Events

Abstract: In recent decades, various temperature proxies have been developed and further established in the scientific community, at both low and high accuracy, however, not every method can be applied without restriction to all minerals or rocks. Evaporitic rocks, for example, are abundant chemical sediments at the Earth's surface that are deposited from supersaturated brines in marine, terrestrial, and lacustrine environments. Halite is the most abundant rock-forming mineral in this group, which during crystal formation entraps tiny water droplets (fluid inclusions, FIs) that store the chemical composition of the parent brine at a specific pressure-temperature dependent density. Such FIs are therefore excellent records of the original physicochemical conditions of the source brine. Brillouin spectroscopy (BS) is a novel laser-based technique that uses density fluctuations in FIs to directly measure entrapment temperatures and thus the initial brine temperature during crystal growth. In this seminar, the BS method will be introduced and two application cases will be presented using salt layers from the Dead Sea which were deposited during two interglacial periods. In addition to the basic principles, both the recommended sampling strategy and pitfalls along with associated limitations will be presented. The conclusion will be that the salt layers commonly deposited in the Dead Sea basin consist of two types that formed preferentially in summer (coarse-grained crystals) and winter (fine-grained crystals), which is mainly controlled by the degree of salt saturation of the lake water. Furthermore, it will be shown how (1) lake bottom temperatures have fluctuated seasonally (summer/winter), and that (2) paleo temperature trends can be reconstructed for an entire halite layer that was deposited during holomictic periods in the Dead Sea basin. This method is particularly promising for evaporites that formed near the surface if the material has not been affected by external processes such as tectonic burial/uplift, erosion, or mineral replacement. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The global oceanic overturning circulation and the transport of heat and dissolved gases are strongly controlled by upper ocean turbulent mixing that is driven by the breaking of internal gravity waves (IWs). Understanding the life cycle of oceanic IWs, from generation to dissipation, is therefore crucial for improving the representation of ocean mixing in climate models, which do not resolve the IW field.  Oceanic IWs are observed to have a continuous energy distribution across spatial and temporal scales – an internal wave continuum – despite being forced primarily at near-inertial and tidal frequencies at large scales. The formation of the IW continuum and the associated energy transfer to dissipative scales have been traditionally attributed to wave-wave interactions and to Doppler shifting of wave frequencies by currents. Here, we provide evidence from realistic numerical simulations that oceanic eddies rapidly diffuse storm-forced wave energy across spatiotemporal scales, thereby playing a dominant role in the formation of the IW continuum and the corresponding spatiotemporal distribution of energy dissipation. We further demonstrate that winds can play an important role in damping oceanic IWs through current feedback.  This results in a substantial reduction in wind power input at near inertial frequencies and a net energy sink for internal tides. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Thermal Pressurization (TP) is expected to be a dominant frictional weakening mechanism during earthquakes. However, due to experimental limitations there is a lack of direct evidence for the activation of TP in controlled laboratory conditions and most of our knowledge is derived from field studies and theoretical predictions. We present experiments performed by a rotary-shear apparatus where TP is activated in localized faults in Frederick diabase under constant normal stress of 50 MPa, confining pressure of 45 MPa and initial pore water pressure of 25 MPa. We show that by changing the permeability of the host rock we can control the shear stress drop during a TP event in the experimental fault. The TP events are short-lived in bare-surface faults as the opening of existing fractures around the fault plane drains the excess pore fluid. Wider, gouge-filled faults show more persistent frictional weakening, but at a slower rate, which is attributed to the compressibility of the gouge. In addition, we test the effects of transient fault dilation on the duration of a TP event through an expansion of the prevailing TP model, using a one-dimensional numerical simulation. We conclude that dynamic changes to the hydraulic diffusivity around the fault plane and persistent fault dilation, due to geometrical irregularities, are the most likely mechanisms to arrest TP during an earthquake. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Carbon efflux from soils is the largest terrestrial carbon source to the atmosphere, yet it remains one of the most uncertain fluxes in the Earth’s carbon budget. A dominant component of this flux is heterotrophic respiration, influenced by several environmental factors, most notably soil temperature and moisture. We developed a mechanistic model from micro to global scale to explore how changes in soil water content and temperature affect soil heterotrophic respiration. Simulations, laboratory measurements, and field observations validate the new approach. Estimates from the model show that heterotrophic respiration has been increasing since the 1980s at a rate of about 2% per decade globally. Using future projections of surface temperature and soil moisture, the model predicts a global increase of about 40% in heterotrophic respiration by the end of the century under the worst-case emission scenario, where the Arctic region is expected to experience a more than two-fold increase, driven primarily by declining soil moisture rather than temperature increase.   Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The traditional approach to weather forecasting on one- to two-week timescales utilizes weather forecasting models, but on timescales longer than two weeks, the value of deterministic (or ensemble-based probabilistic) forecasts weakens. This is due to the presence of chaotic variability in the atmosphere. Yet certain modes of variability in the climate system have timescales longer than this two-week threshold, and the key to longer-scale prediction is to take advantage of these modes when they open up windows of opportunity. By understanding the impacts of these modes of variability on surface weather, the potential for improved forecasts on a monthly timescale can be demonstrated and eventually realized.  Two such classes of modes of variability are stratospheric variability (both in the tropical and polar stratosphere) and tropical tropospheric variability (e.g. the Madden-Julian Oscillation and El Nino). For example, both polar stratospheric sudden warmings and the Madden-Julian Oscillation have been shown to influence European and Mediterranean weather, but it is unclear (1) what mechanism(s) underlie these connections, (2) how far in advance the impacts can be predicted, (3) what governs the magnitude of the surface impact, and (4) how well models capture these connections. This talk will review progress made towards addressing these issues over the past several years in my group. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Over the last 2½ millenia, the world economy depended on prevailing currencies: the Athenian owl (530- 168 BCE), the Roman denarius (211 BCE-250 AD), the Spanish piece-of-eight (16th to 18th C), and today the US dollar. These reference monies were accepted everywhere and all, at least in the beginning, were made of silver. What is so special about this metal? Silver is useless and rare, but still abundant enough to match the wealth of nations and of their long-distance trade. Silver ores are associated with rare and recent tectonic environments, the Mediterranean world, notably the periphery of the Aegean Sea and Southern Iberia, and the American cordillera, Peru and Mexico. In contrast, they were markedly scarce in South and East Asia. After the virtual destruction of soils by the Anatolian farmers at the end of the Bronze Age, the Near and Middle East societies depended almost exclusively on the agriculture of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Late Bronze Age collapse (ca. 1200 BCE) corresponded to the migration of Greek people and resulted in the annihilation of all the empires outside of the flood plains. Silver by weight was nevertheless used to save populations from famine and trade wheat, barley and copper. Military innovations, hoplites and their phalanx, were, with silver mines, the main resources of the Greeks. Mercenaries received their wages in silver, notably through the tributes exacted in silver by the Achaemenid (Persion) kings. By minting silver, the returning Greek mercenaries emerged as strong middle classes . They soon claimed their share of the power, toppled the tyrants, and installed democracy in many poleis from Greece and Southern Italy. Modern economics teaches us that egalitarian distribution of wealth is unfortunately unstable and this case is well illustrated by Syracuse. At the beginning of the common era, the Roman Empire found itself the owner of centuries of silver extracted from Greece and from Iberia. This bullion was used to buy luxury products, frankincense from Arabia, spices and cotton from India, ivory and precious wood from Africa. Leakage of silver towards the Indian Ocean was so strong that coins were quickly debased by copper and by 250 AD most of the silver had been lost. The progressive replacement of silver by a bimetallic system, gold for the rich and bronze for the working class, progressively fractured the society and ushered the brutal Middle Age regimes. Silver famine had finally destroyed the democratic ideal of the Greeks. This is food for thought as disappearing mining resources may severely affect our current vision of societies. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The Mediterranean region stands out among other subtropical regions in its projected drying response to the global rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. This drying trend has already emerged out of the normal, random climate variability in the sensitive Eastern Mediterranean (EM) region. To better understand the dynamical mechanisms responsible for this regional sensitivity, we turn to past protracted EM drying states during warm geological epochs. A unique view of the historical and pre-historical hydroclimate of the EM-Levant has been gleaned from the continued study of the sedimentary and geochemical record left by the lakes that filled the tectonic basin of the Dead Sea. We revisit the Late Quaternary sediment record retrieved during the 2010-2011 Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project (DSDDP). The sediments clearly indicate that the Levant was drier during past warm interglacials than during the adjacent glacials but nonetheless experienced large