scholarly journals The origin and evolution of small dry valleys in the last-glacial area on the example of the Pomeranian Lake District (Poland)

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
M Majewski ◽  
R Paluszkiewicz
Author(s):  
Douglas G. Goodin ◽  
Raymond C. Smith

At longer timescales, the interaction among climate, ecosystems, and the abiotic components of the environment become increasingly important. These relationships are apparent in the three chapters in part IV. Fountain and Lyons (chapter 16), examining the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MCM) ecosystem in Antarctic, provide an excellent example of a case where past climatic variations truly dictate current ecosystem status. The relatively large climate variations at MCM have concentrated nutrients that could not have been attained without this climate variability. Fountain and Lyons infer climate change from geomorphic evidence of past glacier positions and lake level heights as well as more recent isotopic results from ice cores and temperature measurements from boreholes. They focus on evidence from the most recent 60,000 years. Monger (chapter 17) provides an analysis of millennial-scale climate and ecosystem variability at the Jornada LTER site in southern New Mexico. Monger notes the difficulty of untangling prehistoric climate/ecosystem interactions, where researchers must rely on indirect proxy indicators in lieu of measured data. Monger analyzes a number of proxy data sources, including paleolake levels, plant remnants preserved in packrat middens, fossil pollens, carbon isotope ratios in paleosols, and erosion rates. Although noting the danger of circular reasoning in using proxy data (i.e., ecosystem response used to infer information about climatic change, which is in turn inferred from ecosystem response) Monger uses these data to construct a cogent picture of climate change at the Jornada site (JRN) since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) about 18,000–20,000 years b.p. Using remains of beetles, Elias (chapter 18) constructs a temperature history of the Colorado Alpine since the LGM. These late Holocene insect records show a progression from warmer-than-modern to coolerthan- modern summers, and back to warm again. All the authors in this section provide examples to show that it is at century to millennial timescales that ecosystems form, are broken apart and imprinted by the past, and reformed in new configurations. The McMurdo Dry Valleys is the most poleward-terrestrial ecosystem where streams, lakes, and soil are interconnected. In this polar desert, the biotic system must adopt a strategy to survive the winter in isolation, and the disturbance and formation of the landscape has been primarily dictated by climate and associated abiotic processes. During the last glacial period, the Ross Ice shelf entered Taylor Valley, damming the valley and forming a 200-m-deep lake (23.8 kyrs).


2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 457-467 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.K. Obryk ◽  
P.T. Doran ◽  
E.D. Waddington ◽  
C.P. Mckay

AbstractLarge glacial lakes, including Glacial Lake Washburn, were present in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) despite a colder and drier climate. To address the mechanism capable of generating enough meltwater to sustain these large lakes, a conceptual model was developed based on the warming potential of infrequent contemporary föhn winds. The model suggests that föhn winds were capable of generating enough meltwater to sustain large glacial lakes during the LGM by increasing degree days above freezing (DDAF) and prolonging the melt season. A present-day relationship between infrequent summer föhn winds and DDAF was established. It is assumed that the Taylor Dome ice core record represents large-scale palaeoclimatic variations for the McMurdo Dry Valleys region. This analysis suggests that because of the warming influence of the more frequent föhn winds, summer DDAF in the McMurdo Dry Valleys during the LGM were equivalent to present-day values, but this enhanced summer signal is not preserved in the annually averaged ice core temperature record.


2021 ◽  
pp. 10-17
Author(s):  
Oguz Turkozan

A cycle of glacial and interglacial periods in the Quaternary caused species’ ranges to expand and contract in response to climatic and environmental changes. During interglacial periods, many species expanded their distribution ranges from refugia into higher elevations and latitudes. In the present work, we projected the responses of the five lineages of Testudo graeca in the Middle East and Transcaucasia as the climate shifted from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, Mid – Holocene), to the present. Under the past LGM and Mid-Holocene bioclimatic conditions, models predicted relatively more suitable habitats for some of the lineages. The most significant bioclimatic variables in predicting the present and past potential distribution of clades are the precipitation of the warmest quarter for T. g. armeniaca (95.8 %), precipitation seasonality for T. g. buxtoni (85.0 %), minimum temperature of the coldest month for T. g. ibera (75.4 %), precipitation of the coldest quarter for T. g. terrestris (34.1 %), and the mean temperature of the driest quarter for T. g. zarudyni (88.8 %). Since the LGM, we hypothesise that the ranges of lineages have either expanded (T. g. ibera), contracted (T. g. zarudnyi) or remained stable (T. g. terrestris), and for other two taxa (T. g. armeniaca and T. g. buxtoni) the pattern remains unclear. Our analysis predicts multiple refugia for Testudo during the LGM and supports previous hypotheses about high lineage richness in Anatolia resulting from secondary contact.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendon J. Quirk ◽  
◽  
Jeffrey R. Moore ◽  
Benjamin J. Laabs ◽  
Mitchell A. Plummer ◽  
...  

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