Do Early Warning Signs of Abrupt Climate Change Exist in the North Atlantic?

It is widely debated whether Early Warning Signs (EWS) of abrupt change exist within the Earth system. EWS may include changes in the patterns and magnitude of inter-annual climate variability prior to an abrupt shift. Such ideas are difficult to test as no abrupt changes have occurred in the instrumental period whilst the reconstruction of climate variability at an annual scale is problematic in the geological past when abrupt changes are known to have occurred. This project overcomes these issues by reconstructing past patterns of inter-annual climate variability over the past 10,000 years, during which at least three major abrupt events are known to have occurred, through the geochemical analysis of annually laminated lake sediments (UK). The reconstruction of inter-annual patterns of climate variability before during and after abrupt events will, therefore, be possible. Furthermore, the use of marker-horizons of volcanic dust (tephra) will allow these inter-annual records to be directly synchronised to marine core records form the North Atlantic which record changing patterns of surface and deep water circulation across this time interval. This project will result in a much deeper understanding of the role of ocean forcing on interglacial abrupt climate events whilst also allowing the existence of EWS of abrupt change, in the North Atlantic region, to be identified and quantified for the first time.