Download or read book Neogene Climate Change in Eastern North America written by Kyrie A. Baumgartner and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though much is known of the global paleoclimate during the Neogene, little is understood about eastern North America at that time. During the Neogene the global paleoclimate was transitioning from the warm temperatures and higher levels of precipitation of the Paleogene to the cooler temperatures and lower levels of precipitation during the Pleistocene. Eleven fossil sites from Neogene eastern North America were analyzed using the Coexistence Approach: Pollack Farm, Brandon Lignite, Legler Lignite, Alum Bluff, Bryn Mawr, Big Creek on Sicily Island, Brandywine, Gray Fossil Site, Citronelle, Peace Creek, and Ohoopee River Dune Field. Analyses showed a general trend that early and middle Miocene sites were warmer than the area today, while middle and late Miocene sites were comparable to the area today, and Pliocene sites were comparable to or cooler than the area today. However, there is no clear trend of increased precipitation during the Neogene.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments written by Vivien Gornitz and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-10-31 with total page 1062 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Springer’s Major Reference Works, this book gives the reader a truly global perspective. It is the first major reference work in its field. Paleoclimate topics covered in the encyclopedia give the reader the capability to place the observations of recent global warming in the context of longer-term natural climate fluctuations. Significant elements of the encyclopedia include recent developments in paleoclimate modeling, paleo-ocean circulation, as well as the influence of geological processes and biological feedbacks on global climate change. The encyclopedia gives the reader an entry point into the literature on these and many other groundbreaking topics.
Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change written by John A Matthews and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 1059 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change is an extensive survey of the interdisciplinary science of environmental change, including recent debates on climate change and the full range of other natural and anthropogenic changes affecting the Earth-ocean-atmosphere system in the past, present and future. It examines the historic importance, present status and future prospects of the field over two volumes. With more than 40 chapters, the books situate the defining characteristics and key paradigms within a state-of-the-art review of the field, including its changing nature and diversity of approaches, evidence base, key theoretical arguments, resonances with other disciplines and relationships between theory, research and practice. Opening with a detailed, contextualizing essay by the editors, the work is arranged into six parts: Part One: Approaches to Understanding Environmental Change Part Two: Evidence of Environmental Change and the Geo-ecological Response Part Three: Causes, Mechanisms and Dynamics of Environmental Change Part Four: Key Issues of Human-induced Environmental Changes and Their Impacts Part Five: Patterns, Processes and Impacts of Environmental Change at the Regional Scale Part Six: Responses of People to Environmental Change and Implications for Society Global in its coverage, scientific and theoretical in its approach, the books bring together an international set of respected editors and contributors to provide an exciting, timely addition to the literature on climate change. With the subjects′ interdisciplinary framework, this book will appeal to academics, researchers, postgraduates and practitioners in a variety of disciplines including, geography, geology, ecology, environmental science, archaeology, anthropology, politics and sociology.
Download or read book Oaks Physiological Ecology Exploring the Functional Diversity of Genus Quercus L written by Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-12 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With more than 500 species distributed all around the Northern Hemisphere, the genus Quercus L. is a dominant element of a wide variety of habitats including temperate, tropical, subtropical and mediterranean forests and woodlands. As the fossil record reflects, oaks were usual from the Oligocene onwards, showing the high ability of the genus to colonize new and different habitats. Such diversity and ecological amplitude makes genus Quercus an excellent framework for comparative ecophysiological studies, allowing the analysis of many mechanisms that are found in different oaks at different level (leaf or stem). The combination of several morphological and physiological attributes defines the existence of different functional types within the genus, which are characteristic of specific phytoclimates. From a landscape perspective, oak forests and woodlands are threatened by many factors that can compromise their future: a limited regeneration, massive decline processes, mostly triggered by adverse climatic events or the competence with other broad-leaved trees and conifer species. The knowledge of all these facts can allow for a better management of the oak forests in the future.
