 73 at 5000 yrs b p 78 at 4000 yrs b p 85 at 3000 yrs b p 94 at 2000 yrs b p and 98 at 1000 yrs b p with a predicted sea level rise of 0 15 0 90 m by the year 2100 m2 tidal range may increase 0 3 1 9

a 2100 year bp record of the pacific decadal oscillation el nino southern oscillation and quasi biennial oscillation in marine production and fluvial input from saanich inlet british columbia exceptional varved sediments of 2100 years bp recovered from saanich inlet have been analysed using high resolution scanning electron microscopy and spectral analysis techniques each varve may contain up to 22 well defined individual laminae which can be attributed to seasonal scale processes sediment flux comprises alternating diatom ooze diatomaceous mud deposited during spring through autumn and a silty clay deposited during winter the latter may be sporadically punctuated by clay rich laminae identification of some 2000 individual consecutive laminae based on fabric and diatom assemblage has allowed the construction of time series data for spectral analysis laminae types analysed include early spring thalassiosira spp late spring early summer skeletonema costatum multiple summer autumn chaetoceros spp diatom oozes and sporadically present clay rich winter flood deposits sub decadal periods have been identified and linked to the quasi biennial oscillation qbo and el nino southern oscillation enso and decadal periods to the pacific decadal oscillation pdo comparison of spectral analysis results with modern analogues suggests associations may exist between early spring thalassiosira spp laminae and stronger la nina events late spring early summer s costatum laminae and el nino events summer autumn chaetoceros spp multiple laminae and negative pacific northwest index pni regimes and sporadically present winter clay rich laminae and pni regimes the average period for an enso cycle was 3 6 years qbo 2 5 years and pdo 14 8 years spectral analysis of the more recent pni record shows similar significant periods of 13 2 3 7 and 2 6 years multi decadal periods recorded include 42 2 and 31 3 years which might suggest multiples of pdo

late devensian and holocene shorelines of the british isles and north sea from models of glacio hydro isostatic rebound sea level change around the british isles since the time of the last glacial maximum is largely due to of the crustal rebound from the glacial unloading of northern britain and the concomitant melt water loading of the adjacent seas and atlantic ocean minor but not insignificant contributions also result from the rebound caused by the unloading of the distant ice sheets including fennoscandia and north america observations of sea level change for this period constrain the glacio hydro isostatic rebound model parameters describing the effective lithospheric thickness or rigidity and the effective mantle viscosity as well as certain ice sheet characteristics such as the ice thickness at the time of the last glacial maximum the models permit palaeobathymetry and palaeoshorelines to be predicted for the british isles region including the north sea the resulting evolution of the coastlines exhibits a complex behaviour through time one that is quite different from the usual models in which sea level change is assumed to be a function of time only in part this is because of the delayed response of the mantle to the spatially variable and time dependent ice and water loads and in part because the unloading history of the british ice sheet is different from those of the major global ice sheets thus maximum emergence of the north sea occurred after deglaciation had started and lasted for an extended period from about 15 000 to 12 000 radiocarbon years bp during this relative sea level still stand shoreline features could have formed for example along the western edge of the norwegian trough when access to the firths of eastern scotland would have been via a long and shallow marine inlet shoreline retreat across the north sea became relatively rapid after about 10000 years the model predictions for the irish and celtic seas also suggest a complex behaviour with the formation of a wide land bridge between about 20000 and 13 000 years ago the model also suggests that as long as the scottish ice extended across the northern irish sea until about 14 000 years ago there would have been a large freshwater periglacial lake located further south both the predicted sea level height age relations and the shoreline positions are consistent with a large body of observational evidence but some discrepancies occur particularly in northern scotland and ireland where the ice heights may have been somewhat greater than assumed in the model

