PROSIMUL II is dedicated to contribute to international research efforts on climate change and its mechanisms by focusing on four main topics of lacustrine palaeoclimatology:
Ø Investigation of proxy signal generation processes in lakes as prerequisite for quantitative reconstructions:
- Relations between isotope ratios and weather conditions in a process study at Lake Holzmaar (Fig. 1)
- Improvement of the understanding of processes involved in the transfer of climatic information into sedimentary proxy signals
- Development of techniques for relative and quantitative reconstructions with minimized uncertainties
- Search for linkages between single forcing mechanisms and lacustrine responses
Ø Contribution of terrestrial isotope chronologies on a calendar year time scale:
- Continuous carbon and nitrogen isotope time series to be established for a number of maar lakes worldwide
- Quantitative reconstruction of single climate elements in a combined approach of modern analogue and multi-proxy evidence
- Investigation of several European archives to draw a consistent picture of the Late Glacial development (Fig. 2)
- Establishment of a transalpine traverse of archives to study synchronous/asynchronous aspects of European climate change
Ø Investigation of prominent transitions namely A/YD/P, 9.650, 5.500 and 2.700 BP:
- Performance of ancient case studies, in ideal circumstances with annual resolution
- Identification of possible mechanisms and forcings of the climate system causing these marked system changes
- Hemispheric respectively inter-hemispheric connections of single “events” based on reliable time scales
Ø Falsification of proxy evidence through comparison with plain sedimentological models and GCM outputs:
- Comparison of proxy signals from neighbouring archives to achieve regionally representative information
- Generation of proxies in virtual cores and comparison with measured proxies of real cores
- Contribution of data to a A/YD/P experiment in the PROSIMUL framework