variations in the intensity of the regional aridity. During each interglacial, extended thick deposits of salts accumulated at the Lake bottom, during millennia of significant regional aridity and severely reduced Mediterranean rains. These dry states were interrupted by extended wet intervals, fed by rains that were supplied by a blend of tropical and Mediterranean moisture. To understand the underlying causes of the EM-Levant interglacial hydroclimate variations, we put the Dead Sea record in the context of the Northern Hemisphere orbital insolation variations and their impact on the global climate system. We show that the changes in EM hydroclimate portrayed by the DSDDP record during the interglacials, are entirely consistent with the response of the North Atlantic Ocean and the overlying atmosphere and surrounding land areas to the changes in the latitudinal insolation gradient, as determined by climate models and evident by surface temperature proxies. This perspective provides new information regarding the dynamical processes responsible for the ongoing, greenhouse gas forced, EM drying. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Recent severe summertime weather extremes in the Northern hemisphere extratropics such as the extraordinary 2021 North American Heatwave and the record-breaking floods in central Europe were in part driven by persistent circulation patterns in the tropospheric Jetstream. To what degree such circulation patterns will modulate extreme weather risk in a warming world is still uncertain and remains a highly debated topic in climate science. I will present results from recent studies that investigate physics of extraordinary extremes, future changes in weather persistence diagnosed by a feature tracking algorithm and future risks from concurrent extremes and associated impacts on crop production based on latest GGCMI-runs. A special emphasis will be placed on benchmarking the skill of CMIP5 and CMIP6 models to reproduce atmosphere dynamical mechanisms and associated extreme weather against reanalysis data short bio: Kai Kornhuber is an adjunct Associate Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University in New York and a Senior Fellow on Climate Risks at the German Council on Foreign Relations. His research is concerned with physical drivers of extreme weather and climate events and associated societal impacts and risks under current and future climatic conditions. He is Founding Member of the EarthNetwork on Sustainable and Resilient Living in an Era of Increasing Disasters at Columbia’s Climate School, Co-Chair of the Compound Events Working Group at Risk-Kan, Steering Committee member of the HiWeather Project and a Co- Pi of the Project PERSEVERE within the BMBF Consortium. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Most electrical activity in vertebrates and invertebrates occurs at extremely low frequencies (ELF), with characteristic maxima below 50 Hz. The origin of these frequency maxima is unknown and remains a mystery. We propose that over billions of years during the evolutionary history of living organisms on Earth, the natural electromagnetic resonant frequencies in the atmosphere, continuously generated by global lightning activity, provided the background electric fields for the development of cellular electrical activity. In some animals, the electrical spectrum is difficult to differentiate from the natural background atmosphericelectric field produced by lightning. In this talk I will present evidence for the link between the natural ELF fields and those found in many living organisms, including humans.  Furthermore, recent experiments show links between the ELF fields and photosynthesis in plants. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: One of the most surprising discoveries in exoplanet science has been the existence of compact systems of Earth to super-Earth sized planets. These multi-planet systems have nearly circular, coplanar orbits located at distances of only ∼ 0.01 − 0.1 AU, a region devoid of planets in our Solar System. Although compact systems comprise a large fraction of known exoplanetary systems, their origin remains debated. Common to all prior models of compact system origin is the assumption that infall to the stellar disk ends before planets form. However, there is growing observational, theoretical, and meteoritical evidence of the early growth of mm-sized “pebbles” during the infall phase. We propose that accretion of compact systems occurs during stellar infall. As a cloud core collapses, solids are gradually accumulated in the disk, producing favorable conditions for the formation and survival of close-in planets. A key feature of this model is that the reduced gas-to-solids ratio in the planet accretion region can allow for the formation and survival of compact systems, even with Type-I migration. Accretion within infall-supplied disks has been studied in the context of gas planet satellite origin. Formation models predict that the total mass of the satellite system during this evolution maintains a nearly constant mass ratio ∼10^−4 compared to the host planet’s mass. The maximum mass ratio of compact exoplanetary systems compared to the stellar mass are similar to those of the giant satellite system, suggesting that accretion of compact systems may be similar to regular satellite formation. