Impacts of abrupt glacial and deglacial climate events on vegetation and fire regime in the Middle Atlas, Morocco

中地图集的湖泊提供了全新世环境变化的几个有价值的记录。然而，它们在阐明全新世之前突然气候变化和千年尺度气候变异性的时间和影响方面的潜力几乎没有得到开发。在最近对上一次冰川(73 500-14 700历年前，73.4-14.7ka BP)期间千年尺度变率的植被记录进行的审查中，缺乏北非地中海边界地区的记录被认为是对过去气候动态中与海洋和冰芯记录(丹斯加德-奥施格和海因里希变率)明显相关的突然气候事件的空间变异性理解的一大限制。阿尔博兰海的研究对非洲西北部和欧洲西南部山脉之间气候变化的阶段性提出了几个问题，特别是关于高纬度冷却事件期间的水分供应问题，这对了解亚热带过去的气团轨迹具有重要意义。需要新的数据来确定水文状况的性质和火灾在突如其来的气候事件中的作用。该项目将对从中阿特拉斯湖泊中提取的新的深湖岩心进行高分辨率的古生态调查。取心任务由德国发展集团(Deutsche Forschungsgomeinschaft)全额资助，计划于2012年9月进行。在这个项目中，将在百年尺度上对植被变化和火灾状况进行分析，并在结合沉积学、古矿层学、古水文学和地球化学调查的国际合作方法框架内，制定一个强有力的AMS放射性碳年代学框架。该项目将促进对地中海区域气候-植被-火相互作用的了解，以及山地生态系统对突然的气候强迫的敏感性。它还将有助于了解气候动态，特别是大西洋-地中海-撒哈拉气候相互作用区域的气团运动和水文状况。

The lakes of the Middle Atlas have provided several valuable records of Holocene environmental change. Their potential to elucidate the timing and impacts of abrupt climate changes and millennial-scale climate variability prior to the Holocene has been little exploited, however. In a recent review of vegetation records of millennial-scale variability during the last glacial (73,500 - 14,700 calendar years ago, 73.4-14.7 ka BP), the paucity of records from North African Mediterranean borderlands was identified as a major limitation to the understanding of spatial variability in past climate dynamics associated with abrupt climate events evident in marine and ice core records (Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich variability). Research from the Alboran Sea raises several questions regarding the phasing of climate variability between the mountains of Northwest Africa and southwestern Europe, in particular regarding moisture availability during high-latitude cooling events, with important implications for the understanding of past air mass trajectories in the subtropics. New data are required to resolve the nature of the hydrological regime and the role of fire during abrupt climate events. This project will undertake high-resolution palaeoecological investigation of new deep-lake cores retrieved from Middle Atlas lakes. The coring mission, fully funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), is scheduled for September 2012. In this project, analysis of vegetation change and fire regime will be undertaken at centennial-scale resolution, supported by the development of a robust AMS radiocarbon chronological framework, in the framework of an international collaborative approach incorporating sedimentological, palaeolimnological, palaeohydrological and geochemical investigation. This project will advance the understanding of climate-vegetation-fire interactions in the Mediterranean region and the sensitivity of montane ecosystems to abrupt climate forcing. It will also contribute to the understanding of climate dynamics, notably air mass movements and hydrological regime, in the region of Atlantic-Mediterranean-Saharan climatological interaction.