mantle viscosity and ice age ice sheet topography ice age paleotopography and mantle viscosity can both be inferred from observations of earth s response to the most recent deglaciation event of the current ice age this procedure requires iterative application of a theoretical model of the global process of glacial isostatic adjustment results demonstrate that the iterative inversion procedure converges to a paleotopography that is extremely close to that from the ice 4g model the accompanying mantle viscosity profile is furthermore shown to reconcile the requirements of aspherical geoid anomalies related to the mantle convection process thus resolving a fundamental issue concerning mantle rheology the combined model also explains postglacial sea level histories for the east coast of the united states

early holocene decadal scale ocean variability recorded in gulf of california laminated sediments scanning electron microscope examination of holocene laminated sediment from guaymas basin gulf of california resolves up to five depositional events per year each lamina sublamina of an early holocene section of continuously laminated sediment was recorded from backscattered electron imagery photomosaic analysis diatom mat laminae composed predominantly of thalassiothrix longissima are associated with early winter mixed diatom flora laminae mats are probably brought into the gulf with pacific water during the summer concentrated at the surface or at the pycnocline and then rapidly deposited in the early winter as water column stratification breaks down time series analysis of one 300 year section from piston core jpc56 revealed significant periodicities in the deposition of mat laminae at 50 years 11 years and 22 24 years an 50 year cycle in fish populations has been related to changing north pacific ocean atmosphere circulation these pacific wide changes in circulation affect the currents dominant at the mouth of the gulf when the california current is dominant fewer diatom mats are imported into the gulf and when the north equatorial pacific gyre is dominant more are imported the 11 year 22 to 24 year and 50 year cycles are all suggested to be influenced by solar cycles

ice sheet and solid earth influences on far field sea level histories previous predictions of sea level change subsequent to the last glacial maximum show significant systematic discrepancies between observations at tahiti huon peninsula and sunda shelf during lateglacial time 14 000 to 9000 calibrated years before the present we demonstrate that a model of glacial isostatic adjustment characterized by both a high viscosity lower mantle 4 1022 pa s and a large contribution from the antarctic ice sheet to meltwater pulse ia 15 meters eustatic equivalent resolves these discrepancies this result supports arguments that an early and rapid antarctic deglaciation contributed to a sequence of climatic events that ended the most recent glacial period of the current ice age

periglacial trimlines in the scottish highlands abstract two periglacial weathering limits have been identified on mountains in the highlands of scotland the lower has been interpreted as a periglacial trimline marking the upper limits of loch lomond younger dryas stade glaciers and has been employed to reconstruct the dimensions of parts of the main west highland icefield and certain smaller glaciers and icefields interpretation of the upper weathering limit has been more contentious but recent research has demonstrated 1 significant contrasts in the degree of bedrock weathering above and below this limit 2 that gibbsite a pre devensian weathering product is abundant above the limit but rare in soils farther downslope 3 that the isotopic 26al age of bedrock exposures above the limit greatly exceeds that at lower altitudes and 4 that the altitude of the weathering limit descends regularly along former ice sheet flowlines collectively these attributes suggest that the upper weathering limit is a periglacial trimline defining the maximum altitude of the last ice sheet calculated basal shear stress values are consistent with this interpretation which implies that the mainland ice shed lay at ca 900 m in wester ross and descended gently northwards whilst harris and lewis in the outer hebrides supported an independent ice cap that achieved a maximum altitude of ca 700 m wider implications of this interpretation and the future potential for ice sheet reconstruction are explored

a fossil coral perspective on western tropical pacific climate 350 ka 1 the nature of tropical climate variability 350 ka is addressed using 18o and sr ca records from a modern and a fossil coral from vanuatu southwestern tropical pacific ocean modern el nino events at vanuatu produce positive coral 18o and sr ca anomalies similar anomalies observed in the fossil coral records suggest that el nino was operative 350 kyr ago seasonal variations in coral sr ca a sea surface temperature sst proxy have the same amplitude in both corals whereas seasonal 18o variations are smaller in the fossil coral than in the modern coral this is consistent with displacement of the south pacific convergence zone toward the southwest during the boreal summer 350 ka mathematical modeling results preclude warmer sst and higher sss at vanuatu during this time but permit the surface ocean to be 2 c cooler and 0 2 psu fresher than today assessing the potential of variations in late quaternary seawater sr ca remains the largest obstacle to accurately reconstructing tropical sst using pristine fossil corals

