Anthropogenic climate change is creating a world that is inherently different from the last ten thousand years. In the marine realm, environmental monitoring programs have revealed recent changes in oceanographic conditions (water temperature, seasonality, ice cover), water chemistry (oxygenation, alkalinity, macronutrients), and local ecologies. Such programs have accumulated data for several decades, but rarely extend before fifty years. Although this interval of study captures profound changes, many have been underway since the industrial revolution (1750-1850 CE). Therefore, it is imperative to obtain a multi-centennial to -millennial historical perspective in order to provide an appropriate baseline of information of the natural marine
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Exceptional monitoring efforts have established a shift from Arctic to Subarctic climate regime within the last decade (Grebmeier et al. 2006). Building on the existing 30-year record of direct observations on the water column and benthic macrofauna, I will extend this record back to the last glacial maximum using geologically young fossil material (<10,000 years old), including both skeletal death assemblages accumulating in the seabed, and recently buried fossils from sedimentary cores. This longer time perspective on the Bering shelf since the Last Glacial Maximum will open the door to basic research questions related to (1) the preservation and taphonomy of fossil remains in high latitudes (live-dead analysis, shell age-dating), (2) changes in seasonality (molluscan sclerochronology), and (3) biotic response to climate change under both natural and anthropogenic …show more content…
o Using sclerochronology, what seasonal changes are captured in shell material? o Are large fluctuations in seasonality common or rare in the Arctic province? o What seasonal climate variables alter how a paleo-community is structured?
• What is the Arctic communities’ response to climate change, both natural and anthropogenic? o Within communities near changing province boundaries, what are the long-term trends in ecologic structure? o Are these modern changes unique in the province’s history? o What insights does a long-term perspective give to the future ecologic stability of a province?
THE ARCTIC
Exceptional monitoring efforts have established a shift from Arctic to Subarctic climate regime within the last decade (Grebmeier et al. 2006). Building on the existing 30-year record of direct observations on the water column and benthic macrofauna, I will extend this record back to the last glacial maximum using geologically young fossil material (<10,000 years old), including both skeletal death assemblages accumulating in the seabed, and recently buried fossils from sedimentary cores. This longer time perspective on the Bering shelf since the Last Glacial Maximum will open the door to basic research questions related to (1) the preservation and taphonomy of fossil remains in high latitudes (live-dead analysis, shell age-dating), (2) changes in seasonality (molluscan sclerochronology), and (3) biotic response to climate change under both natural and anthropogenic …show more content…
o Using sclerochronology, what seasonal changes are captured in shell material? o Are large fluctuations in seasonality common or rare in the Arctic province? o What seasonal climate variables alter how a paleo-community is structured?
• What is the Arctic communities’ response to climate change, both natural and anthropogenic? o Within communities near changing province boundaries, what are the long-term trends in ecologic structure? o Are these modern changes unique in the province’s history? o What insights does a long-term perspective give to the future ecologic stability of a province?
THE ARCTIC