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Most of the Pacific Northwest (PNW, USA) and British Columbia experienced extraordinarily high air temperatures during an extreme heat wave event (“heat dome”) in late June of 2021. In many locations, alltime record high air temperatures (Tair) exceeding 40-45 °C were observed. In this talk I will present evidence of the widespread impacts of this extreme heat event. These impacts include foliar damage observed in many locations of this region, along with some tree mortality. Additionally, I will present data from dendrometers and eddy covariance towers in contrasting forest types highlighting the impacts on tree growth and ecosystem-atmosphere CO2, H2O, and energy fluxes. Better understanding the environmental drivers, biophysical and physiological mechanisms, and ecological consequences of heat damage incurred by forests is of broad relevance and societal importance. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Subsurface systems, such as alluvial aquifers and soils, store and govern the quality of groundwater by sustaining a unique balance of biogeochemical and hydrological processes. The complex characteristics of subsurface systems are demonstrated in both spatial and compositional sediment heterogeneities that ultimately control the rate and extent of elemental cycling. Different redox environments commonly form within the subsurface and may largely influence these cycles. Heavy metals, occurring naturally (geogenic) or as anthropogenic contaminants, are particularly sensitive to varying redox conditions, even if they are not directly redox active. In this seminar, I will show how sediment hotspots and interfaces influence elemental cycling, contaminant attenuation, and groundwater quality. I will present examples of how an alluvial aquifer system exhibiting redox heterogeneities may influence heavy metal mobility by preferential retention in fine-grained sediment lenses embedded within the coarse aquifer. Several mechanisms contribute to the retention in fine-grained sediments, and we also observe a significant impact of nitrate-rich conditions on the extent and phases of metal retention. Further, I will share our findings on the dynamic and unique composition of iron-rich colloids, detected in reducing zones of a floodplain subsurface. Our results demonstrate the presence of partially oxidized iron rich colloids in otherwise reducing conditions, thanks to a protective organic-silicon coating. The lifecycle and composition of these colloids may have direct effects on element cycling as they may serve as vectors for the transport of nutrients and organic matter into groundwater and surface water recipients. Lastly, I will present my future research visions, in a lab devoted to the study of biogeochemical heterogeneity and coupled elemental cycling under dynamic conditions. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Thick halite sequences are common in the Earth’s geologic record; they were accumulated in deep perennial hypersaline water bodies, saturated to halite and subjected to negative water balance. For decades, evaporites research gained insights from exploring modern shallow hypersaline environments, including the relations between the hydroclimatic forcing and the deposited halite layers. However, there is a knowledge gap in understanding limnological controls on accreted halite sequences in deep water bodies. Such water bodies rarely exist today on Earth, but were common through Earth geological history. The Dead Sea is currently the closest and probably the only modern analog for such environments. Recently, based on direct field measurements, laboratory experiments, direct numerical simulations, and sedimentological investigation, we have shown that there are fundamental differences between deposition at deep basins versus shallow basins, specifically in the seasonal to multi-annual scales and variations of halite solubility with depth. We have found that during the dry summer the epilimnion is warmer, saltier and undersaturated to halite, and that double diffusion flux delivers dissolved salt from the epilimnion into the hypolimnion, resulting in the continuously supersaturated hypolimnion and seasonally undersaturated epilimnion. Thus the stratified structure of the lake’s water column results in focusing of halite deposits into the deep parts of the basin and thinned deposits, or entirely dissolved, in the marginal parts. We further explore the role of laterally variable hydroclimatic conditions to the spatiotemporal dynamics of evaporitic deposits in a deep hypersaline waterbody. We focus on the role of diluted buoyant plume, overlaying part of the Dead Sea surface that laterally spreads from freshwater inflow. The lateral surface salinity variations results in lateral variations in evaporation, double diffusion fluxes, and hence evaporitic layer thickness. These can contribute to the study of the depositional environments of halite units throughout the geological record, following the concept of “the present as key to the past”. At the end of the talk, I will share some management ideas regarding the future of the Dead Sea. