Photo credit: www.sciencedaily.com
New Insights into Climate Change from Ancient Archives
Recent findings from two significant natural climate archives—a speleothem sourced from the Herbstlabyrinth Cave in Hesse, Germany, and ice cores obtained from Greenland—have yielded important revelations regarding the timeline of sharp climate shifts in Central Europe. The research, conducted by geoscientists from Heidelberg University and Mainz University, indicates that the catastrophic eruption of the Laacher See volcano in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate occurred earlier than formerly believed. As a result, this eruption is unlikely to have instigated the rapid cold snap that occurred roughly 13,000 years ago.
The Laacher See volcano’s last eruption is regarded as one of the most significant volcanic events in the last two million years, affecting regions as distant as northern Italy, Scandinavia, and Russia. Questions surrounding the timing of this eruption and its potential link to the abrupt cooling phase known as the Younger Dryas have sparked extensive scientific discourse. A significant temporal reclassification was initiated in 2021 through radiocarbon dating of tree rings, suggesting that the volcanic event transpired approximately 130 years earlier than previously estimated. This new dating has been corroborated by the research group using a speleothem collected from the Herbstlabyrinth Cave in Breitscheid, Hesse.
Typically, volcanic eruptions release significant amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere, which should be detectable in the geological records. “The high-resolution sulfur and oxygen isotope analyses conducted via an ion probe in Heidelberg were essential for confirming this correlation,” noted Prof. Dr. Axel Schmitt, a researcher from Curtin University in Perth and an honorary professor at Heidelberg University. This advanced ion probe technique allows for precise isotope ratio and trace element analysis on a micrometer scale.
By synchronizing geochemical data with an unrecognized sulfate peak in the Greenland ice cores, significant insights were achieved. Prof. Dr. Denis Scholz, who specializes in the age determination of climate fluctuations at the Institute for Geosciences at Mainz University, oversaw the statistical evaluations. “This synchronization marks a significant advancement in the accurate dating of climate and environmental records since, until this point, no precisely dated time marker was available prior to the Younger Dryas cooling phase,” stated Dr. Sophie Warken, a researcher focused on historic climate shifts at the Institutes of Earth Sciences and Environmental Physics at Heidelberg University.
Dr. Warken further elaborated that the new dating suggests the Laacher See eruption occurred about 150 years before the onset of the Younger Dryas cold period, effectively ruling out a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the eruption and the subsequent climatic shift. Following the identification of sulfate peaks in the Greenland ice cores, the research team could make significant inferences about the climate events coinciding with the onset of the Younger Dryas. Until now, it remained unclear whether the climate changes associated with this cold period—lasting roughly 1,000 years—began simultaneously in the North Atlantic and Europe or if they spread gradually from Greenland over extended periods. “Our findings indicate a noteworthy drop in temperatures occurred concurrently, suggesting a direct connection between the climates of Central Europe and the Arctic,” Dr. Warken explained.
The implications of this research provide valuable new avenues for comprehending the intricate climatic interactions of the past. Furthermore, these findings offer a robust framework for more precise forecasting of potential future climate trends, as highlighted by Dr. Warken. This study was part of the “Terrestrial Magmatic Systems” (TeMaS) project, a collaborative effort involving Heidelberg University, Goethe University Frankfurt, and Mainz University, with support from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and additional funding from the German Research Foundation and the European Research Council. The results of this pivotal research were published in the journal “Science Advances.”
Source
www.sciencedaily.com