Climatic variability in the southwest Pacific during the Last Termination (20-10 kyr BP)

The degree to which palaeoclimatic changes in the Southern Hemisphere co-varied with events in the high latitude Northern Hemisphere during the Last Termination is a contentious issue, with conflicting evidence for the degree of 'teleconnection' between different regions of the Southern Hemisphere. The available hypotheses are difficult to test robustly, however, because there are few detailed palaeoclimatic records in the Southern Hemisphere. Here we present climatic reconstructions from the southwestern Pacific, a key region in the Southern Hemisphere because of the potentially important role it plays in global climate change. The reconstructions for the period 20-10 kyr BP were obtained from five sites along a transect from southern New Zealand, through Australia to Indonesia, supported by 125 calibrated C-14 ages. Two periods of significant climatic change can be identified across the region at around 17 and 14.2 cal kyr BP, most probably associated with the onset of warming in the West Pacific Warm Pool and the collapse of Antarctic ice during Meltwater Pulse-1A, respectively. The severe geochronological constraints that inherently afflict age models based on radiocarbon dating and the lack of quantified climatic parameters make more detailed interpretations problematic, however. There is an urgent need to address the geochronological limitations, and to develop more precise and quantified estimates of the pronounced climate variations that clearly affected this region during the Last Termination. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Sea surface temperature variations recorded on coralline Sr/Ca ratios during Mid-Late Holocene in Leizhou Peninsula

High-resolution Sr/Ca ratios of two Porites corals from Leizhou Peninsula were measured using inductively coupled plasma atomic spectrometry (ICP-AES). TIMS U-Th dating reveals that the life-spans of the two corals are 489500 AD and 539-530 BC, respectively. Monthly sea surface temperatures (SSTs) during these two periods can be reconstructed from their skeletal Sr/Ca ratios. The results reveal that SSTs during 539-530 BC were roughly the same as those during 1990-2000 AD in this area, indicating a relative warm climate period. However, the period of 489-500 AD was significantly cooler, with annual mean SST, the 10-a average of minimum monthly winter SSTs and the 10-a average of maximum monthly summer SSTs being about 2, 2.9 and 1degreesC lower than that in the 1990s, respectively. Such climate patterns agree well with the phenological results recorded in the historic documents in other areas of China.

The role of psychological climate in facilitating employee adjustment during organizational change

The current research tested a theoretical model of employee adjustment during organizational change based on Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) cognitive-phenomenological framework. The model hypothesized that psychological climate variables would act as coping resources and predict improved adjustment during change. Two variations of this model were tested using survey data from two different organizational samples: 779 public hospital employees and 877 public sector employees. Confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation analyses were conducted in order to evaluate the models. Results showed that employees whose perceptions of the organization and environment in which they were working (that is, psychological climate) were more positive, were more likely to appraise change favourably and report better adjustment in terms of higher job satisfaction, psychological well-being, and organizational commitment, and lower absenteeism and turnover intentions.