Friday, January 04, 2013

Guide to terminology used in paleoclimate studies of the last 150,000 years

“Event”, Stages
Estimated age (Calendar years)
Holocene
~10 Kyr to Present
Holocene maximum warming (also referred to as “climatic optimum”)
~4.5 to 6 Kyr (Europe) 10 to 6 Kyr (Southern Hemishphere)
Last deglaciation
~18 to 10 Kyr
Termination I
~14 Kyr
Younger drayas
~12.7 to 11.5 Kyr
Antarctic cold reversal
14 to 13 Kyr
Bolling-Allerod warm period
14.5 to 13 Kyr
Last Glacial
~74 to 14 Kyr
LGM (Last Glacial Maximum)
~25 to 18 Kyr
Last interglacial peak
~124 Kyr
Termination II
~130 Kyr
Eemian/MIS Stage 5e
~128 to 118 Kyr
Heinrich events
Peaks of ice-rafted detritus in marine sediments, ~7 to 10 Kyr time scale.
Dansgaard-Oeschger events
Warm-cold oscillations determined from ice cores with duration ~2 to 3 Kyr
Bond Cycles
A quasi-cycle during the last Ice age whose period is equal to the time between successive Heinrich events.
Terminations
Periods of rapid deglaciations