Proxy (climate)

In the study of past climates ("paleoclimatology"),[1] climate proxies

are preserved physical characteristics of the past that stand in for
direct meteorological measurements[2] and enable scientists to
reconstruct the climatic conditions over a longer fraction of the
Earth's history. Reliable global records of climate only began in the
1880s, and proxies provide the only means for scientists to determine
climatic patterns before record-keeping began.

Examples of proxies include ice cores, tree rings, sub-fossil pollen,

boreholes, corals, lake and ocean sediments, and carbonate
speleothems. The character of deposition or rate of growth of the
proxies' material has been influenced by the climatic conditions of
Reconstruction of global temperature over the past
the time in which they were laid down or grew. Chemical traces
2000 years, comparing results from researchers
produced by climatic changes, such as quantities of particular
using different proxy methods
isotopes, can be recovered from proxies. Some proxies, such as gas
bubbles trapped in ice, enable traces of the ancient atmosphere to be
recovered and measured directly to provide a history of fluctuations in the composition of the Earth's atmosphere.[3] To produce the
most precise results, systematic cross-verification between proxy indicators is necessary for accuracy in readings and record-
keeping.[4]

Proxies can be combined to produce temperature reconstructions longer than the instrumental temperature record and can inform
discussions of global warming and climate history. The distribution of proxy records, just like the instrumental record, is not at all
[5]
uniform, with more records in the northern hemisphere.

Contents
Proxies
Ice cores
Drilling
Proxy
Tree rings
Fossil leaves
Boreholes
Corals
Pollen grains
Dinoflagellate cysts
Lake and ocean sediments
Water isotopes and temperature reconstruction
Pseudoproxies
See also
References
External links
Proxies
In science, it is sometimes necessary to study a variable which cannot be measured directly. This can be done by "proxy methods," in
which a variable which correlates with the variable of interest is measured, and then used to infer the value of the variable of interest.
Proxy methods are of particular use in the study of the past climate, beyond times when direct measurements of temperatures are
available.

Most proxy records have to be calibrated against independent temperature measurements, or against a directly calibrated proxy,
during their period of overlap to estimate the relationship between temperature and the proxy. The longer history of the proxy is then
used to reconstruct temperature from earlier periods.

Ice cores

Drilling
Ice cores are cylindrical samples from within ice sheets in the Greenland, Antarctic, and North American regions.[6][7] First attempts
of extraction occurred in 1956 as part of the International Geophysical Year. As original means of extraction, the U.S. Army’s Cold
Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory used an 80-foot (24 m)-long modified electrodrill in 1968 at Camp Century,
Greenland, and Byrd Station, Antarctica. Their machinery could drill through 15–20 feet of ice in 40–50 minutes. From 1300 to
3,000 feet (910 m) in depth,core samples were 4 ¼ inches in diameter and 10 to 20 feet (6.1 m) long. Deepersamples of 15 to 20 feet
(6.1 m) long were not uncommon. Every subsequentdrilling team improves their method with each new effort.[8]

Proxy
Presence of water molecule isotopic compositions of 16 O and 18 O in an ice core help determine past temperatures and snow
accumulations.[6] The heavier isotope (18O) condenses more readily as temperatures decrease and falls as precipitation, while the
lighter isotope (16O) can fall in even colder conditions. The farther north elevated levels of an 18 O isotope are detected signals a
warming over time.[9]

In addition to oxygen isotopes, water contains hydrogen isotopes - 1H and 2H, usually referred to as H and D (for deuterium) - that
are also used for temperature proxies. Normally, ice cores from Greenland are analyzed for δ18O and those from Antarctica for δ-
deuterium. Those cores that analyze for both show a lack of agreement. (In the figure, δ18O is for the trapped air, not the ice. δD is
for the ice.)

Air bubbles in the ice, which contain trapped greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, are also helpful in determining
past climate changes.[6]

From 1989-1992, the European Greenland Ice Core Drilling Project drilled in central Greenland at coordinates 72° 35' N, 37° 38' W.
In their project, ice at a depth of 770 m were 3840 years old; 2521 m were 40,000 years old; and 3029 m at bedrock were 200,000
years old or more.[10] However, ice cores can reveal the climate records for the past 650,000 years.
[6]

Location maps and a complete list of U.S. ice core drilling sites can be found on the website for the National Ice Core Laboratory:
http://icecores.org/[7]

Tree rings
Dendroclimatology is the science of determining past climates from trees, primarily from properties of the annual tree rings. Tree
rings are wider when conditions favor growth, narrower when times are difficult. Other properties of the annual rings, such as
maximum latewood density (MXD) have been shown to be better proxies than simple ring width. Using tree rings, scientists have
 estimated many local climates for hundreds to thousands
of years previous. By combining multiple tree-ring studies
(sometimes with other climate proxy records), scientists
have estimated past regional and global climates (see
Temperature record of the past 1000 years).

