2021 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Impact of paleo-topography and ice sheet change on east Asian climate during the past 200,000 years
| Project/Area Number |
21F21743
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Institution | Kumamoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
冨田 智彦 熊本大学, 大学院先端科学研究部(理), 准教授 (20344301)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
GOWAN EVAN 熊本大学, 大学院先端科学研究部(理), 外国人特別研究員
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| Project Period (FY) |
2021-07-28 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | sea level / ice sheets / Asian Monsoon / climate modeling / data archiving / climate variability / paleotopography / paleoclimate |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
- Created a compilation of proxies for past sea level during the last interglacial (approximately 120,000 years ago) for areas in North America and Europe covered by the penultimate glaciation. I will use these constraints to create paleotopography reconstructions during the last interglacial. My role in this study was to develop the compilation methodology and to enter the data in the World Atlas of Last Interglacial Shorelines (WALIS). Published in Dalton et al., 2022, Earth System Science Data, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-1447-2022
- Compiled sea level constraints during the Last Glacial Maximum (approximately 20,000 years ago), including in eastern Asia. These constraints allow us to assess how much of the East China Sea was exposed, and how narrow the Tsushima/Tsugaru Straits were, to set up our climate modelling experiments on the East Asian monsoon (Gowan et al., in review, Nature Communications).
- Worked on four other papers that have been accepted for publication. These papers focus on topics related to past climate change, and the evolution of ice sheets. These studies have application to my planned work on paleotopography reconstructions. Gowan et al., accepted with minor revisions, Journal of Glaciology; Hinck et al., The Cryosphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-941-2022; Dalton et al., Global Planetary Change, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2022.103814; Yang et al., PLOS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259816. I also have worked on three other papers that have yet to be submitted.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
- One of the main objectives of the first year of this project was to set up climate modelling experiments using the PaleoMIST 1.0 paleotopography reconstruction to assess how changes in sea level at the Last Glacial Maximum affect the east Asian Monsoon. This is being worked on with collaborators in China (Dr. Xu Zhang) using CESM, and Germany (Dr. Uta Krebs-Kanzow, Dr. Gregor Knorr, Dr. Paul Gierz) with AWI-CM. The setup for the Last Glacial Maximum is ready for both models, but only the CESM experiments have started running. The AWI-CM runs were delayed due to technical issues, though some results from other time periods have been completed. It is expected that initial results should be available by July 2022. Plans to use the MIROC-ESM model were not realized because the computing center in Tokyo was not in operation due to pandemic restrictions. The Paleoclimate Intercomparison Project is planning to use PaleoMIST to model 38,000 years ago, which should produce additional results.
- Work towards new paleotopography reconstructions has involved updating my sea level proxy archives (https://github.com/evangowan/paleo_sea_level), as well as compilations mentioned in the summary section.
- I have begun work to compile records that show the change in the intensity of the East Asian Monsoon in the past, which will be used to evaluate the climate modelling results.
- Since I had to work on revisions of many papers related to work from my previous postdoctoral research positions, progress on the main goals of this project are not as far advanced as previously expected.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
- I will attend the Japan Geoscience Union conference in May 2022 to present some of the initial results of the assessment of sea level change on the climate of eastern Asia during the Last Glacial Maximum (20,000 years ago). This includes validation of the Paleomist 1.0 paleotopography reconstruction at that time, and assessment of previous climate modeling studies that parameterized topography in different ways.
- The initial results of the climate modeling showing the effect of sea level change on the Asian Monsoon should be available by July 2022. I will work on assessing these results and work on a paper to discuss the magnitude of the effect.
- I will further progress my attempt to create a paleotopography reconstruction at high resolution (500 years) for the past 30,000 years, and lower resolution (1000-5000 years) for the past 200,000 years. To accomplish this goal, I will need to add several datasets to my paleo sea level proxy archive (specifically for Norway, British Isles, Greenland, North America and Antarctica). The ice margin histories for the North Hemisphere that I use in my modeling have largely been completed by my collaborators in Europe and North America. The bulk of the work is entering the data into the proxy archive. My expectation is that the high resolution reconstruction is the only one that can be completed by the end of the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
- I will assist Dr. Tomita and students in our research group at Kumamoto University in projects on paleoclimate modeling.
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