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  • 1
    Publication Date: 2022-10-26
    Description: © The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Fall, P. L., van Hengstum, P. J., Lavold-Foote, L., Donnelly, J. P., Albury, N. A., & Tamalavage, A. E. Human arrival and landscape dynamics in the northern Bahamas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(10), (2021): e2015764118, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2015764118.
    Description: The first Caribbean settlers were Amerindians from South America. Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, the final islands colonized in the northernmost Bahamas, were inhabited by the Lucayans when Europeans arrived. The timing of Lucayan arrival in the northern Bahamas has been uncertain because direct archaeological evidence is limited. We document Lucayan arrival on Great Abaco Island through a detailed record of vegetation, fire, and landscape dynamics based on proxy data from Blackwood Sinkhole. From about 3,000 to 1,000 y ago, forests dominated by hardwoods and palms were resilient to the effects of hurricanes and cooling sea surface temperatures. The arrival of Lucayans by about 830 CE (2σ range: 720 to 920 CE) is demarcated by increased burning and followed by landscape disturbance and a time-transgressive shift from hardwoods and palms to the modern pine forest. Considering that Lucayan settlements in the southern Bahamian archipelago are dated to about 750 CE (2σ range: 600 to 900 CE), these results demonstrate that Lucayans spread rapidly through the archipelago in less than 100 y. Although precontact landscapes would have been influenced by storms and climatic trends, the most pronounced changes follow more directly from landscape burning and ecosystem shifts after Lucayan arrival. The pine forests of Abaco declined substantially between 1500 and 1670 CE, a period of increased regional hurricane activity, coupled with fires on an already human-impacted landscape. Any future intensification of hurricane activity in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean threatens the sustainability of modern pine forests in the northern Bahamas.
    Description: This research was supported by NSF Awards GSS-1118340 (P.L.F.), OCE-1356509 (P.J.v.H.), OCE-1703087 (P.J.v.H.), and OCE-1356708 (J.P.D.).
    Keywords: Anthropogenic burning ; Lucayan ; Caribbean ; Pollen ; Vegetation change
    Repository Name: Woods Hole Open Access Server
    Type: Article
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  • 2
    Publication Date: 2015-09-28
    Description: In a changing climate, future inundation of the United States’ Atlantic coast will depend on both storm surges during tropical cyclones and the rising relative sea levels on which those surges occur. However, the observational record of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic basin is too short (A.D. 1851 to present) to accurately assess long-term trends in storm activity. To overcome this limitation, we use proxy sea level records, and downscale three CMIP5 models to generate large synthetic tropical cyclone data sets for the North Atlantic basin; driving climate conditions span from A.D. 850 to A.D. 2005. We compare pre-anthropogenic era (A.D. 850–1800) and anthropogenic era (A.D.1970–2005) storm surge model results for New York City, exposing links between increased rates of sea level rise and storm flood heights. We find that mean flood heights increased by ∼1.24 m (due mainly to sea level rise) from ∼A.D. 850 to the anthropogenic era, a result that is significant at the 99% confidence level. Additionally, changes in tropical cyclone characteristics have led to increases in the extremes of the types of storms that create the largest storm surges for New York City. As a result, flood risk has greatly increased for the region; for example, the 500-y return period for a ∼2.25-m flood height during the pre-anthropogenic era has decreased to ∼24.4 y in the anthropogenic era. Our results indicate the impacts of climate change on coastal inundation, and call for advanced risk management strategies.
    Print ISSN: 0027-8424
    Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
    Topics: Biology , Medicine , Natural Sciences in General
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  • 3
    Publication Date: 2017-10-23
    Description: The flood hazard in New York City depends on both storm surges and rising sea levels. We combine modeled storm surges with probabilistic sea-level rise projections to assess future coastal inundation in New York City from the preindustrial era through 2300 CE. The storm surges are derived from large sets of synthetic tropical cyclones, downscaled from RCP8.5 simulations from three CMIP5 models. The sea-level rise projections account for potential partial collapse of the Antarctic ice sheet in assessing future coastal inundation. CMIP5 models indicate that there will be minimal change in storm-surge heights from 2010 to 2100 or 2300, because the predicted strengthening of the strongest storms will be compensated by storm tracks moving offshore at the latitude of New York City. However, projected sea-level rise causes overall flood heights associated with tropical cyclones in New York City in coming centuries to increase greatly compared with preindustrial or modern flood heights. For the various sea-level rise scenarios we consider, the 1-in-500-y flood event increases from 3.4 m above mean tidal level during 1970–2005 to 4.0–5.1 m above mean tidal level by 2080–2100 and ranges from 5.0–15.4 m above mean tidal level by 2280–2300. Further, we find that the return period of a 2.25-m flood has decreased from ∼500 y before 1800 to ∼25 y during 1970–2005 and further decreases to ∼5 y by 2030–2045 in 95% of our simulations. The 2.25-m flood height is permanently exceeded by 2280–2300 for scenarios that include Antarctica’s potential partial collapse.
