Biomedical subjects

Andrey Ganopolski

Publications and source records attributed to Andrey Ganopolski.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Possible solar origin of the 1,470-year glacial climate cycle demonstrated in a coupled model.

Many palaeoclimate records from the North Atlantic region show a pattern of rapid climate oscillations, the so-called Dansgaard-Oeschger events, with a quasi-periodicity of approximately 1,470 years for the late glacial period. Various hypotheses have been suggested to explain these rapid temperature shifts, including internal oscillations in the climate system and external forcing, possibly from the Sun. But whereas pronounced solar cycles of approximately 87 and approximately 210 years are well known, a approximately 1,470-year solar cycle has not been detected. Here we show that an intermediate-complexity climate model with glacial climate conditions simulates rapid climate shifts similar to the Dansgaard-Oeschger events with a spacing of 1,470 years when forced by periodic freshwater input into the North Atlantic Ocean in cycles of approximately 87 and approximately 210 years. We attribute the robust 1,470-year response time to the superposition of the two shorter cycles, together with strongly nonlinear dynamics and the long characteristic timescale of the thermohaline circulation. For Holocene conditions, similar events do not occur. We conclude that the glacial 1,470-year climate cycles could have been triggered by solar forcing despite the absence of a 1,470-year solar cycle.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2005

North Pacific seasonality and the glaciation of North America 2.7 million years ago.

In the context of gradual Cenozoic cooling, the timing of the onset of significant Northern Hemisphere glaciation 2.7 million years ago is consistent with Milankovitch's orbital theory, which posited that ice sheets grow when polar summertime insolation and temperature are low. However, the role of moisture supply in the initiation of large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets has remained unclear. The subarctic Pacific Ocean represents a significant source of water vapour to boreal North America, but it has been largely overlooked in efforts to explain Northern Hemisphere glaciation. Here we present alkenone unsaturation ratios and diatom oxygen isotope ratios from a sediment core in the western subarctic Pacific Ocean, indicating that 2.7 million years ago late-summer sea surface temperatures in this ocean region rose in response to an increase in stratification. At the same time, winter sea surface temperatures cooled, winter floating ice became more abundant and global climate descended into glacial conditions. We suggest that the observed summer warming extended into the autumn, providing water vapour to northern North America, where it precipitated and accumulated as snow, and thus allowed the initiation of Northern Hemisphere glaciation.

Arctic Regions↗

PubMed2003

Glacial integrative modelling.

Understanding the mechanisms of past climate changes requires modelling of the complex interaction between all major components of the Earth system: atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. This paper reviews attempts at such an integrative approach to modelling climate changes during the glacial age. In particular, the roles of different factors in shaping glacial climate are compared based on the results of simulations with an Earth-system model of intermediate complexity, CLIMBER-2. It is shown that ice sheets, changes in atmospheric compositions, vegetation cover, and reorganization of the ocean thermohaline circulation play important roles in glacial climate changes. Another example of this approach is the modelling of two major types of abrupt glacial climate changes: Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events. Our results corroborate some of the early proposed mechanisms, which relate abrupt climate changes to the internal instability of the ocean thermohaline circulation and ice sheets. At the same time, it is shown that realistic representation of the temporal evolution of the palaeoclimatic background is crucial to simulate observed features of the glacial abrupt climate changes.

Cold Climate↗

PubMed2002

Abrupt glacial climate changes due to stochastic resonance.

Using an ocean-atmosphere climate model we demonstrate that stochastic resonance could be an important mechanism for millennial-scale climate variability during glacial times. We propose that the glacial ocean circulation, unlike today's, was an excitable system with a stable and a weakly unstable mode of operation, and that a combination of weak periodic forcing and plausible-amplitude stochastic fluctuations of the freshwater flux into the northern North Atlantic can produce glacial warm events similar in time evolution, amplitude, spatial pattern, and interspike intervals to those found in the observed climate records.

Journal Article↗