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Decadal Climate Predictions Using Sequential Learning Algorithms Ensembles of climate models are commonly used to improve climate predictions and assess the uncertainties associated with them. Weighting the models according to their performances holds the promise of further improving their predictions. Using an ensemble of climate model simulations from the CMIP5 decadal experiments, we quantified the total uncertainty associated with these predictions and the relative importance of model and internal uncertainties. Sequential learning algorithms (SLAs) were used to reduce the forecast errors and reduce the model uncertainties. The reliability of the SLA predictions was also tested, and the advantages and limitations of the different performance measures are discussed. The spatial distribution of the SLAs performance showed that they are skillful and better than the other forecasting methods over large continuous regions. This finding suggests that, despite the fact that each of the ensemble models is not skillful, the models were able to capture some physical processes that resulted in deviations from the climatology and that the SLAs enabled the extraction of this additional information. If time permits I will also present a method for estimating the uncertainties associated with ensemble predictions and demonstrate the resulting improved reliability. References: 1. Improvement of climate predictions and reduction of their uncertainties using learning algorithms, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 15, 8631-8641 (2015). 2. Decadal climate predictions using sequential learning algorithms, Journal of Climate 29, 3787-3809 (2016). 3. The contribution of internal and model variabilities to the uncertainty in CMIP5 decadal climate predictions, Climate Dynamics 49, 3221 (2017). 4. Quantifying the uncertainties in an ensemble of decadal climate predictions. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 122, 13,191–13,200 (2017). 5. Learning algorithms allow for improved reliability and accuracy of global mean surface temperature projections. Nature Communications 11, 451 (2020). Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The maker movement (cheap electronics + sharing), automated microscopy, autonomous platforms and small footprint satellites have been revolutionizing oceanography, opening a variety of new avenues for research and requiring a different education model. In this talk I will summarize a few activities my lab has been involved in that are associated with these disruptive technologies and why I am very optimistic for the future of our field in the coming years. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: It is by now well established that certain stratospheric flow configurations may alter tropospheric dynamical variability. Such flow configurations include the aftermath of sudden stratospheric warming events (SSWs) or strong polar vortex events (SPVs). Although the detailed mechanisms behind this stratosphere-troposphere coupling remain elusive, most aspects of it are well-known. For example, the coupling involves feedbacks between upward propagating planetary waves of tropospheric origin and the mean flow, the tropospheric response involves synoptic-scale eddy feedbacks, SSWs tend to project onto negative anomalies of the Arctic and North-Atlantic Oscillation (AO, NAO), whereas SPVs tend to project onto positive anomalies of the AO and NAO. Here I will highlight some recent results on 1) the potential role of a planetary wave source near the tropopause in troposphere-stratosphere coupling, 2) the stratospheric influence on the evolution of baroclinically unstable waves during their non-linear decay phase, 3) the improved quantification of the stratospheric modulation of AO extremes from extended-range ensemble forecasts. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The Great Lakes of the Earth are freshwater seas, and many of the geochemical processes that take place in their bottom sediments parallel those that happen in marine environments. The conditions, however, are different enough to significantly modify the geochemical cycles of key elements. By analyzing those differences, we can not only understand the functioning of the planet's largest freshwater ecosystems, but can also gain insight into the elemental cycling (C, N, P, S...) in the oceans during the past geological epochs. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: By economy of scale, imaging sensors can now be deployed densely and operated in a coordinated manner at large numbers in space, air, underwater and on the ground. Such distributed imaging systems enable multi-view setups across heterogeneous media of importance to geoscience. These create new observation modes. One outcome is 4D volumetric spatiotemporal recovery of scatterers in the atmosphere, specifically cloud content (the core of the CloudCT space mission). This is in addition to computed tomography of underwater sediment suspension and atmospheric turbulence distributions. We describe several such systems - demonstrated in the field, including both distributed imaging and the basis of the algorithms to analyze the data. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Extreme temperatures have warmed substantially over recent decades and are expected to continue warming in response to future climate change. Warming of extreme temperatures is projected to be amplified over land, with severe implications for human health, wildfire risk and food production. Using simulations from coupled climate models, I show that hot days over tropical land warm substantially more than the average day. For example, warming of the hottest 5% of land days is a factor of 1.2 larger than the time-mean warming averaged across models. The climate-change response of extreme temperatures over tropical land is interpreted using a theory based on convective coupling and the weak temperature gradient approximation. According to the theory, warming is amplified for hot land days because those days are dry: this is termed the “drier get hotter” mechanism. Changes in near-surface relative humidity further increase tropical land warming, with decreases in land relative humidity particularly important. The theory advances physical understanding of the tropical climate and highlights climatological land-surface dryness as a key factor determining how extreme temperatures respond to climate change. