This review of late-Holocene palaeoclimatology represents the results from a PAGES/CLIVAR Intersection Panel meeting that took place in June 2006. The review is in three parts: the principal high-resolution proxy disciplines (trees, corals, ice cores and documentary evidence), emphasizing current issues in their use for climate reconstruction; the various approaches that have been adopted to combine multiple climate proxy records to provide estimates of past annual-to-decadal timescale Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures and other climate variables, such as large-scale circulation indices; and the forcing histories used in climate model simulations of the past millennium. We discuss the need to develop a framework through which current and new approaches to interpreting these proxy data may be rigorously assessed using pseudo-proxies derived from climate model runs, where the `answer' is known. The article concludes with a list of recommendations. First, more raw proxy data are required from the diverse disciplines and from more locations, as well as replication, for all proxy sources, of the basic raw measurements to improve absolute dating, and to better distinguish the proxy climate signal from noise. Second, more effort is required to improve the understanding of what individual proxies respond to, supported by more site measurements and process studies. These activities should also be mindful of the correlation structure of instrumental data, indicating which adjacent proxy records ought to be in agreement and which not. Third, large-scale climate reconstructions should be attempted using a wide variety of techniques, emphasizing those for which quantified errors can be estimated at specified timescales. Fourth, a greater use of climate model simulations is needed to guide the choice of reconstruction techniques (the pseudo-proxy concept) and possibly help determine where, given limited resources, future sampling should be concentrated.

/pdf/high-resolution-palaeoclimatology-of-the-last-millennium-a-futl99a0xa.pdf

High-resolution palaeoclimatology of the last millennium: a review of current status and future prospects:

A detailed reconstruction of West African monsoon hydrology over the past 155,000 years suggests a close linkage to northern high-latitude climate oscillations. Ba/Ca ratio and oxygen isotope composition of planktonic foraminifera in a marine sediment core from the Gulf of Guinea, in the eastern equatorial Atlantic (EEA), reveal centennial-scale variations of riverine freshwater input that are synchronous with northern high-latitude stadials and interstadials of the penultimate interglacial and the last deglaciation. EEA Mg/Ca-based sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were decoupled from northern high-latitude millennial-scale fluctuation and primarily responded to changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases and low-latitude solar insolation. The onset of enhanced monsoon precipitation lags behind the changes in EEA SSTs by up to 7000 years during glacial-interglacial transitions. This study demonstrates that the stadial-interstadial and deglacial climate instability of the northern high latitudes exerts dominant control on the West African monsoon dynamics through an atmospheric linkage.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/316/5829/1303.full.pdf

155,000 Years of West African Monsoon and Ocean Thermal Evolution

Although persistent drought in West Africa is well documented from the instrumental record and has been primarily attributed to changing Atlantic sea surface temperatures, little is known about the length, severity, and origin of drought before the 20th century. We combined geomorphic, isotopic, and geochemical evidence from the sediments of Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, to reconstruct natural variability in the African monsoon over the past three millennia. We find that intervals of severe drought lasting for periods ranging from decades to centuries are characteristic of the monsoon and are linked to natural variations in Atlantic temperatures. Thus the severe drought of recent decades is not anomalous in the context of the past three millennia, indicating that the monsoon is capable of longer and more severe future droughts.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/324/5925/377.full.pdf

Atlantic Forcing of Persistent Drought in West Africa

Varves in lake sediments – a review

During the early to mid-Holocene, Africa was more humid than today. Precipitation reconstructions from across Africa suggest that the termination of humidity was spatially variable, moving towards progressively lower latitudes.

/pdf/the-time-transgressive-termination-of-the-african-humid-h2gw2o7ruw.pdf

The time-transgressive termination of the African Humid Period

Paleoclimatic variations in West Africa from a record of late Pleistocene and Holocene lake level stands of Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana

The proliferation of woody plants in grasslands over the past 100+ years can alter carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles and influence land surface-atmosphere interactions. Although the majority of organic carbon in these ecosystems resides belowground, there is no consensus on how this change in land cover has affected soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) pools. The degree to which duration of woody plant occupation, climate, and edaphic conditions have mediated SOC and TN responses to changes in life-form composition are poorly understood. We addressed these issues at a desert grassland site in Arizona, USA, where the leguminous shrub velvet mesquite (Prosopis velutina) has proliferated along an elevation/precipitation/temperature gradient and on contrasting soil morphologic surfaces. On sandy loam complexes of mid-Holocene origin, mean SOC and TN of soils in the grassland matrix increased approximately 68% and approximately 45%, respectively, with increasing elevation. Soil organic carbon pools were comparable and TN pools were approximately 23% higher in Pleistocene-aged clay loam complexes co-occurring with Holocene-aged soils at the upper elevation/climatic zone. Across the site, belowground resources associated with large Prosopis plants were 21-154% (SOC) and 18-127% (TN) higher than those in the grassy matrix. The variance in SOC and TN pools accounted for by Prosopis stem size (a rough surrogate for time of site occupation) was highest at the low- and mid-elevation sites (69-74%) and lowest at the upper elevation site (32-38%). Soil delta15N values ranged from 5.5 per thousand to 6.7 per thousand across the soil/elevation zones but were comparable in herbaceous and shrub-impacted soils and exhibited a weak relationship with Prosopis basal stem diameter (r2 < 0.1) and TN (r2 < 0.08). The SOC delta13C values decreased linearly with increasing Prosopis basal diameter, suggesting that size and isotopic composition of the SOC pool is a function of time of Prosopis site occupation. Isotopic mixture models indicate that encroachment of C3 woody plants has also promoted SOC additions from C4 plant sources, indicative of long-term herbaceous facilitation. Grassy sites in contrasting soil/elevation combinations, initially highly distinctive in their SOC pool size and delta13C, appear to be converging on similar values following approximately 100 years of woody plant proliferation.

Climatic/edaphic controls on soil carbon/nitrogen response to shrub encroachment in desert grassland

The sediments from Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana contain a unique record of fine-scale (mm to sub-mm) laminations, which will provide a valuable annual chronometer for reconstructing paleoenvironmental changes in West Africa covering much of the last 1 Ma. Comparisons of laminae counts to independent 210Pb dates and the rise in anthropogenic “bomb” radiocarbon support the interpretation of the laminations in the uppermost sediments as registering annual events. Radiocarbon dates on in-situ fish-bone collagen are in agreement with varve counts, further supporting the annual nature of our varve chronology. Over the instrumental period (1925–1999), dark-varve thickness measurements are correlated with local rainfall (r = 0.54) and appear able to resolve decadal-scale changes in precipitation. The relationship between varve thickness and rainfall provides support for our interpretation that dark-colored varve thickness records catchment runoff during the rainy season rather than dust flux during the dry season. Dark laminae alternate with organic and carbonate-rich light laminae formed during the fall period of enhanced productivity. Downcore, varves undergo significant microstratigraphic and geochemical variations, but retain the same pattern of alternating clastic and organic-rich laminae, providing support that the laminae may represent annual time markers for reconstructions of the deeper part of the record.

C. Winston Wheeler

Papers

Paleoclimatic variations in West Africa from a record of late Pleistocene and Holocene lake level stands of Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana

Climatic/edaphic controls on soil carbon/nitrogen response to shrub encroachment in desert grassland

The formation of biogeochemical laminations in Lake Bosumtwi, Ghana, and their usefulness as indicators of past environmental changes