The climate fluctuations during Holocene: State of the art

Abstract

One of the themes AIQUA has intended to develop its own work on in the three years, 1998-2000, has been that on the climatic evolution in the last 10,000 years. An original approach has been thought of that combines geological, naturalistic, archeological and historical data ect. Thus, a working group formed by experts in different subjects has been created, whose objective has been to produce extended abstracts on research and the results of paleoclimatic studies regarding different markers. The sources of paleoclimatic proxy data discussed are: glacial variations in the Alps, sea and lake level fluctuations, sea surface temperature fluctuations, historical data series, pollen sequences, speleothem isotope and trace elements profiles, travertine analysis and ice core isotope and dust mineralogy profiles. Finally, an updating of the14C methodology and calibration has been carried out. The period under study decided upon is the Holocene, as defined by Orombelli & Ravazzi (1996) and by Walker etal. (1999). Thus, the Holocene starts from a14C conventional age of 10 ka BP, between 11263 and 11549 years BP according to Stuiver et al. (1998) calibration (for atmosphere), or 11500 years according to the counting of annual layers in GRIP ice core. The authors have reproposed to summarize results and metodology regarding Italian paleoclimatic research, with wide reference to that of the whole world.