PAGES - Past Global Changes

Common Era in the Holocene

Details: Published: Tuesday, 29 May 2018 16:32

A new paper which uses a synthesis of 93 published records reveals that moisture availability increased over large portions of North America over the past 2000 years, the Common Era (CE).

Published yesterday in Climate of the Past, "Placing the Common Era in a Holocene context: millennial to centennial patterns and trends in the hydroclimate of North America over the past 2000 years" by Bryan Shuman et al. shows in many records that the second millennium CE tended to be wetter than the first millennium CE.

The long-term changes formed the background for annual to multi-decade variations, such as "mega-droughts", and also provide a context for amplified rates of hydrologic change today.

This paper is a contribution to the PAGES 2k Network special issue "Climate of the past 2000 years: regional and trans-regional syntheses".

Access the paper here and the special issue here.

PAGES-supported wshop in Eos

Details: Published: Monday, 28 May 2018 10:40

In November 2017, scientists from 20 countries attended a PAGES-supported workshop in Marrakesh, Morocco, to discuss the mechanisms of climate changes in Africa and how the global hydrological cycle, oceanic and atmospheric circulation, and marine and terrestrial ecosystems respond.

The workshop report "Assessing and Understanding Climate Change in Africa", by Ilham Bouimetarhan, Matthieu Carré, and Rachid Cheddadi, was recently published in Eos.

Access it here.

2k data assists new paper

Details: Published: Wednesday, 16 May 2018 10:43

PAGES 2k Network data has been used in a new paper on model simulations and proxy-based reconstructions, published yesterday in Nature's Scientific Reports.

The authors, led by Raphael Neukom, assess potential sources of discrepancies between data and models by comparing 1000-year hemispheric temperature reconstructions based on real-world paleoclimate proxies with climate-model-based pseudoproxies.

Access the paper, titled "Possible causes of data model discrepancy in the temperature history of the last Millennium" here.

Learn more about the work of PAGES 2k Network here.

Two new ECN blog posts

Details: Published: Monday, 14 May 2018 10:28

Two new contributions have been added to the PAGES Early-Career Network (ECN) blog, The Early Pages.

Thomas Ronge investigates the origin of a mysterious, detached buoy and muses about connections and pathways within the Southern Ocean.

And self-confessed introvert Vachel Carter writes how she has harnessed the power of networking at conferences and workshops.

Read the latest e-news

Details: Published: Wednesday, 09 May 2018 15:45

Read about the latest PAGES' news, meetings and opportunities from around the world in this month's e-news.

Highlights include an extensive list of PAGES' working group updates, new products, the ECN's call for regional representatives and a chance for archaeology experts to contribute to the ArchaeoGlobe project.

Final PALSEA2 workshop in Eos

Details: Published: Wednesday, 09 May 2018 09:51

Outcomes of the fifth and final meeting of the Paleo Constraints on Sea Level Rise 2 (PALSEA2) working group have been explained in a recent Eos workshop report.

The workshop, held in November 2017 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, highlighted current research on ice-sheet and sea-level reconstructions, addressed critical gaps in field observations, and assessed the current knowledge of causes, rates, and mechanisms related to sea-level and ice-sheet dynamics during past warm periods.

Read the report here.

The new PALSEA leaders have proposed another phase of the working group, and a decision will be made at PAGES SSC Meeting in May.

Technical paper on paleo data

Details: Published: Thursday, 03 May 2018 09:47

The 2k data technical note, which sparked an intense discussion within the paleo community, has been published today as a contribution to the PAGES 2k Network special issue of Climate of the Past.

Lead author Darrell Kaufman and the PAGES 2k special-issue editorial team explain the procedure used to attain a high and consistent level of data stewardship across the special issue. The paper has been chosen as a highlight by journal editor Denis-Didier Rousseau.

Kaufman et al. discuss the challenges related to (1) determining which data are essential for public archival, (2) using data generated by others, and (3) understanding data citations. The team anticipates that open-data sharing in paleosciences will accelerate as the advantages become more evident and as practices that reduce data loss become the accepted convention.

Read the technical note here.

Access all submitted papers in the "Climate of the past 2000 years: global and regional syntheses" special issue here.