sea level fingerprinting as a direct test for the source of global meltwater pulse ia the ice reservoir that served as the source for the meltwater pulse ia remains enigmatic and controversial we show that each of the melting scenarios that have been proposed for the event produces a distinct variation or fingerprint in the global distribution of meltwater we compare sea level fingerprints associated with various melting scenarios to existing sea level records from barbados and the sunda shelf and conclude that the southern laurentide ice sheet could not have been the sole source of the meltwater pulse whereas a substantial contribution from the antarctic ice sheet is consistent with these records

on the postglacial isostatic adjustment of the british isles and the shallow viscoelastic structure of the earth summary observations of postglacial relative sea level rsl history at sites beyond the margins of the main accumulations of wu rm wisconsin devensian ice may be invoked to test the accuracy of global models of the glacial isostatic adjustment process the existing database of rsl time series for the british isles forms a continuous network of sites that sample the coasts of scotland england and wales fairly uniformly and which may be especially important in this regard not only are these 14c data for the holocene epoch of very high quality in terms of our knowledge of the coastal environment and relationship to palaeo sea level of each age measurement but they are especially numerous and relate to an island that was itself partly glaciated in the north essentially ice free in the south and located well outboard of the massive ice sheet that covered fennoscandia at the last glacial maximum lgm taken together the time series from 55 distinct locations allow us to perform a fairly stringent test of the recently formulated ice 4g vm2 global model of the isostatic adjustment process even without modification this model has been shown to fit most of the time series in the uk data set rather well in order to satisfy very recently published a priori constraints on the maximum thickness of the scottish ice sheet however we find that the lithospheric thickness the feature of the radial viscoelastic structure to which the rebound data from scotland are most sensitive must be somewhat reduced whereas the assumed thickness of the lithosphere in ice 4g vm2 was near to 120 km best fits to the scottish data require a lithospheric thickness near to 90 km this reduced value for lithospheric thickness agrees exceedingly well with the latest estimates of this earth property based on the inversion of oceanic geoid and topography data as the asymptotic thickness characteristic of the oldest ocean floor this would appear to be the best possible a priori estimate for the thickness of the cratonic lithospheres upon which the largest ice sheets of the late pleistocene are known to have rested we also demonstrate explicitly that inferences of the shallow viscoelastic structure beneath the british isles are strongly influenced by the details of the history of deglaciation at remote locations at antarctica in particular

ams c 14 dating of deglacial events in the irish sea basin and other sectors of the british irish ice sheet sedimentary sequences deposited by the decaying marine margin of the british irish ice sheet biis record isostatic depression and successive ice sheet retreat towards centres of ice dispersion radiocarbon dating by accelerator mass spectrometry ams of in situ marine microfaunas that are commonly associated with these sequences constrain the timing of glacial and sea level fluctuations during the last deglaciation enabling us to evaluate the dynamics of the bus and its response to north atlantic climate change here we use our radiocarbon dated stratigraphy to define six major glacial and sea level events since the last glacial maximum 1 initial deglaciation may have occurred 18 3 kyr c 14 bp along the northwestern irish coast in agreement with a deglacial age of similar to 22 cl 36 kyr bp for southwestern ireland ice retreated to inland centres and areas of transverse moraine began to form across the north irish lowlands 2 channels cut into glaciomarine deglacial sediments along the western irish sea coast are graded to below present sea level identifying a fall of relative sea level rsl in response to isostatic emergence of the coast 3 marine mud that rapidly infilled these channels records an abrupt rise in global sea level of 10 15 m similar to 16 7 c 14 kyr bp that flooded the irish sea coast and may have triggered deglaciation of a marine based margin in donegal bay 4 intertidal boulder pavements in dundalk bay indicate that rsl similar to 15 0 c 14 kyr bp was similar to present 5 a major readvance of all sectors of the biis occurred between 14 and 15 kyr 14 c bp which overprinted subglacial transverse moraines and delivered a substantial sediment flux to tidewater ice sheet margins this event the killard point stadial indicates that the bus participated in heinrich event 1 6 subsequent deposition of marine muds on drumlins 12 7 c 14 kyr bp indicates isostatic depression and attendant high rsl resulting from the killard point readvance these events identify a dynamic biis during the last deglaciation as well as significant changes in rsl that reflect a combination of isostatic loading and eustatic changes in global sea level c 2005 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

