International Symposium on Dynamics of the Ice Age Climate
Organized by the 21st Century COE Program “Dynamics of Sun-Earth-Life Interactive System (SELIS)”
of Nagoya University
We are currently facing the global-scale warming, most probably forced by human-induced
increase of green-house gases. On the other hand, the paleo-climatic records from the ice cores from
Antarctica, Greenland, and the ocean sediment cores in the past several hundred thousand years have
suggested that we are still in the long-term Ice Age Climate characterized with the glacial-interglacial cycles.
For better understanding and prediction of the earth climate system, we need further understanding of
dynamics of the Ice Age Climate, including its initiation, glacial-interglacial cycles of about 100 k year
period and abrupt changes etc.
The comprehensive studies from some Antarctic and Greenland ice cores in the recent few decades
have revealed global-scale features of the glacial-interglacial cycles with 100-120 k year period of
temperature, CO2, CH4 and other atmospheric parameters. These data set, at the same time, have shown us
some differences in the past climate variability between the southern and northern polar regions. The
paleo-climate modeling studies by coupled atmosphere-ocean GCMs and other models also have suggested
the important roles of the thermohaline circulation which modulates and is modulated by the atmosphere-sea
and ice-ocean interactions in the north Atlantic and Antarctic oceans. The biospheric control of the climate
system, through changes in terrestrial vegetation and marine ecosystem, have also been noted in the recent
modeling studies.
On the other hand, the recent paleo-climate reconstruction studies from the Eurasian continent, e.g.,
from sediment cores of Lake Baikal and some other lakes in Mongolia have suggested some different
features of the Ice Age Climate, including different time sequences of the glacial-interglacial cycles. The
paleo-climate model studies have indicated significant changes of the Asian monsoon system and
hydro-climate in the northern Eurasia, which may, in turn, have considerably large feedbacks to the global
climate system.
Based upon these scientific backgrounds, this symposium aims to discuss intensively on some
unresolved key issues for the Ice Age Climate as follows:
1. Time-space structure of, the glacial-interglacial cycles during the past 1 million to 700 k years, including
its initiation, quasi-periodic cycles, abrupt changes and short-term variabilities, through the
inter-comparisons of the paleo-climatic data from the southern and northern polar regions as well as the
interior of the Eurasian continent.
2.
Possible dynamics of these cycles and variability based on various climate models. Special attention will
be paid to the relative roles of the Eurasian continent and Asian monsoon system, as well as those of the
atmosphere-ice-ocean systems in other part of the earth climate (e.g., North Atlantic Deep Water
circulation, circum-polar ocean currents, and continental ice sheet dynamics).