Download or read book Tectonic Uplift and Climate Change written by William F. Ruddiman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-11 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A significant advance in climatological scholarship, Tectonic Uplift and Climate Change is a multidisciplinary effort to summarize the current status of a new theory steadily gaining acceptance in geoscience circles: that long-term cooling and glaciation are controlled by plateau and mountain uplift. Researchers in many diverse fields, from geology to paleobotany, present data that substantiate this hypothesis. The volume covers most of the key, dramatic transformations of the Earth's surface.
Download or read book Deep time Perspectives on Climate Change written by Mark Williams and published by Geological Society of London. This book was released on 2007 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Earth History and Palaeogeography written by Trond H. Torsvik and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a complete Phanerozoic story of palaeogeography, using new and detailed full-colour maps, to link surface and deep-Earth processes.
Download or read book Biodiversity Response to Climate Change in the Middle Pleistocene written by Anthony D. Barnosky and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation Fossil finds from 10 years of research show the effects of climate change on North American mammals during the Pleistocene era, about one million to 400,000 years ago.
Download or read book Patterns Mechanisms and Legacies of Abrupt Climate Change written by David Fastovich and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Increasing global temperatures from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are driving widespread climatological and ecological changes globally. Abrupt global changes that share rates of climate change similar to those experienced today (Overpeck et al. 2003; Williams and Burke 2019) are recorded throughout the geologic record and offer important insights that can help predict future anthropogenic change. The Deglacial period (19,000 to 11,000 years before present) after the Last Glacial Maximum has been a key interval for understanding ecological and climatological responses to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations and a warming climate (COHMAP Project Members 1988; Nolan et al. 2018; Mottl et al. 2021). Imposed on this gradual warming are abrupt climate oscillations that onset within decades to centuries, last for millennia, and are commonly attributed to changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation forced by the input of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean. The most recent of these millennial-scale climate events is the Younger Dryas (ca. 12,900 to 11,700 years before present) and caused spatially complex climate changes globally. In this dissertation, we first aim to determine the spatial patterns of climate change and the atmospheric mechanisms responsible for driving abrupt climate change regionally in eastern North America through the use of organic temperature biomarkers (brGDGTs) and climate models. Second, we seek to disentangle the contributions of glacial and millennial-scale climate variability upon modern patterns of species richness in eastern North America. Chapter 2 seeks to determine the spatial fingerprint of Younger Dryas temperature changes in eastern North America. We develop a spatially dense multiproxy network of temperature reconstructions relying upon statistical transfer functions applied to fossil-pollen abundances and an independent proxy, based on organic biomarkers (brGDGTs). This analysis indicates that temperature changes during the Younger Dryas followed a dipole pattern in eastern North America. Temperatures lowered abruptly in maritime Canada and the northeastern United States nearly synchronously with temperature records from Greenland (Severinghaus et al. 1998). Cooling is also reconstructed in the Great Lakes region but delayed by ~400 years. Sites south of 35℗ʻN exhibited an antiphased response and lack YD cooling, with Florida sites indicating a thermal maximum. Warming in Florida during the Younger Dryas suggests that the 'bipolar-seesaw' conceptualization is an oversimplification of the spatial patterns of global climate changes. Focus must be placed on constraining regional climate changes to refine the mechanisms of abrupt climate change. Chapter 3 aims to better understand the atmospheric mechanisms for these antiphased temperature changes in eastern North America. We accomplish this by combining our multiproxy temperature network with a synthesis of hydroclimate reconstructions to compare against four climate models with meltwater hosing experiments that resemble the onset of the Younger Dryas. Precipitation changes followed a tripole pattern with wetting in the northeastern United States and Florida and drying from the Great Lakes region to the Carolinas, in contrast to the temperature dipole resolved in Chapter 2. Analysis of the climate models highlights the dual role of ice sheets and meltwater-induced weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation as the key drivers of the reconstructed warming and wetting in the southeastern United States. Reduced northward oceanic heat transport in the Atlantic Ocean increased the latitudinal temperature gradient and strengthened the jet stream, leading to upper-level divergence over eastern North America and the transport of warmer and moister air into the southeastern United States. For Chapter 4, we use