Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies

Different paleoclimate proxy records evidence repeated abrupt climate transitions during previous glacial intervals. These transitions are thought to comprise abrupt warming and increase in local precipitation over Greenland, sudden reorganization of the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation,...

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Main Authors: Riechers, Keno, Boers, Niklas
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus Ges. 2021
Subjects:
550
Online Access:https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/7820
https://doi.org/10.34657/6861
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spelling ftleibnizopen:oai:oai.leibnizopen.de:lJAFyYkBdbrxVwz6hY2q 2023-08-27T04:09:42+02:00 Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies Riechers, Keno Boers, Niklas 2021 application/pdf https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/7820 https://doi.org/10.34657/6861 eng eng Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus Ges. CC BY 4.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Climate of the past : CP 17 (2021), Nr. 4 atmospheric circulation Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle global warming ice core ice retreat interstadial Northern Hemisphere paleoclimate proxy climate record sea ice uncertainty analysis Atlantic Ocean Atlantic Ocean (North) Greenland 550 article Text 2021 ftleibnizopen https://doi.org/10.34657/6861 2023-08-06T23:28:18Z Different paleoclimate proxy records evidence repeated abrupt climate transitions during previous glacial intervals. These transitions are thought to comprise abrupt warming and increase in local precipitation over Greenland, sudden reorganization of the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, and retreat of sea ice in the North Atlantic. The physical mechanism underlying these so-called Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events remains debated. A recent analysis of Greenland ice core proxy records found that transitions in Na+ concentrations and δ18O values are delayed by about 1 decade with respect to corresponding transitions in Ca2+ concentrations and in the annual layer thickness during DO events. These delays are interpreted as a temporal lag of sea-ice retreat and Greenland warming with respect to a synoptic- and hemispheric-scale atmospheric reorganization at the onset of DO events and may thereby help constrain possible triggering mechanisms for the DO events. However, the explanatory power of these results is limited by the uncertainty of the transition onset detection in noisy proxy records. Here, we extend previous work by testing the significance of the reported lags with respect to the null hypothesis that the proposed transition order is in fact not systematically favored. If the detection uncertainties are averaged out, the temporal delays in the δ18O and Na+ transitions with respect to their counterparts in Ca2+ and the annual layer thickness are indeed pairwise statistically significant. In contrast, under rigorous propagation of uncertainty, three statistical tests cannot provide evidence against the null hypothesis. We thus confirm the previously reported tendency of delayed transitions in the δ18O and Na+ concentration records. Yet, given the uncertainties in the determination of the transition onsets, it cannot be decided whether these tendencies are truly the imprint of a prescribed transition order or whether they are due to chance. The analyzed set of DO transitions can therefore not serve as ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Greenland ice core ice core North Atlantic North Greenland Sea ice LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association) Greenland
institution Open Polar
collection LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association)
op_collection_id ftleibnizopen
language English
topic atmospheric circulation
Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle
global warming
ice core
ice retreat
interstadial
Northern Hemisphere
paleoclimate
proxy climate record
sea ice
uncertainty analysis
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean (North)
Greenland
550
spellingShingle atmospheric circulation
Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle
global warming
ice core
ice retreat
interstadial
Northern Hemisphere
paleoclimate
proxy climate record
sea ice
uncertainty analysis
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean (North)
Greenland
550
Riechers, Keno
Boers, Niklas
Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies
topic_facet atmospheric circulation
Dansgaard-Oeschger cycle
global warming
ice core
ice retreat
interstadial
Northern Hemisphere
paleoclimate
proxy climate record
sea ice
uncertainty analysis
Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean (North)
Greenland
550
description Different paleoclimate proxy records evidence repeated abrupt climate transitions during previous glacial intervals. These transitions are thought to comprise abrupt warming and increase in local precipitation over Greenland, sudden reorganization of the Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, and retreat of sea ice in the North Atlantic. The physical mechanism underlying these so-called Dansgaard–Oeschger (DO) events remains debated. A recent analysis of Greenland ice core proxy records found that transitions in Na+ concentrations and δ18O values are delayed by about 1 decade with respect to corresponding transitions in Ca2+ concentrations and in the annual layer thickness during DO events. These delays are interpreted as a temporal lag of sea-ice retreat and Greenland warming with respect to a synoptic- and hemispheric-scale atmospheric reorganization at the onset of DO events and may thereby help constrain possible triggering mechanisms for the DO events. However, the explanatory power of these results is limited by the uncertainty of the transition onset detection in noisy proxy records. Here, we extend previous work by testing the significance of the reported lags with respect to the null hypothesis that the proposed transition order is in fact not systematically favored. If the detection uncertainties are averaged out, the temporal delays in the δ18O and Na+ transitions with respect to their counterparts in Ca2+ and the annual layer thickness are indeed pairwise statistically significant. In contrast, under rigorous propagation of uncertainty, three statistical tests cannot provide evidence against the null hypothesis. We thus confirm the previously reported tendency of delayed transitions in the δ18O and Na+ concentration records. Yet, given the uncertainties in the determination of the transition onsets, it cannot be decided whether these tendencies are truly the imprint of a prescribed transition order or whether they are due to chance. The analyzed set of DO transitions can therefore not serve as ...
format Article in Journal/Newspaper
author Riechers, Keno
Boers, Niklas
author_facet Riechers, Keno
Boers, Niklas
author_sort Riechers, Keno
title Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies
title_short Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies
title_full Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies
title_fullStr Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies
title_full_unstemmed Significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different Greenland ice core proxies
title_sort significance of uncertain phasing between the onsets of stadial–interstadial transitions in different greenland ice core proxies
publisher Katlenburg-Lindau : Copernicus Ges.
publishDate 2021
url https://oa.tib.eu/renate/handle/123456789/7820
https://doi.org/10.34657/6861
geographic Greenland
geographic_facet Greenland
genre Greenland
Greenland ice core
ice core
North Atlantic
North Greenland
Sea ice
genre_facet Greenland
Greenland ice core
ice core
North Atlantic
North Greenland
Sea ice
op_source Climate of the past : CP 17 (2021), Nr. 4
op_rights CC BY 4.0 Unported
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
op_doi https://doi.org/10.34657/6861
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