High-Resolution Younger Dryas Environmental Variability: A Comprehensive Assessment from Mid-North America Tree Rings

该奖项的目标是利用来自树木年轮的数据，开发一幅北美中部晚期冰川-早期全新世过渡的高分辨率肖像。在这项研究中，将研究北美中部几千年(约10,000至14,000年前)晚冰川-早全新世过渡期间的环境变化，包括年轻仙女木(YD)间隔期。从冰川晚期到全新世早期的气候变暖被一场突如其来的、长达数千年的、被称为YD事件的寒冷气候漂移所打断。这一气候事件对环境的影响似乎是广泛的，但欧洲对YD特征的了解远远超过了北美。北美洲与可能在北大西洋中部引发这一事件的物理机制有潜在的联系，例如将冰川融化水口从陆地转移到海洋。YD期间的环境变化(即与温度、水分利用效率以及与降水、相对湿度和土壤饱和度等与水循环有关的参数有关的变化)将与紧接之前和之后的时间段以及现代条件下的变化进行比较。这一结果将提高我们对北美中部环境和动物群变化及其响应的理解。这将有助于将这种变化置于冰川消融期间全球环境变化的背景下。

The goal of this award is to develop a high-resolution portrait of the Late Glacial-Early Holocene transition in middle North America using data from tree-rings. In this study, the environmental changes in middle North America will be investigated over several millennia (ca. 10,000 to 14,000 years ago) during the Late Glacial-Early Holocene transition, including the Younger Dryas (YD) interval. The warming from the Late Glacial to the Early Holocene was interrupted by an abrupt, millennial-length, cold climate excursion known as the YD event. The environmental effects of this climatic event seem to be widespread, but knowledge of the character of the YD in Europe far exceeds that of North America. North America has potential links with the physical mechanisms likely to have triggered the event in the middle North Atlantic Ocean such as shifting glacial meltwater outlets from the land to the ocean. The environmental changes during the YD (i.e., those related to temperature, water-use efficiency, and hydrologic cycle-related parameters of precipitation, relative humidity, and soil saturation) will be measured against those of the time periods immediately before and after, and with modern conditions. The results will improve our understanding of the environmental and faunal changes and responses in middle North America. This will help place such changes in the context of global environmental change during deglaciation.