NATO ASI Series Advanced Science Institutes Series

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1 NATO ASI Series Advanced Science Institutes Series A series presenting the results of activities sponsored by the NA TO Science Committee, which aims at the dissemination of advanced scientific and technological knowledge, with a view to strengthening links between scientific communities. The Series is published by an international board of publishers in conjunction with the NATO Scientific Affairs Division A Life Sciences B Physics C Mathematical and Physical Sciences D Behavioural and Social Sciences E Applied Sciences F Computer and Systems Sciences G Ecological Sciences H Cell Biology I Global Environmental Change Plenum Publishing Corporation London and New York. Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht, Boston and London Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York London Paris Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest NATO-PCO DATABASE The electronic index to the NATO ASI Series provides full bibliographical references (with keywords and/or abstracts) to more than contributions from international scientists published in all sections of the NATO ASI Series. Access to the NAT9-PCO DATABASE compiled by the NATO Publication Coordination Office is possible in two ways: - via online FILE 128 (NATO-PCO DATABASE) hosted by ESRIN, Via Galileo Galilei, Frascati, Italy. - via CD:'ROM "NATO-PCO DATABASE" with user-friendly retrieval software in English, French and German ( WN GmbH and DATAWARE Technologies Inc. 1989). The CD-ROM can be ordered through any member of the Board of Publishers or through NATO-PCO, Overijse, Belgium. Series I: Global Environmental Change, Vol. 3

2 The ASI Series Books Published as a Result of Activities of the Special Programme on Global Environmental Change This book contains the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held within the activities of the NATO Special Programme on Global Environmental Change, which started in 1990 under the auspices of the NATO Science Committee. The volumes published as a result of the activities of the Special Programme are: Vol. 1: Global Environmental Change. Edited by R. W. Corell and P. A. Anderson Vol. 2: The Last Deglaciation: Absolute and Radiocarbon Chronologies. Edited by E. Bard an9 w. S. Broecker Vol. 3: Start of a Glacial. Edited by G. J. Kukla and E. Went

3 Start of a Glacial Edited by George J. Kukla Ellen Went Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory Columbia University Palisades, NY 10964, USA Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York London Paris Tokyo Hong Kong Barcelona Budapest Published in cooperation with NATO Scientific Affairs Division

4 Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Correlating Records of the Past held at Cabo Blanco, Maliorca, Spain, April 4-10, 1991 Additional material to this bood can be downloaded from ISBN-13: e-isbn-13: : / Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data. Start of a glacial/edited by George J. Kukla and Ellen Went. (NATO ASI series. Series I, Global environmental change; vol. 3) "Proceedings ot the NATO Adyanced Research Workshop on Correlating Records of the Past held at Cabo Blanco, Mallorca, Spain, April 4-10, 1991"-T.p. verso. ISBN-13: Glacial climates-congresses. 2. Paleoclimatology-Congresses. I. Kukla, G II. Went, Ellen. III. NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Correlating Records of the Past (1991 : Cabo Blanco, Spain) IV. Series. QE698-S dc20 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part ofthe material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1992 Soft cove r reprint of the hardcover 1st edititon 1992 Typesetting: Camera ready by authors 31/ Printed on acid-free paper

5 PREFACE Global climate change is on everyone's mind today. Will the man-made greenhouse gases make the future climate unbearably warm? In many places, yes, show the mathematical models of atmospheric circulation. Approximately 115 thousand years ago, and many more times at earlier occasions, a different climate change took place. It made many parts of the Northern Hemisphere unbearably cold. The same models used to predict the climate of the future world with the C(h enriched atmosphere were as yet unable to explain what happened. Could model forecasts of the man made greenhouse impact be relied upon, if their hindcasts of the considerably larger past natural climate shifts hitherto failed? Undoubtedly the models are excellent tools for improving the knowledge of the climate system mechanism, but they may be still too incomplete and too far from the accuracy needed for reliable predictions of changes at any time scale. Between April 4-10, 1991, thirty-three students of past climates gathered in Mallorca, Spain, in the NATO Advanced Research Workshop, to review what is known to date on the past interglacial-glacial shifts. On a geologic time scale we are presently due for such a transition. Under the collective name of the Mallorca Group, thirty-one of the participants summarized the most important conclusions that can currently be made from the available geologic evidence. Their summary report is presented as the ftrst article of our volume and contains a list of all the participants. Seventeen contributions follow, describing relevant novel fmdiogs. They all were externally reviewed and revised, some several times. We hope that the present volume can successfully guide students of past and present climate changes through the maze of related contributions, many of which were published in specialized journals of several disciplines. We also hope that the presented material will revjve the interest in the study of past warm-to-cold transitions. Although these may seem irrelevant today, given the rapid build-up of greenhouse gases and expected major global warming, they are not without importance. The extent of a future greenhouse impact cannot be reliably assessed if the mechanism by which a large portion of the earth has been plunged into icy barrens is not understood. George Kukla

6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface: by G.J. Kukla i Interglacial-glacial transitions by Mallorca Group 1 How accurate are the U-Th ages obtained by mass spectrometry on coral terraces? by Bard, E., Fairbanks, R.G., Hamelin B. 15 Transitions from interglacial to glacial in the pollen record from Valle Di Castiglione (Roma) by Magri, D., Follieri, M. 23 Interglacial/glacial trimsitions recorded from middle and young Pleistocene sections of eastern Lower Saxony/Gennany by Urban, B. 37 Climate changes during and at the end of the interglacials of the Cromerian Complex by Muller, H. 51 Interglacial to glacial climatic change, Observations from selected Colombian pollen records by Hooghiemstra, H., Ran, E.T.H. 71 The Montaigu Event: An abrupt climatic change during the Early Worm in Europe by Reille, M., Guiot, J., Beaulieu, J.-L. de 85 Vegetational and climatic transitions between interglacial and glacial periods during the last 1 Million years in northern Greece by Wijmstra, T.A., Young, R. 97 Duration and vegetation dynamic of the Nogaret Interglacial (-1.9 Ma, S. of France) - Tentative correlation with stage 75 by Leroy, S., Seret, G. 113 Climate record in cave deposits: The Atapuerca ID case by Aguirre, E., Hoyos, M. 127 Marine palynology of interglacial-glacial transitions by Dupont, L.M. 137 A long marine Eemian-Weichselian shelf record in north Denmark, Scandinavia by Knudsen, K.L. 157

7 VIII The Norwegian Sea record of the last interglacial to glacial transition by Duplessy, J.C., Labeyrie, L. Abrupt color changes in isotope stage 5 in North Atlantic deep sea cores: Implications for rapid change of climatedriven events by Bond, G., Broecker, W., Lotti, R., McManas Global climate change: A three million year perspective by Raymo, M.E. Transition from the Sangamon interglaciation to the Wisconsin glaciation along the southeastern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, North America by Dreimanis, A. The Caspian transgression as an indicator of the interglacialglacial transition by Zubakov, V.A. Working hypotheses for glaciation/deglaciation mechanism by Oeschger, H. Recent temperature trends: Are they reinforced by insolation shifts? by Kukla, G., Knight, R., Gavin, J., Karl T. Insolation regime of the warm to cold transitions by Kukla, G.,Gavin, J. Author's Index Subject's Index