    Print ISSN: 0027-8424
    Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
    Topics: Biology , Medicine , Natural Sciences in General
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  • 4
    Publication Date: 2017-05-30
    Description: Tropical cyclones (TCs) can have devastating socioeconomic impacts. Understanding the nature and causes of their variability is of paramount importance for society. However, historical records of TCs are too short to fully characterize such changes and paleo-sediment archives of Holocene TC activity are temporally and geographically sparse. Thus, it is of interest to apply physical modeling to understanding TC variability under different climate conditions. Here we investigate global TC activity during a warm climate state (mid-Holocene, 6,000 yBP) characterized by increased boreal summer insolation, a vegetated Sahara, and reduced dust emissions. We analyze a set of sensitivity experiments in which not only solar insolation changes are varied but also vegetation and dust concentrations. Our results show that the greening of the Sahara and reduced dust loadings lead to more favorable conditions for tropical cyclone development compared with the orbital forcing alone. In particular, the strengthening of the West African Monsoon induced by the Sahara greening triggers a change in atmospheric circulation that affects the entire tropics. Furthermore, whereas previous studies suggest lower TC activity despite stronger summer insolation and warmer sea surface temperature in the Northern Hemisphere, accounting for the Sahara greening and reduced dust concentrations leads instead to an increase of TC activity in both hemispheres, particularly over the Caribbean basin and East Coast of North America. Our study highlights the importance of regional changes in land cover and dust concentrations in affecting the potential intensity and genesis of past TCs and suggests that both factors may have appreciable influence on TC activity in a future warmer climate.
    Print ISSN: 0027-8424
    Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
    Topics: Biology , Medicine , Natural Sciences in General
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  • 5
    Publication Date: 2016-10-10
    Description: Coastal flood hazard varies in response to changes in storm surge climatology and the sea level. Here we combine probabilistic projections of the sea level and storm surge climatology to estimate the temporal evolution of flood hazard. We find that New York City’s flood hazard has increased significantly over the past two centuries and is very likely to increase more sharply over the 21st century. Due to the effect of sea level rise, the return period of Hurricane Sandy’s flood height decreased by a factor of ∼3× from year 1800 to 2000 and is estimated to decrease by a further ∼4.4× from 2000 to 2100 under a moderate-emissions pathway. When potential storm climatology change over the 21st century is also accounted for, Sandy’s return period is estimated to decrease by ∼3× to 17× from 2000 to 2100.
    Print ISSN: 0027-8424
    Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
    Topics: Biology , Medicine , Natural Sciences in General
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  • 6
    Publication Date: 2016-02-22
    Description: We assess the relationship between temperature and global sea-level (GSL) variability over the Common Era through a statistical metaanalysis of proxy relative sea-level reconstructions and tide-gauge data. GSL rose at 0.1 ± 0.1 mm/y (2σ) over 0–700 CE. A GSL fall of 0.2 ± 0.2 mm/y over 1000–1400 CE is associated with ∼0.2 °C global mean cooling. A significant GSL acceleration began in the 19th century and yielded a 20th century rise that is extremely likely (probability P≥0.95) faster than during any of the previous 27 centuries. A semiempirical model calibrated against the GSL reconstruction indicates that, in the absence of anthropogenic climate change, it is extremely likely (P=0.95) that 20th century GSL would have risen by less than 51% of the observed 13.8±1.5 cm. The new semiempirical model largely reconciles previous differences between semiempirical 21st century GSL projections and the process model-based projections summarized in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report.