analysis and interpretation of holocene sea level data the geography of the geoid1 and the lack of an acceptable methodology and definition of terms for sea level studies have impeded the realization of the objectives of the international geological correlation programme project 61 on holocene sea level changes2 these were to establish a graph of the trend of mean sea level over the globe and the relationship between sea level climate change and the global ice budget2 a solution to the problems of correlation is proposed here the use of terms transgression and regression has been a major cause of misinterpretation2 and the terms transgressive overlap and regressive overlap have been proposed as descriptive lithostratigraphic terms in which no process is implied3 5 the processes involved in the development of coastal stratigraphical sequences are dependent on the position and rate of change of sea level and these sequences contain evidence of tendencies of sea level6 8 the application of the concept of sea level tendency permits meaningful correlations between rising and subsiding areas and introduces an objectivity to correlation schemes showing transgression sequences 9 10

the vertical dimensions of late devensian glaciation on the mountains of harris and southeast lewis outer hebrides scotland on north harris and southeast lewis a weathering limit separates glacially moulded bedrock on low ground from frost shattered bedrock and blockfields on high plateaux analysis of the depths of horizontal stress release joints demonstrates significant contrasts in bedrock weathering above and below this boundary and the survival of gibbsite only in soils above the weathering limit indicates that it represents the upper limit of late devensian glacial erosion the weathering limit declines regularly in altitude on either side of the former ice shed and is therefore interpreted as a periglacial trimline defining the upper limit of a locally nourished ice mass at its maximum extent rather than a former thermal boundary between protective cold based and erosive warm based ice calculated basal shear stress values are consistent with this interpretation the configuration of the trimline indicates that at the last glacial maximum the area supported an ice cap that achieved a maximum altitude of ca 700 m above present sea level and declined in altitude to the west northwest and east southeast at an average gradient of ca 20 m km 1 extrapolation of the dimensions of this ice cap suggests that it terminated ca 7 10 km west of the present coast of harris and was confluent with mainland ice a short distance east of the present coastline

a 16 000 year record of near field relative sea level changes northwest scotland united kingdom abstract isolation basins raised tidal marshes coastal wetlands and dune systems around arisaig in northwest scotland produce a 16 000 year record of relative sea level rsl change from the time of local deglaciation following the last glacial maximum lgm to the present new sea level index points from mointeach mhor north define the culmination of the mid holocene rsl highstand to 7600 7400 cal yr bp and 6 74 0 2 m above present numerous sea level index points indicate that the rsl highstand persisted more than 1000 years before the onset of any significant rsl fall this points to a gradual cessation of melting of the laurentide and antarctic ice sheets rather than an abrupt termination isolation basin evidence from a marine limit 34 to 38 m above present down to sites close to current sea level constrain the acceleration of eustatic sea level rise during meltwater pulse 1a to 30 mm yr 1 or 11 km 3 yr 1 meltwater discharge comparison of rsl observations with glacial isostatic adjustment gia model predictions show differences in the pattern of residuals dependent upon the gia model used changes to the far field ice model components can partly explain the patterns of residuals

