Olga Solomina Dr. Olga Solomina Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences Russia If you would like to interview this scientist, please contact Leah Christen. > biographical information > abstract > paper

Biographical Information:

I conduct research in the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. My field of interest is paleoclimatic reconstructions (mostly using tree-rings) and glacier variations in high mountains (Tien Shan, Caucasus, Kamchatka, Urals, Alps, Andes) as well as in Antarctica. I am a member of the PAGES Scientific Steering Committee and a Council Member of the International Glaciological Society (UK). Currently I am involved in the Fourth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) as one of the lead authors in the chapter on paloeclimate.

Abstract:

Climatic events and tendencies in the North-West Pacific recorded by trees and glaciers during the last 400 years

Olga Solomina, R. D'Arrigo, G. Jacoby, G. Wiles, Ya Muraviev, T. Shiraiwa

A number of climatic proxies (tree rings, including ring width, light rings, missing rings chronologies, dates of moraines, melt features and ¹⁶O/¹⁸O variations in the ice cores) are employed to extend our understanding of North Pacific climate variability over the past four centuries. New oak, spruce, larch and birch chronologies from the Kamchatka Peninsula, Kurile and Sakhalin Islands were developed for this purpose. Based on oak ring widths, summer temperatures since AD 1634 were reconstructed for Kunashir Island. The oak chronology is also used to reconstruct PDO variations during the last four centuries. Two composite larch chronologies for the Kamchatka peninsula are used for a qualitative estimation of summer temperature and a reconstruction of June temperatures since AD1632. The tree-ring based temperature reconstruction in Kamchatka is in good agreement with the melt-feature percentage from Ushkovsky glacier. Decadal variations of summer temperature in Kamchatka and Alaska during the last 400 years were found to be similar in amplitude and timing. This similarity may help explain the synchrony of glacier advances in the two regions. The decadal variations of summer temperature at Kunashir are similar to those in Kamchatka and Alaska for the period 1750-1850, but after 1850 the similarity disappears. Light rings in the Kamchatka chronologies, indicating cool early summers or short warm seasons, coincide with missing rings or precede them by one year. Some light rings can be associated with well-known climatically worldwide effective volcanic eruptions with a lag of 1-2 years.

R. D'Arrigo, Columbia University, USA
G. Jacoby, Columbia University, USA
G. Wiles, College of Wooster, USA
Ya Muraviev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
T. Shiraiwa, Hokkaido University, Japan

Paper:

400 years of Climate Change Recorded in Trees and Glaciers in the North-west Pacific

Olga Solomina, R. D'Arrigo, G. Jacoby, G. Wiles, Ya Muraviev, T. Shiraiwa

What are climatic proxies?
Climatic variations influence tree growth, glacier advances and retreats, sediment accumulation, etc. Thus, a fraction of climatic information is stored in certain natural archives and can be deciphered. We used tree rings, dates of moraines, and ice-core data to reconstruct past climate in the North Pacific.

Why do we need proxies?
The meteorological records in the North Pacific are sparse and typically do not go further back than the last several decades. Using proxy data, we can extend climatic reconstructions for more than three centuries to assess the variability of climate, occurrence of extremes, geographic patterns of former climatic variations, teleconnections, etc.

What kind of data do we have?
We developed new oak, spruce, larch and birch chronologies in the Kamchatka Peninsula, Kurile and Sakhalin Islands, and used spruce and larch chronologies constructed previously by different authors. In Kamchatka, melt features and 16O/18O variations come from the Ushkovsky ice core. Historical data, radiocarbon dating, tephrochronology and lichenometry were used to estimate the age of moraines in Kamchatka and Alaska. We compared this data with meteorological records, as well as with tree-ring and glacier reconstructions in Alaska and coral records in the tropical Pacific.

What did we find?
- Oak ring width in Kunashir Island depends mainly on June-September temperature and correlates with the North Pacific oscillation. Larch chronologies from Kamchatka reflect mostly summer May-June temperature (Fig. A). The tree-ring based temperature reconstruction in Kamchatka is in good agreement with the melt-feature percentage from Ushkovsky glacier.

- Decadal variations of summer temperature in Kamchatka and Alaska during the last 400 years are similar in amplitude and timing. This similarity may help explain the synchrony of glacier advances in the two regions (Fig. B).

- The decadal variations of summer temperature at Kunashir are similar to those in Kamchatka and Alaska for the period ca. 1780s-1920s and after the 1970s but tend to correlate negatively between 1650s-1780s and 1920s-1970s (Fig. C).

- Light rings in the Kamchatka chronologies indicating cool early summers or short warm seasons coincide with missing rings or precede them by one year. Some light rings can be associated with well-known, worldwide climatically effective volcanic eruptions with a lag of 1-2 years (Fig. D).

- A tree-ring reconstruction of the December-May North Pacific Index (NPI) (1600-1983) shows evidence for the three regime shifts seen in the instrumental NPI data and for seven events in prior centuries. It correlates significantly with both instrumental tropical climate indices and a coral-based reconstruction of an optimal tropical Indo-Pacific climate index (Fig. E).



R. D'Arrigo, Columbia University, USA
G. Jacoby, Columbia University, USA
G. Wiles, College of Wooster, USA
Ya Muraviev, Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia
T. Shiraiwa, Hokkaido University, Japan