Integration of ice‐core, marine and terrestrial records for the Australian Last Glacial Maximum and Termination: a contribution from the OZ INTIMATE group

Abstract

The degree to which Southern Hemisphere climatic changes during the end of the last glacial period and early Holocene (30-8 ka) were influenced or initiated by events occurring in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere is a complex issue. There is conflicting evidence for the degree of hemispheric 'teleconnection' and an unresolved debate as to the principle forcing mechanism(s). The available hypotheses are difficult to test robustly, however, because the few detailed palaeoclimatic records in the Southern Hemisphere are widely dispersed and lack duplication. Here we present climatic and environmental reconstructions from across Australia, a key region of the Southern Hemisphere because of the range of environments it covers and the potentially important role regional atmospheric and oceanic controls play in global climate change. We identify a general scheme of events for the end of the last glacial period and early Holocene but a detailed reconstruction proved problematic. Significant progress in climate quantification and geochronological control is now urgently required to robustly investigate change through this period.

Modelling the potential range of the koala at the Last Glacial Maximum: future conservation implications

“…We adjusted temperature and rainfall to generate two LGM predictions based on: 1) temperature 6 o C lower and rainfall 20% lower and 2) temperature 6 o C lower and rainfall 40% lower. We chose regionally generalised climatic adjustments from approximate sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions at the LGM (Turney et al 2006; Van der Kaars et al 2006; Barrows et al 2007) and terrestrial and near-shore proxy data (Williams et al 2009). We confined our predictions to the LGM due to the limitations in knowledge of the climate and the physiology of koalas at longer past time frames.…”

Dating, synthesis, and interpretation of palaeoclimatic records of the Last Glacial cycle and model-data integration: advances by the INTIMATE (INTegration of Ice-core, MArine and TErrestrial records) COST Action ES0907

“…Subsequently, the INTIMATE remit has expanded geographically, to include the whole Atlantic basin and also Australasia (Alloway et al, 2007;Turney et al, 2006), while an extended time scale covers the early Holocene and deeper parts of the Late Quaternary record. An initial expansion of the INTIMATE timeframe back to 30 ka (thousand years before present, present referring to A.D. 1950 unless otherwise indicated) was followed by a further extension to 60 ka .…”

Development and application of subfossil chironomid-based methods for late Quaternary climate reconstructions in eastern Australia

“…The method is applied to late Quaternary sedimentary records from the subtropics to cool mid-latitudes to generate mean annual and summer temperature reconstructions. (Alloway et al, 2007;Turney et al, 2007;Reeves et al, 2013;Petherick et al, 2013 Geographically, the distribution of proxy based records is rather sparse and non-uniform in Australia. However, studies Turney et al, 2007;Williams et al, 2009) suggested that Australia can provide high quality information on likely patterns and directions of the future changes in the Southern Hemisphere.…”

“…(Alloway et al, 2007;Turney et al, 2007;Reeves et al, 2013;Petherick et al, 2013 Geographically, the distribution of proxy based records is rather sparse and non-uniform in Australia. However, studies Turney et al, 2007;Williams et al, 2009) suggested that Australia can provide high quality information on likely patterns and directions of the future changes in the Southern Hemisphere. Firstly, it covers a large climate range from the cool temperate zone to the tropics and incorporates broad humid, sub-humid, arid and semi-arid zones.…”

“…The former is considered one of the engines of global climate, while the latter plays a major role in interhemispheric climate teleconnections. In addition, the Australian continent contains a diversity of Quaternary landforms and sediments in a wide range of environments which provides a great opportunity to create an integrated regional record of climate and environmental change (Turney et al, 2007). Proxies that can be used to generate long-term records and also to quantify the changes, from Australia are sparse.…”