Topic 8 “Abrupt climate change derived from proxy data” of Helmholtz Network REKLIM (Regional Climate Change) aims in identifying and explaining past regional and temporal patterns of climate variability between the Pacific and Atlantic regions as well as between lower and higher latitudes. High-resolution proxy data from marine sediments are used to reconstruct different climate variables as e.g. past changes in sea surface temperature and sea-ice variability (Uk^'₃₇; IP₂₅) or circulation dynamics (δ¹³C; δ¹⁸O). Ultra high-resolution terrigenous climate archives from lake sediments complement the marine proxy-data. The time span of investigations encompasses the last 140.000 years before present on time scales from years to millennia. A comparison of reconstructed climate variability with coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation models further helps in deciphering underlying mechanisms of rapid climate change during the last glacial termination and Holocene as well as during the penultimate glacial-interglacial transition and the following interglacial, the Eemian.

Further informtion can be found on the REKLIM website.

Lars Max
Ralf Tiedemann

Figure 1: Overview map of high-latitude Northern Hemis-phere showing loca-tions of marine (red circles) and terres-trial (yellow stars) climate records. Source: Max et al. (2014)

Figure 2: Detailed Comparison of sedi-ment proxy records from the subpolar North Pacific and North Atlantic realm from 138 to 70 ka on their established time scales (Max et al., 2014). Source: Max et al. (2014)