glacial rebound of the british isles iii constraints on mantle viscosity summary observations of sea level change since the time of the last glacial maximum provide important constraints on the response of the earth to changes in surface loading on time scales of 103 104 years this response is conveniently described by an effective elastic lithospheric thickness and effective viscosities for one or more mantle layers considerable trade off between the parameters describing these layers can occur and different combinations can give rise to comparable predictions of sea level change in particular the trade off between lithospheric thickness and upper mantle viscosity can be important and for any reasonable value for the lithospheric thickness a corresponding mantle viscosity structure can be found that gives a plausible comparison of sealevel predictions with observations in particular thin lithosphere models will lead to low estimates for the upper mantle viscosity while thick lithosphere models lead to high viscosity values however either solution may represent only a local minimum in the model parameter space and may not correspond to the optimum solution it becomes important therefore that in the inversion of observational data a comprehensive search is conducted throughout the entire model parameter space to ensure that the solution identified does indeed correspond to the optimum solution the sea level data for the british isles lend themselves well to such an inversion because of the relatively high quality of the data the good geographic distribution of the data relative to the former ice sheet and reasonable observational constraints on the dimensions of the former ice sheet and on its retreat furthermore because of the contribution to the sea level signal from the distant ice sheets as well as from the melt water load the observational data base for the region also has some resolving power for the viscosity of the deeper mantle the parameter space explored is defined by up to five mantle layers the lithosphere of effective elastic thickness d and a series of upper mantle layers i 2 4 extending down to depths of 200 400 and 670 km respectively each of viscosity qi and a lower mantle layer of viscosity qlm extending down to the coremantle boundary the range of parameters explored is 30 d i 120 km 3 x loi9 iqi

the age and origin of the younger dryas climate event in greenland ice cores 230th 234u and 14c dating of barbados corals has extended the calibration of 14c years b p to calendar years b p beyond the 9200 year tree ring series bard et al 1990 this now permits the conversion of 14c chronozones which delimit major climate shifts in western europe to calendar years the younger dryas chronozone defined as 11 000 to 10 000 14c years b p corresponds to 13 000 to 11 700 calendar years b p this calibration affects the interpretation of an intensely studied example of the younger dryas climate event the 18o anomaly between 1785 and 1793 m in dye 3 ice core the end of the 18o anomaly in dye 3 ice core has been dated by measurements of 14c in air bubbles andree et al 1984 1986 and by annual layer counting hammer et al 1986 the older 14c dates fall out of the range of the tree ring calibration series but can now be calibrated to calendar years using the barbados 230th 234u calibration the 14ccorrected age for the end of the 18o event is 10 300 400 calendar years b p compared to the annual layer counting age of 10 720 150 years b p thus the younger dryas event in the dye 3 ice core ends in the preboreal chronozone 11 700 to 10 000 calendar years b p and is not correlative with the end of the younger dryas event identified in pollen records marking european vegetation changes the end of the dye 3 18o event is however correlative with the end of meltwater pulse ib fairbanks 1989 marking a period of intense deglaciation with meltwater discharge rates exceeding 13 000 km yr

the role of the asian australian monsoon system in the onset time of el nino events abstract based on the time of first occurrence of a significant sea surface temperature anomaly ssta in the nino 3 4 area 5 s 5 n 170 120 w two types of el nino episodes can be identified the spring sp type in which the ssta first increased to greater than 0 5 c in april or may and the summer su type in which this threshold is first reached in july or august composites of the sstas for these two types of events during the period 1950 97 show that the sp su event is generally a stronger weaker warm episode in terms of the ssta amplitude and longer shorter in terms of the period during which the ssta is greater than 0 5 c before the occurrence of both types of el nino episodes the zonal wind anomalies over the western equatorial pacific are always westerly the east asian winter monsoon is also strong the difference between the two types is mainly in the timing of the occurrence of the westerly anomalies for the sp su events these anomalies extend to the date line by january may

the stratigraphy of flandrian relative sea level changes at a site in tayside scotland peat deposits in a gully at the inland margin of the firth of tay carselands contain a transgressive wedge of estuarine sediments laid down at the culmination of the main postglacial transgression in previous work the sequence of deposits in the gully and their age have been examined at one location the present study both extends and evaluates that previous work employing further field work and laboratory analyses the detailed stratigraphy of the deposits is identified whilst from a borehole close to the limit of the transgressive deposit diatom analysis and geochemical analyses involving the determination of al mg c and 13cpdb are outlined eight 14c assays from peat at the transgressive and regressive contacts in four boreholes along the wedge of estuarine sediments are described whilst the results of diatom analysis are inconclusive the geochemical analyses indicate that the sediment accumulated broadly continuously without major changes in the depositional environment it is concluded that the main postglacial transgression in the gully was at first rapid then slowed and culminated between 6240 80 and 6030 80 or 6170 90 radiocarbon years b p it is subsequently maintained that the geochemical analyses described here may be of value in determining the continuity of transgressive deposits whilst the practice of obtaining multiple radiocarbon assays at such locations should enable assessment of age to be refined this may in turn assist in testing the hypothesis of shoreline diachroneity in glacioisostatically affected areas

