What we talk about when we talk about seasonality – A transdisciplinary review

• Published in: Earth-Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Kwiecien, Ola, Braun, Tobias, Brunello, Camilla Francesca, Faulkner, Patrick, Hausmann, Niklas, Helle, Gerd, Hoggarth, Julie, Ionita, Monica, Jazwa, Chris, Kelmelis, Saige, Marwan, Norbert, Nava-Fernandez, Cinthya, Nehme, Carole, Opel, Thomas, Oster, Jessica, Perşoiu, Aurel, Petrie, Cameron, Prufer, Keith, Saarni, Saija, Wolf, Annabel, Breitenbach, Sebastian F.M.
• Other Authors: University of Northumbria at Newcastle United Kingdom, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Earth Surface Geochemistry Postdam, German Research Centre for Geosciences - Helmholtz-Centre Potsdam (GFZ), The University of Sydney, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Archäologie, Baylor University, Emil Racoviță Institute of Speleology (ERIS), Romanian Academy, University of Nevada Reno, University of South Dakota Vermillion (USD), Ruhr University Bochum = Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), Identité et Différenciation de l’Espace, de l’Environnement et des Sociétés (IDEES), Université de Caen Normandie (UNICAEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU)-Université Le Havre Normandie (ULH), Normandie Université (NU)-Université de Rouen Normandie (UNIROUEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire Homme et Société (IRIHS), Université de Rouen Normandie (UNIROUEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU)-Université de Rouen Normandie (UNIROUEN), Normandie Université (NU), Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Vanderbilt University Nashville, University Stefan cel Mare of Suceava (USU), University of Cambridge UK (CAM), The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, Helsingin yliopisto = Helsingfors universitet = University of Helsinki
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: Seasonality; Speleothems; Varves; Invertebrates; Tree rings; Statistics; Archaeology; Historical climatology; Cave ice; Permafrost; [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [STAT]Statistics [stat]; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03513215; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103843

International audience The role of seasonality is indisputable in climate and ecosystem dynamics. Seasonal temperature and precipitation variability are of vital importance for the availability of food, water, shelter, migration routes, and raw materials. Thus, understanding past climatic and environmental changes at seasonal scale is equally important for unearthing the history and for predicting the future of human societies under global warming scenarios. Alas, in palaeoenvironmental research, the term ‘seasonality change’ is often used liberally without scrutiny or explanation as to which seasonal parameter has changed and how. Here we provide fundamentals of climate seasonality and break it down into external (insolation changes) and internal (atmospheric CO2 concentration) forcing, and regional and local and modulating factors (continentality, altitude, large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns). Further, we present a brief overview of the archives with potentially annual/seasonal resolution (historical and instrumental records, marine invertebrate growth increments, stalagmites, tree rings, lake sediments, permafrost, cave ice, and ice cores) and discuss archive-specific challenges and opportunities, and how these limit or foster the use of specific archives in archaeological research. Next, we address the need for adequate data-quality checks, involving both archive-specific nature (e.g., limited sampling resolution or seasonal sampling bias) and analytical uncertainties. To this end, we present a broad spectrum of carefully selected statistical methods which can be applied to analyze annually- and seasonally-resolved time series. We close the manuscript by proposing a framework for transparent communication of seasonality-related research across different communities.