Category Archives: Novel proxies

Lasers, biomarkers and the Sun

Posted on 04/11/2014 by richard telford

The earliest work on Holocene palaeoecology focused on megafossils such as Pinus stumps. Then macrofossils such as hazel shells were used to reconstruct species distributions and climate. Then pollen analysis became important, complementing rather than supplanting the larger fossils. The end of this progress towards smaller … Continue reading →

Posted in climate, Novel proxies, Peer reviewed literature, solar variability | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A biased and incomplete summary of Sea Ice Proxy workshop

Posted on 27/06/2014 by richard telford

Sea-ice is an important component of the Earth’s climate system, for example, it greatly increases the proportion of sunlight reflected at high latitudes – the albedo of ice is ~0.6 whereas it is only 0.1 for open water. Because of … Continue reading →

Posted in climate, Novel proxies, transfer function | Tagged | 1 Comment

Small tornado in Bremerhaven

Posted on 24/06/2014 by richard telford

The last couple of days I’ve been discussing sea-ice reconstructions at the Pages Sea-Ice Proxy workshop in Bremerhaven. A huge range of proxies have been presented, ranging from traces of halogens in ice cores to transfer function based reconstructions. One … Continue reading →

Posted in climate, Novel proxies, transfer function | Tagged | Leave a comment

Clumped Isotopes and the Pacific Warm Pool at the Last Glacial Maximum

Posted on 02/04/2014 by richard telford

How warm were the tropical oceans at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), 21 thousand years ago? A good estimate would be valuable for several reasons. First, it would help us to understand LGM climates and the ecological response to this … Continue reading →

Posted in climate, Novel proxies, Peer reviewed literature | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Mayfly mandibles: as seen in the IPCC report

Posted on 05/10/2013 by richard telford

I have been reading through the palaeoclimate chapter in the new IPCC report, in part so I can write a post on transfer functions in the report for Victor Venema’s climate scientists’ reviews. This post is not that review, instead I want … Continue reading →

Posted in climate, Novel proxies, Palaeohydrology, Peer reviewed literature | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Novel is not a synonym of good: Luoto and Nevalainen (2013)

Posted on 01/09/2013 by richard telford

I had not heard of the journal Scientific Reports before Thursday when Gavin kindly promised to spoil my day by referring me to a paper published there. It is an open access journal in the mould of PLoS One, publishing “technically … Continue reading →

Posted in Novel proxies, Peer reviewed literature, transfer function | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Novel proxy – temperatures from earthworm-calcite

Posted on 13/07/2013 by richard telford

Novel palaeoecological proxies and methods are always interesting, offering new or better insights into the past environment. This week I found out from the BBC that earthworm poo can be used as a climate proxy. The BBC article even links … Continue reading →

Posted in Novel proxies, Peer reviewed literature | Tagged , , | Leave a comment