timing of the last glacial maximum from observed sea level minima during the last glacial maximum ice sheets covered large areas in northern latitudes and global temperatures were significantly lower than today but few direct estimates exist of the volume of the ice sheets or the timing and rates of change during their advance and retreat here we analyze four distinct sediment facies in the shallow tectonically stable bonaparte gulf australia each of which is characteristic of a distinct range in sea level to estimate the maximum volume of land based ice during the last glaciation and the timing of the initial melting phase we use faunal assemblages and preservation status of the sediments to distinguish open marine shallow marine marginal marine and brackish conditions and estimate the timing and the mass of the ice sheets using radiocarbon dating and glacio hydroisostatic modelling our results indicate that from at least 22 000 to 19 000 calendar years before present land based ice volume was at its maximum exceeding today s grounded ice sheets by 52 5 x 10 exp 6 cu km a rapid decrease in ice volume by about 10 percent within a few hundred years terminated the last glacial maximum at 19 000 250 years

evidence for stronger el nino southern oscillation enso events in a mid holocene massive coral we present a 47 year long record of sea surface temperature sst derived from sr ca and u ca analysis of a massive porites coral which grew at 4150 calendar years before present b p in vanuatu southwest tropical pacific ocean mean sst is similar in both the modern instrumental record and paleorecord and both exhibit el nino southern oscillation enso frequency sst oscillations however several strong decadal frequency cooling events and a marked modulation of the seasonal sst cycle with power at both enso and decadal frequencies are observed in the paleorecord which are unprecedented in the modern record

historical changes in el nino and la nina characteristics in an ocean reanalysis 1 the variation of el nino southern oscillation enso events from the mid nineteenth century until the beginning of the twenty first century is explored using an ocean reanalysis a comparison of the reanalysis with three sea surface temperature reconstructions shows that the timing of events is similar in all four products however there are important differences in the strength and location of events the difference between the reconstructions is sometimes larger than the difference between the reanalysis and a given reconstruction these differences are larger in the first half of the record a period for which there are relatively sparse observations the reanalysis is used to explore decadal variability and trends in the frequency duration and propagation direction of enso events there is considerable decadal variability of these enso characteristics with the time between events ranging from several months to ten years and the duration of enso varying from 5 to 27 months as has been previously shown for the strength and location of enso there is little overall trend in the characteristics having a three dimensional representation of the ocean from the reanalysis allows exploration of subsurface changes during enso an analysis of subsurface anomalies shows that during enso events the subsurface anomalies are highly correlated with the strength of surface anomalies over the 140 year period overall there is no evidence that there are changes in the strength frequency duration location or direction of propagation of el nino and la nina anomalies caused by global warming during the period from 1871 to 2008

glacial rebound of the british isles ii a high resolution high precision model summary observations of ice movements across the british isles and of sea level changes around the shorelines during late devensian time after about 25 000 yr bp have been used to establish a high spatial and temporal resolution model for the rebound of great britain and associated sea level change the sea level observations include sites within the margins of the former ice sheet as well as observations outside the glaciated regions such that it has been possible to separate unknown earth model parameters from some ice sheet model parameters in the inversion of the glaciohydro isostatic equations the mantle viscosity profile is approximated by a number of radially symmetric layers representing the lithosphere the upper mantle as two layers from the base of the lithosphere to the phase transition boundary at 400 km the transition zone down to 670 km depth and the lower mantle no evidence is found to support a strong layering in viscosity above 670 km other than the high viscosity lithospheric layer models with a low viscosity zone in the upper mantle or models with a marked higher viscosity in the transition zone are less satisfactory than models in which the viscosity is constant from the base of the lithosphere to the 670 km boundary in contrast a marked increase in viscosity is required across this latter boundary the optimum effective parameters for the mantle beneath great britain are a lithospheric thickness of about 65 km a mantle viscosity above 670 km of about 4 5 lo2 pa s and a viscosity below 670 km greater than 4 x lo2 pas

