LOTRED-South America

about the project

LOTRED-SA
Long-Term climate REconstruction and Dynamics of (southern) South America: A collaborative, high-resolution multi-proxy approach.

Regional high-resolution multi-proxy climate reconstructions for the last ca. 1000 years are a priority area of future research within IGBP-PAGES. While considerable progress has been made on the northern hemisphere (references), adequate data sets and reconstructions are missing for the southern hemisphere.
Regional reconstructions are particularly important since regional climate change and extremes exhibit much larger amplitudes than hemispheric and global reconstructions. Monthly to seasonal temperat ure reconstruction for Europe since 1500 AD (Luterbacher et al. 2004, Science 303) and the drought reconstruction for the western US (Cook et al. 2004, Science 306) have set new standards for regional scales (references). Similar studies are missing for other regions of the world.


This LOTRED- SA initiative is conceived as a collaborative long-term effort that seeks

(i) to collate the large number of disperse already existing and new multi-proxy paleoclimate data sets (documentary data, early instrumental data and natural proxies) for the last ca. 1000 - 2000 years available for South America, and

(ii) to use the Mann et al. (1998), Luterbacher et al. (2004) and Moberg et al. (2005) methodologies to work towards a regional reconstruction at different temporal and spatial resolution for southern South America.

This initiative seeks to involve research groups from different countries working within a common frame for a common goal.
To read the initiative proposal, click here.

Interested? Please contact us.


References:
Briffa K.R. and Osborn T.J., Science 295 (2002)
Cook et al., Science 306 (2004)
Esper J. et al., Science 295 (2002)
Jones P.D. et al., Science 292 (2001)
Luterbacher J. et al., Science 303 (2004)
Mann M.E. et al., Nature 392 (1998)
Moberg A. et al., Nature 433 (2005)
Pauling A. et al. Clim Dyn (2006)
Wanner H., PAGES News 13 (2005)
Xoplaki E. et al., Geophys Res Lett (2005)