Additional co-authors: TJ Heaton, AG Hogg, KA Hughen, KF Kaiser, B Kromer, SW Manning, RW Reimer, DA Richards, JR Southon, S Talamo, CSM Turney, J van der Plicht, CE Weyhenmeyer

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IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0-50,000 years cal BP

So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Human biochemical genetics

Drafting Authors: Neil Adger, Pramod Aggarwal, Shardul Agrawala, Joseph Alcamo, Abdelkader Allali, Oleg Anisimov, Nigel Arnell, Michel Boko, Osvaldo Canziani, Timothy Carter, Gino Casassa, Ulisses Confalonieri, Rex Victor Cruz, Edmundo de Alba Alcaraz, William Easterling, Christopher Field, Andreas Fischlin, Blair Fitzharris, Carlos Gay García, Clair Hanson, Hideo Harasawa, Kevin Hennessy, Saleemul Huq, Roger Jones, Lucka Kajfež Bogataj, David Karoly, Richard Klein, Zbigniew Kundzewicz, Murari Lal, Rodel Lasco, Geoff Love, Xianfu Lu, Graciela Magrín, Luis José Mata, Roger McLean, Bettina Menne, Guy Midgley, Nobuo Mimura, Monirul Qader Mirza, José Moreno, Linda Mortsch, Isabelle Niang-Diop, Robert Nicholls, Béla Nováky, Leonard Nurse, Anthony Nyong, Michael Oppenheimer, Jean Palutikof, Martin Parry, Anand Patwardhan, Patricia Romero Lankao, Cynthia Rosenzweig, Stephen Schneider, Serguei Semenov, Joel Smith, John Stone, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, David Vaughan, Coleen Vogel, Thomas Wilbanks, Poh Poh Wong, Shaohong Wu, Gary Yohe

Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

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Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.

Impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita Le cause e le responsabilita dei cambiamenti climatici sono state trattate sul numero di ottobre della rivista Cda. Approfondiamo l’argomento presentando il documento: “Cambiamenti climatici 2007: impatti, adattamento e vulnerabilita” votato ad aprile 2007 dal secondo gruppo di lavoro del Comitato Intergovernativo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Si tratta del secondo di tre documenti che compongono il quarto rapporto sui cambiamenti climatici.

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Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) during the Cenozoic is controversial in terms of timing and its role in major climate transitions. Some propose that the development of the ACC was instrumental in the continental scale glaciation of Antarctica and climate cooling at the Eocene/Oligocene boundary. Here we present climate model results that show that a coherent ACC was not possible during the Oligocene due to Australasian paleogeography, despite deep water connections through the Drake Passage and Tasman Gateway and the initiation of Antarctic glaciation. The simulations of ocean currents compare well to paleoenvironmental records relating to the physical oceanography of the Oligocene and provide a framework for understanding apparently contradictory dating of the initiation of the ACC. We conclude that the northward motion of the Australasian land masses and the reconfiguration of the Tasman Seaway and Drake Passage are necessary preconditions for the formation of a strong, coherent ACC.

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Paleogeographic controls on the onset of the Antarctic circumpolar current

Supervolcanoes are large caldera systems that can expel vast quantities of ash, volcanic gases in a single eruption, far larger than any recorded in recent history. These super-eruptions have been suggested as possible catalysts for long-term climate change and may be responsible for bottlenecks in human and animal populations. Here, we consider the previously neglected climatic effects of a continent-sized ash deposit with a high albedo and show that a decadal climate forcing is expected. We use a coupled atmosphere-ocean General Circulation Model (GCM) to simulate the effect of an ash blanket from Yellowstone volcano, USA, covering much of North America. Reflectivity measurements of dry volcanic ash show albedo values as high as snow, implying that the effects of an ash blanket would be severe. The modeling results indicate major disturbances to the climate, particularly to oscillatory patterns such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Atmospheric disruptions would continue for decades after the eruption due to extended ash blanket longevity. The climatic response to an ash blanket is not significant enough to instigate a change to stadial periods at present day boundary conditions, though this is one of several impacts associated with a super-eruption which may induce long-term climatic change.

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Paul J. Valdes

Papers

Paleogeographic controls on the onset of the Antarctic circumpolar current

The climatic impact of supervolcanic ash blankets

Nature of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet during the Pliocene: Geological evidence and modelling results compared

Magnitude of climate variability during middle Pliocene warmth: a palaeoclimate modelling study

The climatic impact of supervolcanic ash blankets