δ18Oair and δDice for Vostok,

Antarctica ice core. Fossil leaves
New approaches retrieve data such as CO2 content of past
atmospheres from fossil leaf stomata and isotope
composition, measuring cellular CO2 concentrations. A
2014 study was able to use the carbon-13 isotope ratios to
estimate the CO2 amounts of the past 400 million years,
the findings hint at a higher climate sensitivity to CO2
concentrations.[11]

Boreholes
Tree rings seen in a cross section of Borehole temperatures are used as temperature proxies.
a trunk of a tree.
Since heat transfer through the ground is slow
, temperature
measurements at a series of different depths down the
borehole, adjusted for the effect of rising heat from inside the Earth, can be "inverted" (a mathematical
formula to solve matrix equations) to produce a non-unique series of surface temperature values. The
solution is "non-unique" because there are multiple possible surface temperature reconstructions that can
produce the same borehole temperature profile. In addition, due to physical limitations, the reconstructions
are inevitably "smeared", and become more smeared further back in time. When reconstructing
temperatures around 1,500 AD, boreholes have a temporal resolution of a few centuries. At the start of the
20th Century, their resolution is a few decades; hence they do not provide a useful check on the
instrumental temperature record.[12][13] However, they are broadly comparable.[5] These confirmations
have given paleoclimatologists the confidence that they can measure the temperature of 500 years ago. This
is concluded by a depth scale of about 492 feet (150 meters) to measure the temperatures from 100 years
[14]
ago and 1,640 feet (500 meters) to measure the temperatures from 1,000 years ago.

Boreholes have a great advantage over many other proxies in that no calibration is required: they are actual
temperatures. However, they record surface temperature not the near-surface temperature (1.5 meter) used
for most "surface" weather observations. These can differ substantially under extreme conditions or when
there is surface snow. In practice the effect on borehole temperature is believed to be generally small. A
second source of error is contamination of the well by groundwater may affect the temperatures, since the
water "carries" more modern temperatures with it. This effect is believed to be generally small, and more
applicable at very humid sites.[12] It does not apply in ice cores where the site remains frozen all year
.

More than 600 boreholes, on all continents, have been used as proxies for reconstructing surface
temperatures.[13] The highest concentration of boreholes exist in North America and Europe. Their depths
of drilling typically range from 200 to greater than 1,000 meters into thecrust of the Earth or ice sheet.[14]

A small number of boreholes have been drilled in the ice sheets; the purity of the ice there permits longer Ice Core sample
taken from drill.
reconstructions. Central Greenland borehole temperatures show "a warming over the last 150 years of
Photo by Lonnie
approximately 1°C ± 0.2°C preceded by a few centuries of cool conditions. Preceding this was a warm
Thompson, Byrd
period centered around A.D. 1000, which was warmer than the late 20th century by approximately 1°C." A Polar Research
borehole in the Antarctica icecap shows that the "temperature at A.D. 1 [was] approximately 1°C warmer Center.
than the late 20th century".[15]
Borehole temperatures in Greenland were responsible for an important revision to the isotopic temperature
reconstruction, revealing that the former assumption that "spatial slope equals temporal slope" was incorrect.

Corals
Ocean coral skeletal rings, or bands, also share paleoclimatological information,
similarly to tree rings. In 2002, a report was published on the findings of Drs. Lisa
Greer and Peter Swart, associates of University of Miami at the time, in regard to
stable oxygen isotopes in the calcium carbonate of coral. Cooler temperatures tend
to cause coral to use heavier isotopes in its structure, while warmer temperatures
result in more normal oxygen isotopes being built into the coral structure. Denser
water salinity also tends to contain the heavier isotope. Greer’s coral sample from
the Atlantic Ocean was taken in 1994 and dated back to 1935. Greer recalls her
conclusions, "When we look at the averaged annual data from 1935 to about 1994,
Coral bleached do to changes in
we see it has the shape of a sine wave. It is periodic and has a significant pattern of
ocean water properties
oxygen isotope composition that has a peak at about every twelve to fifteen years."
Surface water temperatures have coincided by also peaking every twelve and a half
years. However, since recording this temperature has only been practiced for the last fifty years, correlation between recorded water
[16]
temperature and coral structure can only be drawn so far back.

