Algal lipids reveal unprecedented warming rates in alpine areas of SW Europe during the industrial period
<p>Alpine ecosystems of the southern Iberian Peninsula are among the most vulnerable and the first to respond to modern climate change in southwestern Europe. While major environmental shifts have occurred over the last <span class="inline-formula">∼1500</span> years in t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2020-02-01
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| Series: | Climate of the Past |
| Online Access: | https://www.clim-past.net/16/245/2020/cp-16-245-2020.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>Alpine ecosystems of the southern Iberian Peninsula are among the
most vulnerable and the first to respond to modern climate change in
southwestern Europe. While major environmental shifts have occurred over the
last <span class="inline-formula">∼1500</span> years in these alpine ecosystems, only changes in
the recent centuries have led to abrupt environmental responses, but factors
imposing the strongest stress have been unclear until now. To understand
these environmental responses, this study, for the first time, has
calibrated an algal lipid-derived temperature proxy (based on long-chain
alkyl diols) to instrumental historical data extending alpine temperature
reconstructions to 1500 years before present. These novel results highlight
the enhanced effect of greenhouse gases on alpine temperatures during the
last <span class="inline-formula">∼200</span> years and the long-term modulating role of solar
forcing. This study also shows that the warming rate during the 20th
century (<span class="inline-formula">∼0.18</span> <span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span>C per decade) was double that of the last
stages of the Little Ice Age (<span class="inline-formula">∼0.09</span> <span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span>C per decade), even
exceeding temperature trends of the high-altitude Alps during the 20th
century. As a consequence, temperature exceeded the preindustrial record
in the 1950s, and it has been one of the major forcing processes of the recent enhanced
change in these alpine ecosystems from southern Iberia since then. Nevertheless, other
factors reducing the snow and ice albedo (e.g., atmospheric deposition) may
have influenced local glacier loss, since almost steady climate conditions
predominated from the middle 19th century to the first decades of the
20th century.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1814-9324 1814-9332 |