Bernarda Franco

Foundations of Scientific Process

Prof. Snyder
NYIT Spring 2015

Global Climate Evolution During the last Deglaciation

In todays world we have a lot of problems going on including wars, religion

disagreements and global warming. Global warming is the consequence of greenhouse
gases such as CO2 or CH4 being released into the atmosphere, which then affect earths
climate drastically and can be very dangerous for humanity and all species. Although
most people do not realize, global warming is a very serious problem as it is eliminating
valuable and unique ecosystems we have in our home, the earth. Unless us humans start
working on ways to reduce greenhouse gases in order to help slow global warming, the
earth will have to face serious problems and radical changes to which we may have to
adapt if we are to survive. So, how can climate change affect different areas of the world?
The article Global Climate Evolution During the Last deglaciation (Ref 1)
which was written by a group of researchers including Peter U. Clark a professor of
Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University (Ref 2) and Jeremy D. Shakun, a
department of Earth and environmental sciences at Boston University (Ref 3). Their study
answers to the question of how the worlds climate has changed since the Last Glacial
Maximum and it wholly explains how different areas of the world such as North America,

South America, Africa, Europe, Central Asia and Polar Regions have been affected by
climate change during this time period. Because of global warming during that time, ice
sheets melted and the global sea level rose around 80 meters resulting in disturbances into
terrestrial and marine ecosystems and causing range shifts. As stated in the article,
Perturbations to the carbon cycle resulted in a net release of the greenhouse gases CO2
and CH4 to the atmosphere; and changes in atmosphere and ocean circulation affected the
global distribution and fluxes of water and heat.
The information gathered for this study was obtained from 166 published proxy
records from the Last Glacial Maximum era. The researchers collected records of sea
temperature and continental temperature and precipitation records for different continents
at that point in time. For calculating climate change over the years, EOFs (Empirical
Orthogonal Function) were used. Because the proxy records they used had widely
ranging variances in their original units, they set each one to zero mean and unit variance
before calculating EOFs. As for the models, they weighted the sum of the first two
principal components from each EOF analysis to show how well the leading
modes for each region represent the records. The two components
were calculated a thousand times after the researchers inserted
disturbances such as chronological errors as well as random
temperature errors.
As stated previously, the article discusses how separate zones of the world were
affected by the climate change occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum. Results show
that North America was filled with forests; the southeastern and northwestern were colder
and dryer areas than what they are today. The southwestern part had forests in areas

where today are deserts; signifying those areas were wetter than they are today.
According to the researchers the changes in vegetation demonstrate a steepened
latitudinal temperature gradient, a southward shift of westerly storm tracks and a
decrease in temperature of 41F. Vegetation records indicate that the climate in South
America was cooler and drier than it is today. Also, according to the researchers, the
southern westerly wind belt, with associated rainfall, was shifted northward. Not very
much information is known about the deglacial temperature changes in South America.
At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum steppe-tundra environments covered northern
Europe while semi-desert environments covered southern Europe. Climate
reconstructions from these records that account for the effects of lower atmospheric CO2
indicate winter cooling of 515 C across Europe, with the greatest cooling in Western
Europe. This means that because of climate change, the climate in Europe has become
much warmer than before. According to the article, Africas climate during the Last
Glacial Maximum was more arid and colder than today. Deglacial temperature change
recorded in Lakes near the equator show that after Africa being colder and arid, the
climate quickly became warmer and similar to the climate Africa has today. At the Last
Glacial Maximum, records show some signal of a weak summer monsoon, stronger
winter and colder and dustier conditions.
Figure 1 shown in the article (see Figure 1 at the end of this document) clearly
shows in two images, how climate change affected the earths climate during the Last
Glacial Maximum. In image A, zones including majority of North America, Greenland
and great part of Europe seem to have very cold weather while in Image B cold weather
is almost non existent with only a very small part of North America, Greenland and a tiny

part of Europe showing cold weather. A very important aspect figure 1 shows, is how
climate change affected the sea level. In image A it is shown that the sea level was much
lower compared to image B. This is because when climate change occurred, part of the
ice sheets melted affecting the sea level. Figure 1 implies that big part of South America
and Africa were affected by Climate change creating more tropical climates around the
equator.
The results shown above indicate how climate change affected the overall climate
of the world. The worlds climate is now warmer than it was before and the sea level rise
was evidently impressive.
Global warming is a huge issue we face today. Many people do not seem to be
aware of how serious and threatening climate change can be not only for humans but also
for all species in all ecosystems. Many species are becoming extinct due to their
ecosystems getting destroyed because us humans are nothing but helping Global warming
to evolve and demolish. The article discussed above shows some history of how climate
change affected the world in a past event and if humanity does not stop polluting and
releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere chances are that similar or even more
devastating occurrences will happen in the future exterminating millions of unique
species in the world, or maybe even humans.

References
1. Clark, Peter U., Jeremy D. Shakun, Paul A. Baker, Patrick J. Bartlein, Simon
Brewer, Ed Brook, Anders E. Carlson, Hai Cheng, Darrell S. Kaufman, Zhengyu
Liu, Thomas M. Marchitto, Alan C. Mix, Carrie Morrill, Bette L. Otto-Bliesner,
Katharina Pahnke, James M. Russell, Cathy Whitlock, Jess F. Adkins, Jessica L.
Blois, Jorie Clark, Steven M. Colman, William B. Curry, Ben P. Flower, Feng He,
Thomas C. Johnson, Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, Vera Markgraf, Jerry McManus, Jerry
X. Mitrovica, Patricio I. Moreno, and John W. Williams. "Global Climate
Evolution during the Last Deglaciation." Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences of the United States of America. National Academy of Sciences, n.d.
Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3358890/
2. "Clark, Peter." Clark, Peter. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
http://www.geo.oregonstate.edu/people/faculty/Peter_Clark
3. "Jeremy D. Shakun." Jeremy D. Shakun. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Mar. 2015.
https://www2.bc.edu/jeremy-shakun/contact.html

Figure 1
Image A: Lower sea level, more ice sheets in the northern parts of the world.
Image B: Sea Level rise, more tropical climates around the equator, cold weather almost
non-existent.