global glacial isostasy and the surface of the ice age earth the ice 5g vm2 model and grace abstract the 100 kyr quasiperiodic variation of continental ice cover which has been a persistent feature of climate system evolution throughout the most recent 900 kyr of earth history has occurred as a consequence of changes in the seasonal insolation regime forced by the influence of gravitational n body effects in the solar system on the geometry of earth s orbit around the sun the impacts of the changing surface ice load upon both earth s shape and gravitational field as well as upon sea level history have come to be measurable using a variety of geological and geophysical techniques these observations are invertible to obtain useful information on both the internal viscoelastic structure of the solid earth and on the detailed spatiotemporal characteristics of glaciation history this review focuses upon the most recent advances that have been achieved in each of these areas advances that have proven to be central to the construction of the refined model of the global process of glacial isos

holocene land and sea level changes in great britain analysis of more than 1200 radiocarbon dated samples that constrain relative sea levels in great britain over the past 16 000 yr provides estimates of current land level changes negative of relative sea level change maximum relative land uplift occurs in central and western scotland ca 1 6 mm yr 1 and maximum subsidence is in southwest england ca 1 2 mm yr 1 sediment consolidation arising from autocompaction as the sediment accumulates and from land drainage increases the subsidence in areas with thick sequences of holocene sediments with an average effect equivalent to at least an extra ca 0 2 mm yr 1 land subsidence but more in parts of southeast england 0 5 1 1 mm yr 1 modelled changes in tidal range during the mid to late holocene in eastern england suggest that the calculated rate of land subsidence is overestimated unless such changes are quantified the effect is most significant for large coastal lowlands the fenland and humber ca 0 5 and 0 6 mm yr 1 that were tidal embayments during the mid to late holocene

relative sea level changes glacial isostatic modelling and ice sheet reconstructions from the british isles since the last glacial maximum while contributing 1 m equivalent eustatic sea level rise the british isles ice sheet produced glacio isostatic rebound in northern britain of similar magnitude to eustatic sea level change or global meltwater influx over the last 18 000 years the resulting spatially variable relative sea level changes combine with observations from far field locations to produce a rigorous test for quantitative models of glacial isostatic adjustment local ice sheet history and global meltwater influx after a review of the attributes of relative sea level observations significant for constraining large scale models of the isostatic adjustment process we summarise long records of relative sea level change from the british isles and far field locations we give an overview of different global theoretical models of the isostatic adjustment process before presenting intercomparisons of observed and predicted relative sea levels at sites in the british isles and far field for a range of earth and ice model parameters in order to demonstrate model sensitivity and the resolving power available from using evidence from the british isles for the first time we show a good degree of fit between relative sea level observations and predictions that are based upon global earth and ice model parameters independently derived from analysis of far field data with a terrain corrected model of the british isles ice sheet that includes extensive glaciation of the north sea and western continental shelf that does not assume isostatic equilibrium at the last glacial maximum and keeps to trimline constraints of ice surface elevation we do not attempt to identify a unique solution for the model lithosphere thickness parameter or the local scale detail of the ice model in order to provide a fit for all sites but argue that the next stage should be to incorporate an ice sheet model that is based on quantitative glaciological model simulations we hope that this paper will stimulate this debate and help to integrate research in glacial geomorphology glaciology sea level change earth rheology and quantitative modelling copyright 2006 john wiley sons ltd

