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Raimund Muscheler

Raimund Muscheler

Professor

Raimund Muscheler

Volcanic influence on centennial to millennial Holocene Greenland temperature change

Author

  • Takuro Kobashi
  • Laurie Menviel
  • Aurich Jeltsch-Thömmes
  • Bo M Vinther
  • Jason E. Box
  • Raimund Muscheler
  • Toshiyuki Nakaegawa
  • Patrik L. Pfister
  • Michael Döring
  • Markus Leuenberger
  • Heinz Wanner
  • Atsumu Ohmura
Show all

Summary, in English

Solar variability has been hypothesized to be a major driver of North Atlantic millennial-scale climate variations through the Holocene along with orbitally induced insolation change. However, another important climate driver, volcanic forcing has generally been underestimated prior to the past 2,500 years partly owing to the lack of proper proxy temperature records. Here, we reconstruct seasonally unbiased and physically constrained Greenland Summit temperatures over the Holocene using argon and nitrogen isotopes within trapped air in a Greenland ice core (GISP2). We show that a series of volcanic eruptions through the Holocene played an important role in driving centennial to millennial-scale temperature changes in Greenland. The reconstructed Greenland temperature exhibits significant millennial correlations with K+ and Na+ ions in the GISP2 ice core (proxies for atmospheric circulation patterns), and δ18O of Oman and Chinese Dongge cave stalagmites (proxies for monsoon activity), indicating that the reconstructed temperature contains hemispheric signals. Climate model simulations forced with the volcanic forcing further suggest that a series of large volcanic eruptions induced hemispheric-wide centennial to millennial-scale variability through ocean/sea-ice feedbacks. Therefore, we conclude that volcanic activity played a critical role in driving centennial to millennial-scale Holocene temperature variability in Greenland and likely beyond.

Department/s

  • Quaternary Sciences
  • MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system

Publishing year

2017-12-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Scientific Reports

Volume

7

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Topic

  • Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
  • Geology

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2045-2322