New Papers (Nature, etc.) 2024/12/30–2025/1/12

Nature

1. Limitations of ice cores in reconstructing temperature seasonality

T. Laepple, T. Münch, N. Hirsch, F. Shaw  & M. Hörhold

2. Abrupt changes in biomass burning during the last glacial period

Ben Riddell-Young, James Edward Lee, Edward J. Brook, Jochen Schmitt, Hubertus Fischer, Thomas K. Bauska, James A. Menking, René Iseli & Justin Reid Clark

Communications Earth and Environment

3. Near-term benefits from investment in climate adaptation complement long-term economic returns from emissions reduction

Lei Duan, Angelo Carlino & Ken Caldeira

4. A millennium of cold and humid climate decreased carbon accumulation in the subtropical monsoon peatland

Bin Liu, Hanxiang Liu, Ying Wang, Zicheng Yu, Yuwen Fu, Zhengyu Xia, Chengyu Miao & Jia Jia

5. Weakening of subsurface ocean temperature seasonality over the past four decades

Fukai Liu, Yiyong Luo, Fengfei Song, Wen-Xiao Yu, Jian Lu & Lijing Cheng

Nature Communications

6. Seasonal changes of mélange thickness coincide with Greenland calving dynamics

Yue Meng, Ching-Yao Lai, Riley Culberg, Michael G. Shahin, Leigh A. Stearns, Justin C. Burton & Kavinda Nissanka

7. Tipping point-induced abrupt shifts in East Asian hydroclimate since the Last Glacial Maximum

Fuzhi Lu, Huayu Lu, Yao Gu, Pengyu Lin, Zhengyao Lu, Qiong Zhang, Hongyan Zhang, Fan Yang, Xiaoyi Dong, Shuangwen Yi, Deliang Chen, Francesco S. R. Pausata, Maya Ben-Yami & Jennifer V. Mecking

8. Tracing ancient solar cycles with tree rings and radiocarbon in the first millennium BCE

Nicolas Brehm, Charlotte L. Pearson, Marcus Christl, Alex Bayliss, Kurt Nicolussi, Thomas Pichler, David Brown & Lukas Wacker

9. Asynchronicity of deglacial permafrost thawing controlled by millennial-scale climate variability

Xinwei Yan, Xu Zhang, Bo Liu, Huw T. Mithan, John Hellstrom, Sophie Nuber, Russell Drysdale, Junjie Wu, Fangyuan Lin, Ning Zhao, Yuao Zhang, Wengang Kang & Jianbao Liu

10. Global mean sea level likely higher than present during the holocene

Roger C. Creel, Jacqueline Austermann, Robert E. Kopp, Nicole S. Khan, Torsten Albrecht & Jonathan Kingslake

Scientific Reports

11. Assessing the preservation potential of successive hurricane overwash deposits in Florida, USA mangroves

Isabel Hong, Kristen M. Joyse, Jennifer S. Walker, Arielle L. Nogueira, Wynn Bryant, Kara R. Radabaugh & Donald C. Barber 

12. Identification of deposits from modern and ancient large tsunamis by means of environmental DNA

Tetsuya Shinozaki, Akira Iguchi, Miyuki Nishijima, Kazuhisa Goto & Shigehiro Fujino

New Papers (ELSEVIER) 2024/12/31~2025/1/12

  

 

[Chemical Geology]

1. Uranium-series isotopes as tracers of physical and chemical weathering in glacial sediments from Taylor Valley, Antarctica

Graham Harper Edwards, Gavin G. Piccione, Terrence Blackburn, Slawek Tulaczyk

 

[Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta]

2. Carbon Cycling in Marine Particles Based on Inorganic and Organic Stable Isotopes

Sijia Dong, Frank J. Pavia, Adam V. Subhas, William R. Gray, Jess F. Adkins,  William M. Berelson

 

[Global and Planetary Change]

3. Evapotranspiration increase is more sensitive to vegetation greening than to vegetation type conversion in arid and semi-arid regions of China

Yixuan Zhu, Zhoutao Zheng, Guang Zhao, Juntao Zhu, Bo Zhao, Yihan Sun, Jie Gao, Yangjian Zhang

4. New Sea-ice biomarker data from Bering-Chukchi Sea surface sediments and its significance for pan-Arctic proxy-based sea-ice reconstruction

Jiang Yiao Zhang, Xiaotong Xiao, Ruediger Stein, Wenshen Xiao, Rujian Wang, Yang Ding, Lupeng Nie , Meixun Zhao