our multiproxy temperature and precipitation reconstruction from prior chapters, alongside 11 climate simulations of millennial- scale climate events forced by meltwater pulses, to assess whether legacies of these climate changes can be detected in the contemporary diversity of amphibians, birds, mammals, reptiles, and trees in eastern North America. Generalized additive models that use both contemporary and paleoclimatic predictors suggest that past millennial scale climate oscillations have left an imprint on contemporary amphibian and arboreal biodiversity, though the exact role of past climate changes remains uncertain. Generalized additive models that use the multiproxy network of Younger Dryas climate reconstructions and a subset of the climate models analyzed suggest that greater millennial scale climate variability is predictive of greater contemporary biodiversity. However, generalized additive models that use four of the climate models suggest that millennial-scale climate stability is predictive of greater contemporary richness in eastern North America. Disagreement in the sign, magnitude, and spatial fingerprint of climate changes among the 11 climate simulations and the multiproxy climate reconstructions precludes further refining the role of millennial-scale climate oscillations at this time. This uncertainty highlights that caution should be used when attempting to model contemporary biodiversity based on individual paleoclimatic simulations. Higher resolution climate simulations forced with accurate boundary conditions are necessary to constrain the relationship between past millennial-scale climate changes and contemporary biodiversity.
Download or read book Neogene Mammals written by Spencer G. Lucas and published by New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. This book was released on 2008 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neogene Mammals: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 44
Download or read book Paleoclimate and Evolution with Emphasis on Human Origins written by Elisabeth S. Vrba and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing the relationship between climatic and biotic evolution, this work focuses on how climatic change during the last 15 million years - especially the last three million - has affected human evolution and other evolutionary events.
Download or read book Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic History of North American Vegetation written by Alan Graham and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1999-03-25 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a unique and integrated account of the history of North American vegetation and paleoenvironments over the past 70 million years. It includes discussions of the modern plant communities, causal factors for environmental change, biotic response, and methodologies. The history reveals a North American vegetation that is vast, immensely complex, and dynamic.
Download or read book Hominin Environments in the East African Pliocene written by René Bobe and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-09-08 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the work of researchers at many sites spanning the East African Pliocene. The authors take a broad approach that seeks to compare paleoenvironmental and paleoecological patterns across localities and among various taxonomic groups. This volume aims to synthesize large amounts of faunal data, and to present the evolution of East African vertebrates in the context of environmental and climatic changes during the Pliocene.
Download or read book Understanding Climate s Influence on Human Evolution written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-04-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.
Download or read book New Publications of the Geological Survey written by Geological Survey (U.S.) and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 746 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Palaeobiogeography and Biodiversity Change written by Geological Society of London and published by Geological Society of London. This book was released on 2002 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Effects of Past Global Change on Life written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1995-02-01 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What can we expect as global change progresses? Will there be thresholds that trigger sudden shifts in environmental conditionsâ€"or that cause catastrophic destruction of life? Effects of Past Global Change on Life explores what earth scientists are learning about the impact of large-scale environmental changes on ancient lifeâ€"and how these findings may help us resolve today's environmental controversies. Leading authorities discuss historical climate trends and what can be learned from the mass extinctions and other critical periods about the rise and fall of plant and animal species in response to global change. The volume develops a picture of how environmental change has closed some evolutionary doors while opening othersâ€"including profound effects on the early members of the human family. An expert panel offers specific recommendations on expanding research and improving investigative toolsâ€"and targets historical periods and geological and biological patterns with the most promise of shedding light on future developments. This readable and informative book will be of special interest to professionals in the earth sciences and the environmental community as well as concerned policymakers.