    Print ISSN: 0027-8424
    Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
    Topics: Biology , Medicine , Natural Sciences in General
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  • 7
    Publication Date: 2018-04-04
    Description: Climate exerted constraints on the growth and decline of past human societies but our knowledge of temporal and spatial climatic patterns is often too restricted to address causal connections. At a global scale, the inter-hemispheric thermal balance provides an emergent framework for understanding regional Holocene climate variability. As the thermal balance adjusted to gradual changes in the seasonality of insolation, the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone migrated southward accompanied by a weakening of the Indian summer monsoon. Superimposed on this trend, anomalies such as the Little Ice Age point to asymmetric changes in the extratropics of either hemisphere. Here we present a reconstruction of the Indian winter monsoon in the Arabian Sea for the last 6000 years based on paleobiological records in sediments from the continental margin of Pakistan at two levels of ecological complexity: sedimentary paleo-DNA reflecting water column environmental states and planktonic foraminifers sensitive to winter conditions. We show that strong winter monsoons between ca. 4,500 and 3,000 years ago occurred during an interval of weak interhemispheric temperature contrast, which we identify as the Early Neoglacial Anomaly (ENA), and were accompanied by changes in wind and precipitation patterns across the eastern Northern Hemisphere and Tropics. This coordinated climate reorganization may have helped trigger the metamorphosis of the urban Harappan civilization into a rural society through a push-pull migration from summer flood-deficient river valleys to the Himalayan piedmont plains with augmented winter rains. Finally, we speculate that time-transgressive landcover changes due to aridification of the Tropics may have led to a generalized instability of the global climate during ENA at the transition from the warmer Holocene Optimum to the cooler Neoglacial.
    Print ISSN: 1814-9340
    Electronic ISSN: 1814-9359
    Topics: Geosciences
    Published by Copernicus on behalf of European Geosciences Union.
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  • 8
    Publication Date: 2018-11-13
    Description: Climate exerted constraints on the growth and decline of past human societies but our knowledge of temporal and spatial climatic patterns is often too restricted to address causal connections. At a global scale, the inter-hemispheric thermal balance provides an emergent framework for understanding regional Holocene climate variability. As the thermal balance adjusted to gradual changes in the seasonality of insolation, the Intertropical Convergence Zone migrated southward accompanied by a weakening of the Indian summer monsoon. Superimposed on this trend, anomalies such as the Little Ice Age point to asymmetric changes in the extratropics of either hemisphere. Here we present a reconstruction of the Indian winter monsoon in the Arabian Sea for the last 6000 years based on paleobiological records in sediments from the continental margin of Pakistan at two levels of ecological complexity: sedimentary ancient DNA reflecting water column environmental states and planktonic foraminifers sensitive to winter conditions. We show that strong winter monsoons between ca. 4500 and 3000 years ago occurred during a period characterized by a series of weak interhemispheric temperature contrast intervals, which we identify as the early neoglacial anomalies (ENA). The strong winter monsoons during ENA were accompanied by changes in wind and precipitation patterns that are particularly evident across the eastern Northern Hemisphere and tropics. This coordinated climate reorganization may have helped trigger the metamorphosis of the urban Harappan civilization into a rural society through a push–pull migration from summer flood-deficient river valleys to the Himalayan piedmont plains with augmented winter rains. The decline in the winter monsoon between 3300 and 3000 years ago at the end of ENA could have played a role in the demise of the rural late Harappans during that time as the first Iron Age culture established itself on the Ghaggar-Hakra interfluve. Finally, we speculate that time-transgressive land cover changes due to aridification of the tropics may have led to a generalized instability of the global climate during ENA at the transition from the warmer Holocene thermal maximum to the cooler Neoglacial.
    Print ISSN: 1814-9324
    Electronic ISSN: 1814-9332
    Topics: Geosciences
    Published by Copernicus on behalf of European Geosciences Union.
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  • 9
    Publication Date: 2021-03-01
    Description: The first Caribbean settlers were Amerindians from South America. Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, the final islands colonized in the northernmost Bahamas, were inhabited by the Lucayans when Europeans arrived. The timing of Lucayan arrival in the northern Bahamas has been uncertain because direct archaeological evidence is limited. We document Lucayan arrival on Great Abaco Island through a detailed record of vegetation, fire, and landscape dynamics based on proxy data from Blackwood Sinkhole. From about 3,000 to 1,000 y ago, forests dominated by hardwoods and palms were resilient to the effects of hurricanes and cooling sea surface temperatures. The arrival of Lucayans by about 830 CE (2σ range: 720 to 920 CE) is demarcated by increased burning and followed by landscape disturbance and a time-transgressive shift from hardwoods and palms to the modern pine forest. Considering that Lucayan settlements in the southern Bahamian archipelago are dated to about 750 CE (2σ range: 600 to 900 CE), these results demonstrate that Lucayans spread rapidly through the archipelago in less than 100 y. Although precontact landscapes would have been influenced by storms and climatic trends, the most pronounced changes follow more directly from landscape burning and ecosystem shifts after Lucayan arrival. The pine forests of Abaco declined substantially between 1500 and 1670 CE, a period of increased regional hurricane activity, coupled with fires on an already human-impacted landscape. Any future intensification of hurricane activity in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean threatens the sustainability of modern pine forests in the northern Bahamas.
    Print ISSN: 0027-8424
    Electronic ISSN: 1091-6490
    Topics: Biology , Medicine , Natural Sciences in General
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