5. Impact of ENSO on extreme precipitation in Southwest Asia

Omid Alizadeh, Morteza Mousavizadeh

6. Effects of climate change and methane-rich fluid activity on sedimentary sulfur geochemical records in the northern South China Sea since mid-Pleistocene

Junxi Feng, Yufei Zhang, Niu Li, Jianhou Zhou, Jinqiang Liang, Qianyong Liang, Shengxiong Yang, Duofu Chen, Harunur Rashid 

7. Response of atmospheric CO2 changes to the Abyssal Pacific overturning during the last glacial cycle

Yanan Zhang, Gang Li, Jimin Yu, Yi Zhong, Jianghui Du, Xun Gong , Xiaodong Jiang , Congcong Gai, Shiying Li, Qingsong Liu

8. Human settlement and destructive activities disrupt the positive contribution of dust to plant biomass growth over the past 2000 years

Lin Chen, Youliang Huang, Menghan Qiu, Zhilun Li, Rui Yang, Mengjing Li, Huiling Sun, Lixiong Xiang, Shanjia Zhang , Xiaozhong Huang , Aifeng Zhou

9. Possible influence of low latitude wetland area changes on the Holocene global atmospheric methane concentration trend

Yunping Song, Hai Xu, Kevin M. Yeager

10. Stalagmite records of spatiotemporal hydroclimatic variations in monsoonal China during 47–12 ka BP

Miaomiao Wang, Haiwei Zhang, Youwei Li, Rui Zhang, Jian Wang, Hanying Li, Yuteng Zhao, Xiaomei Zhang, Zeyuan Liang, Youfeng Ning, Hai Cheng

 

[Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology]

11. Indian summer monsoon history during the last glacial cycle revealed by a loess sequence from the Tibetan Plateau

Pushuang Li, Shengli Yang, Yuanlong Luo, Li Liu, Yixiao Zhang, Weiming Liu, Jingzhao Zhang, Xuechao Xu, Chen Wen, Qiong Li

12. Characteristics and driving mechanisms of early Holocene weakened monsoon events: Evidence from northern Bohai Bay, China

Hanfei You, Shixiong Yang, Yuecong Li, Shengrui Zhang, Zhen Zhang, Linyuan Ma, Jiheng Shi, Ying Wang, Xiaotian Zhang, Yunfei Yang

13. A dual bivalve approach for interpreting past sea surface temperatures and seasonality from shell midden sites using oxygen isotope sclerochronology

Sarah D. Kuehn, Meghan Burchell, Natasha Leclerc

The Amami symposium - A little personal report

Hi zusammen, 

this is Ida an exchange student from Germany, currently doing a research internship at AORI.

This is a timy little report about my participation at the Amami symposium held in November this year at Amami Oshima. The symposium brought together scientists and local people and consisted of various speeches, a panel discussion, and a poster presentation. The poster presentation featured 12 scientists and 8 students from a local high school presenting their research.

As this was the first symposium I participated in, it felt like a great setting to gain some initial experiences, meet people in this field of research, and gain insights into research in Japan. Although I’m learning Japanese, my comprehension is still quite basic, and especially in the scientific context, it’s definitely まだまだです. 

Although I experimented with Google Translate, I had some difficulties following the content of the speeches. Depending on the person speaking, and especially on the amount of text on the slides, it was sometimes easier, sometimes harder to follow.  Even though I would always agree that slides shouldn’t contain too much text, in this case I was quite happy about full slides, which I could translate using Google Lens ;) Additionally, I gained some confidence on the second day and was able to talk to some of the speakers after their speeches, to get a mini-English summary and the opportunity to ask some questions, which was a great opportunity.

In the beginning, I was quite intimidated talking to new people due to my lack of experience regarding cultural and social rules in this new setting, my basic level of Japanese and the fact that a lot of people seemed to know each other already. After the first day, a joint dinner, and a little boost in self-confidence, I got to talk to more people on the second day and had the opportunity to also talk to some local people like, for example, a woman working for the local newspaper. I really like the idea of bringing local people and scientists together, and I wished I could have talked even more to people from Amami. 

 

The poster presentation went well and ended up being quite lively. Preparing the poster in advance already taught me a lot about how to structure and present my own scientific ideas. On the first day, the explanation of the poster was mostly in English, and it felt like a good practice to talk about research with new people. It got better with each time presenting, and I’m grateful that I was able to have the experience in this setting without much pressure. On the second day, we presented our posters again in front of some of the high school students. This again challenged my Japanese skills, but it was a lot of fun, and with a lot of Katakana English Japanese, some help from a very kind English teacher, and some laughs we got there in the end. I think the vocabulary I was missing the most might have been 放射性炭素 (radiocarbon). I can recommend looking up some basic words in advance, but even without, it somehow worked out and we got to laugh a lot.