Pollen grains
Pollen can be found in sediments. Plants produce pollen in large quantities and it is extremely resistant to decay. It is possible to
identify a plant species from its pollen grain. The identified plant community of the area at the relative time from that sediment layer,
will provide information about the climatic condition. The abundance of pollen of a given
vegetation period or year depends partly on
the weather conditions of the previous months, hence pollen density provides information on short-term climatic conditions.[17] The
study of prehistoric pollen ispalynology.

Dinoflagellate cysts
Dinoflagellates occur in most aquatic environments and during their life cycle, some
species produce highly resistant organic-walled cysts for a dormancy period when
environmental conditions are not appropriate for growth. Their living depth is
relatively shallow (dependent upon light penetration), and closely coupled to
diatoms on which they feed. Their distribution patterns in surface waters are closely
related to physical characteristics of the water bodies, and nearshore assemblages
can also be distinguished from oceanic assemblages. The distribution of dinocysts in
sediments has been relatively well documented and has contributed to understanding
the average sea-surface conditions that determine the distribution pattern and
abundances of the taxa ([18] ). Several studies, including [19] and [20] have compiled Cyst of a dinoflagellatePeridinium
box and gravity cores in the North Pacific analyzing them for palynological content ovatum
to determine the distribution of dinocysts and their relationships with sea surface
temperature, salinity, productivity and upwelling. Similarly, [21] and [22] use a box
core at 576.5 m of water depth from 1992 in the central Santa Barbara Basin to determine oceanographic and climatic changes during
the past 40 kyr in the area.

Lake and ocean sediments

Similar to their study on other proxies, paleoclimatologists examine oxygen isotopes in the contents of ocean sediments. Likewise,
they measure the layers of varve (deposited fine and coarse silt or clay)[23] laminating lake sediments. Lake varves are primarily
influenced by:

Summer temperature, which shows the energy available to melt seasonal snow and ice
Winter snowfall, which determines the level of disturbance to sediments when melting occurs
Rainfall[24]
Diatoms and forams are also used as proxies for ocean temperatures and conditions. The oxygen isotope ratios in their shells are used
as proxies for temperature. Also warmer conditions have more of them in the sediment. Also the distribution of the species of these
and other sea creatures preserved in the sediments are useful proxies, for the optimal conditions for the most numerous species in the
sediment.[25]

Water isotopes and temperature reconstruction

Ocean water is mostly H216O, with small amounts of HD16O
and H218O, where D denotes deuterium, i.e. hydrogen with an
extra neutron. In Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water
(VSMOW) the ratio of D to H is 155.76x10−6 and O-18 to O-
16 is 2005.2x10−6. Isotope fractionation occurs during
changes between condensed and vapour phases: the vapour
pressure of heavier isotopes is lower, so vapour contains
relatively more of the lighter isotopes and when the vapour
condenses the precipitation preferentially contains heavier
isotopes. The difference from VSMOW is expressed as δ18O =

1000‰ ; and a similar formula

for δD. δ values for precipitation are always negative.[26] The

major influence on δ is the difference between ocean
temperatures where the moisture evaporated and the place
where the final precipitation occurred; since ocean
temperatures are relatively stable the δ value mostly reflects the temperature where precipitation occurs. Taking into account that the
precipitation forms above theinversion layer, we are left with a linear relation:

δ 18O = aT + b

This is empirically calibrated from measurements of temperature and δ as a = 0.67 ‰/°C for Greenland and 0.76 ‰/°C for East
Antarctica. The calibration was initially done on the basis of spatial variations in temperature and it was assumed that this
corresponded to temporal variations.[27] More recently, borehole thermometry has shown that for glacial-interglacial variations, a =
0.33 ‰/°C,[28] implying that glacial-interglacial temperature changes were twice as large as previously believed.

A study published in 2017 called the previous methodology to reconstruct paleo ocean temperatures 100 million years ago into
.[29]
question, suggesting it has been relatively stable during that time, much colder

Pseudoproxies
The skill of algorithms used to combine proxy records into an overall hemispheric temperature reconstruction may be tested using a
technique known as "pseudoproxies". In this method, output from a climate model is sampled at locations corresponding to the
[30]
known proxy network, and the temperature record produced is compared to the (known) overall temperature of the model.

See also
 Paleothermometer
Ice core
Dendrochronology
Historical climatology, the study of climate over human history (as opposed to theEarth's)
Palynology
Speleothem
Paleotempestology

References
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External links
Chemical climate proxiesat Royal Society of Chemistry, January 23, 2013

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