Day 1.
The climate system and climatic variations
An overview is given about the climate system and its variability. A particular focus is on the main external and internal driving mechanisms and the role of time scales. A broad history of climate change in the last 600 Mio years is given.
Day 2.
Dating methods 1
Dating is a crucial issue for paleoclimate reconstruction and will be main focus of this course. An introduction to incremental dating methods with special emphasis on annually laminated lake sediments and varve chronology. In addition, ice layer counting in Greenland ice cores as well as tree ring dating will be discussed.
Day 3.
Dating methods 2
Principles of radiometric dating with a particular focus on radiocarbon dating will be demonstrated. Ar/Ar and luminescence dating methods will be briefly discussed as well. Finally, techniques for establishing age equivalents, i.e. correlating methods, as tephrochronology and astronomical dating will be presented.
Day 4.
Interglacial climate variability
Interglacial climatic boundary conditions are of major interest for discussing recent climate change since we are presently living in the Holocene interglacial. Here fundamentals are given on the up-to-date knowledge about the variability of our present interglacial in comparison with previous interglacials like the Eemian and Holsteinian. A short overview on the long-term evolution of Quaternary interglacials is given.
Day 5.
Examination
Depending on the students either writing an essay or giving a short presentation on a specific palaeoclimatic topic.
Literature:
Bradley, R.S. (1999). Paleoclimatology. 2nd edition, Academic Press, San Diego.
Walker, M. (2006). Quaternary Dating Methods. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester.
Cronin, T.M. (2009. Paleoclimates. Columbia University Press, New York.