 

On both days, we went to a joint dinner together. For me, this was one of the most impressive experiences. The culture of eating out and drinking together after work was already a new experience for me as a non-Japanese student. Especially impressive was getting to hear the島歌 (island songs) accompanied by traditional local instruments, the 三線 (a three-string instrument), and even being able to try the instruments ourselves. We were highly recommended to learn to play the 三線, as you’re supposed to be able to learn it in only one month. The local food was amazing too, and even being vegetarian there was plenty of different flavorful food to try.

During the symposium, we also got to talk a little bit about the organization and brainstormed on how it might be possible to make the event even a little more diverse in the upcoming years. I really like the idea of holding the symposium in Amami and therefore making it accessible to local people and especially high-school students. I would have been interested to hear even more the perspectives of local people in the speeches (e.g., about topics like: ‘How has climate change affected Amami in the last few years?’ or ‘How to find a balance between tourism and preservation?’). However, I might have also missed parts of that due to the language barrier. I think it is essential as s scientists to learn from local people and focus on incoporating a local and culturaly sensitive perspective. 

I was also wondering how far it might be possible to invite more women as speakers to create a balance between women and men speaking. If possible, I think it would be great to encourage even more young students to participate too, as I think this is a great setting to gain first experience, get some first contacts, and receive feedback on one’s own work. This might change the dynamics a little bit but could make exchange between different groups of people and approaching new people a little easier, as it could mix up the group dynamics a bit. As diversity in (natural) sciences is a topic that I’m also very interested in, I would be very interested to brainstorm together and think of different possible approaches.

At the end this trip also helped me to get to know some new people and grow closer to friends I knew already before. I got the best teachers for revising kanji and explaining Japanese grammar and even found somebody who would run into the ocean together during a warm rainy day. I would like to thank everybody who participated, organized and contributed to this event and who made this experience possible. It was a pleasure to participate, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to have had this experience.

Amami Symposium - Short Report

Hi! This is Ryuu!

I joined the Amami Symposium in November. This was my first time attending the Amami Symposium and my first visit to the Kagoshima area. We first flew to Kagoshima airport and stayed there overnight before flying to Amami the next morning.

On the way to Amami from Kagashima Airport

The local climate is warm and humid, making me feel like I'm back home. It's also worth mentioning that the lush greenery of subtropical plants against the evening sunsets along the coastline is also a delight!

Asani Beach on Amami Island

The sunset near Amami City Ohama Seaside Park

During the symposium, I listened to many researchers as well as professors presenting, and I had a lot of feelings. One of the things that struck me was the concept of locally-centered cooperation between industry, schools, government, and local people, which was introduced in the symposium. I think events such as these will benefit multiple parties. In addition to that, I've also heard that this symposium is the first time that local high school students have been included in the program. This will also help local students broaden their horizons and stimulate their research interests.

Amami Symposium site

As a graduate student at the University of Tokyo, I'm currently studying the specific causes of the northward shift of the Kuroshio-Kuroshio mixing zone by tracking the dynamics of the ocean currents through carbon 14. This study is also closely related to Amami, which is located in the Kuroshio basin. I hope to interact more closely with the local community in my research in the future.

That's all about my trip to Amami Symposium this time. Thanks for your time reading this blog!

New Papers (AGU, etc.) 2024/12/10~2024/12/16

 [Climate of the Past]

1. Chen, S., Su, Y., Chen, X., & Yang, L. E. (2024). The spatio-temporal evolution of the Chongzhen drought (1627–1644) in China and its impact on famine. Climate of the Past, 20(10), 2287-2307.

2. Hancock, C. L., Erb, M. P., McKay, N. P., Dee, S. G., & Ivanovic, R. F. (2024). A global Data Assimilation of Moisture Patterns from 21 000–0 BP (DAMP-21ka) using lake level proxy records. Climate of the Past, 20(12), 2663-2684.

3. Yang, Z., & Ludlow, F. (2024). Climatic and Societal Impacts of Volcanic Eruptions in the Western Han Dynasty (206 BCE–8 CE): A Comparative Study. Climate of the Past Discussions, 2024, 1-23.

 [Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems]

4. Moussallam, Y., Rose‐Koga, E. F., Fischer, T. P., Georgeais, G., Lee, H. J., Birnbaum, J., ... & Regis, E. (2024). Kinetic isotopic degassing of CO2 during the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption and the δ13C signature of the Icelandic mantle. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 25(12), e2024GC011997.