A 4500-year proxy climate record from peatlands in the North of Ireland: the identification of widespread summer ‘drought phases’?

Mid-to-late Holocene high-resolution testate amoebae-derived water table reconstructions from two peatlands in the North of Ireland are presented. The proxy climate records are dated and correlated using a combination of AMS 14C dating, spheroidal carbonaceous particles and tephrochronology. The reconstructions start prior to the Hekla 4 tephra isochron (2395–2279 BC) and thus span the last ~4500 years. The records are compiled by the process of tuning within chronological errors, standardisation and stacking. Comparisons are made to existing palaeoclimate records from peatlands in Northern Britain and Ireland and the compiled lake-level record for mid-latitude Europe. Four coherent dry phases are identified in the records at ca 1150–800 BC, 320 BC–AD 150, AD 250–470 and AD 1850–2000. Recent research has shown that peat-derived water table reconstructions reflect summer water deficit and therefore the dry phases are interpreted as periods with a higher frequency and/or greater magnitudes of summer drought. These ‘drought phases’ occur during periods of relatively low 14C production, which may add support to the hypothesis of persistent solar forcing of climate change during the Holocene. Any relationship with the North Atlantic stacked drift ice record is less clear. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impact of the summer 2007 forest fires in Greece: Recent environmental mobilizations, cyber-activism and electoral performance

This report circumambulates around the environmental issue, examining mobilizations in favour of public access to the seafront and protest events against the recent devastating forest fires. By framing this discussion within existing scholarly contributions on related dimensions of the environmental issue (environmental consciousness, grassroots environmental contestation) in Southern Europe in general and Greece in particular, it suggests that the environmental mobilization dynamic in Greece has been infused with a new, global, mobilizing resource that offers new avenues to evaluate the potency of Greek civil society. Finally, the article discusses the results of the 2007 national elections and ponders the chances of political ecology becoming a permanent feature of Greek parliamentary politics.

Chironomid-inferred Late-Glacial Summer Air Temperatures From Lough Nadourcan, Co. Donegal, Ireland.

Western Ireland, located adjacent to the North Atlantic, and with a strongly oceanic climate, is potentially sensitive to rapid and extreme climate change. We present the first high-resolution chironomid-inferred mean July temperature reconstruction for Ireland, spanning the late-glacial and early Holocene (LGIT, 15-10 ka BP). The reconstruction suggests an initial rapid warming followed by a short cool phase early in the interstadial. During the interstadial there are oscillations in the inferred temperatures which may relate to Greenland Interstadial events GI-1a-e. The temperature decrease into the stadial occurs in two stages. This two-stage drop can also be seen in other late-glacial chironomid-inferred temperature records from the British Isles. A stepped rise in temperatures into the Holocene, consistent with present-day temperatures in Donegal, is inferred. The results show strong similarities with previously published LGIT chironomid-inferred temperature reconstructions, and with the NGRIP oxygen-isotope curve, which indicates that the oscillations observed in the NGRIP record are of hemispherical significance. The results also highlight the influence of the North Atlantic on the Irish climate throughout the LGIT.