the generation of synthetic sea surface temperature data for the equatorial pacific ocean abstract synthetic monthly sst anomaly data are constructed using frequency domain analyses of significant principle components derived from reconstructed sst data in the equatorial pacific ocean the model provides insight into the dominant physical processes contained in each component and retains the relevant statistical properties of the original data such as the mean variance and autocorrelation thus numerous sets of synthetic sst anomaly data can be produced for the equatorial pacific that are statistically indistinguishable from the original sst anomaly data the spatial and temporal sst signatures of the biennial intradecadal and decadal pseudoperiodicities are reproduced including their frequency and duration of occurrence specifically the enso warm and cold event signatures recur in the synthetic data at peak return periods of 2 4 3 5 5 0 and 6 4 yr moreover the anticipated return period of an extreme enso event with a maximum sst anomaly magnitude of 1 7 c is approximately every

sea level change in the irish sea since the last glacial maximum constraints from isostatic modelling models of glacio hydroisostatic sea level change have been published for the british isles that are broadly consistent with the observational evidence as well as with glaciological constraints it has been argued however that the models fail to represent sea level change along the irish sea margins and in southern ireland for the post deglaciation period the argument rests on the interpretation of the depositional environment of the elevated irish sea drift on both sides of the irish sea whether this is terrestrial or glaciomarine the isostatic models for the british isles are consistent with the former interpretation in that sea levels on either side of the irish sea south of about the isle of man are not predicted to have risen above present sea level at any time since the deglaciation of the irish sea this implies that ice over both the irish sea and ireland was relatively thin ca 600 700 m over ireland if the glaciomarine interpretation of the elevated irish sea drift is correct then the maximum ice thickness over central and southern ireland would have to reach 2000 m exceeding that over scotland furthermore for the resulting sea level change to be consistent with the holocene evidence this thick ice sheet could not have extended to the eastern side of the irish sea nor could it have been very thick at its northern and western limits if such an ice model is extreme and incompatible with glaciological observations then the alternative is to accept the interpretation of the irish sea drift as terrestrial in origin copyright 2001 john wiley sons ltd

flandrian sea level changes in the fenland ii tendencies of sea level movement altitudinal changes and local and regional factors stratigraphic micropalaeontologic and radiocarbon data show that since c 6500 bp the fenland has been influenced by 7 periods of positive sea level tendencies and by 6 periods of negative sea level tendencies despite the numerous problems associated with the reconstruction of past altitudes of sea level the periods of positive sea level tendencies were clearly characterised by a rise in sea level the development of transgressive overlaps and a landward movement of the coastline the periods of negative sea level tendencies were characterised by the development of regressive overlaps a seaward movement of the coastline and a reduced or negative rate of sea level rise the various altitudinal errors do not permit the incontrovertible distinction of periods of falling sea levels all changes within the fenland were not synchronous and local factors influenced the exact nature of each sea level indicator dominant regional and local factors have been identified for different areas and different time periods the chronological and spatial characteristics of the sequences within the fenland are best explained by a palaeocoastline without supratidal barriers controlling sedimentation the data indicate an average crustal subsidence in the fenland of 0 9m 1000 years since c 6500 bp and the pattern of positive and negative tendencies of sea level movement is also seen in the chronologies for north west england and north east scotland

el nino events and their relation to the southern oscillation 1925 1986 relationships among sea surface temperatures ssts at the coast of peru and offshore river discharge in northern peru and sea level pressure at darwin australia during the period 1925 1986 are investigated using time series plots frequency distributions and a simple statistical analysis it is shown that ssts undergo a larger seasonal cycle offshore than at the coast exhibit more interannual variability during the warm than the cool season are positively skewed during much of the year and exhibit greatest month to month persistence during the cool season many but not all episodes of above normal coastal ssts are accompanied by enhanced river discharge in northern peru comparison of the darwin pressure and coastal sst records during the past 60 years shows that el nino events episodes of above normal ssts along the coast of peru have occurred both in advance of and subsequent to major negative swings of the southern oscillation and associated climatic changes in the central equatorial pacific in addition el nino events and negative swings of the southern oscillation have occurred separately hence el nino and the southern oscillation are more loosely coupled than other studies would imply