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Natural hazards such as extreme wind, rainfall and ocean waves can have severe impacts on built and natural environments, contributing to the occurrence of disastrous events in some cases. These hazards are often caused by weather systems such as cyclones, fronts and thunderstorms. We have used a number of objective techniques to identify these weather system types, in order to understand the links between the weather systems and hazards in observations. We have then used this understanding to evaluate climate models and to better understand the response of the weather systems and the high impact hazards to a warmer climate. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The vast majority of detected planets are observed indirectly, using their small perturbation on the light emitted by the host stars. In recent years, however, the world's largest ground based telescopes have succeeded in directly imaging the light coming from some planets themselves. I will present our comprehensive theory for the mass, luminosity, and spin of gas giant planets during their final stages of formation - when they simultaneously contract and accrete gas from a disk. I will apply this theory to the luminosity and spectrum obtained by the novel direct-imaging technique, highlighting the recently discovered PDS 70 system, where two planets were directly observed during formation for the first time. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Persistent summer weather can have significant socio-economic impacts. Prolonged hot-dry conditions may lead to crop yield losses, while consecutive rainy days (e.g. associated with stalling cyclones) can cause flooding. Both observational and climate model analyses indicate that global warming weakens the hemispheric-wide circulation in boreal summer, yet it is still largely unclear what this weakening implies for the persistence of regional weather conditions. Here, I present multiple lines of evidence supporting that weather persistence in summer has been increasing over the last 40 years over most mid-latitude regions and will continue to do so under future global warming. Methodologically, we use a persistence metric rooted in dynamical systems theory, which does not require partitioning instantaneous atmospheric states in an arbitrary number of clusters. This makes it ideally suited to detect subtle changes in atmospheric motions including weather-persistence. I discuss relevant recent literature and argue that there is now substantial evidence for increasing weather persistence over mid-latitude regions, providing enhanced extreme weather risks for society. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Ice sheets can dramatically impact the state of climate. This is due to their capacity to modify the planetary energy balance through variations in the ice cover and mass. A major question is how rapidly could such modification occur and to what extent ? This question can be addressed by investigating phenomena that involve relatively large mass flux of ice into the ocean, such as ice calving and rifting, ice streams, and melting. Many of these processes involve interactions between the ice sheet and the underlying bedrock or ocean. We model ice sheets as buoyancy-driven flows of nonlinear (non Newtonian) fluid and explore the resulted flow dynamics and stability due to different friction conditions along the base of the ice. I will show results from scaled laboratory experiments and theoretical modelling of several flows under different friction conditions that evolve patterns reminiscent to those that emerge in glacier ice flows. Specifically, the basal friction that we consider ranges from no-slip conditions, in which radially symmetric flows are stable, to free-slip conditions, in which such flows are unstable, developing patterns reminiscent to ice rifts and ice bergs. Under mixed conditions of friction, an initially radially symmetric flow can be either stable, or develop patterns reminiscent to ice streams. Our insights may have implications to predicting ice flow on Earth and possibly on other planetary objects. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: The study of past warm climates with high atmospheric CO2 concentrations provides important tools for understanding present trends and developing mitigation strategies for future scenarios. The Pliocene is the last long lasting warm interval characterized by similar global climate circulation patterns and continental settings as today. Reconstructing Pliocene climate change from well-dated geological archives provides valuable insights into the climate forcing and pathways that modulated the transfer of heat and humidity and disentangle regional impacts without anthropogenic influence. To address this challenge, the current presentation shows initial results from a comprehensive study that amalgamates high-resolution multi-proxy analyses from both marine and lacustrine records from the Levant region aiming to provide an important reference for future climate and environment change scenarios under high atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Layered halite sequences were deposited in deep hypersaline basins throughout the geological record. These sequences are of research interest for hydrocarbon extraction, mineral exploration, tectonics and structural geology and paleoclimate research. Modern analogs and the processes leading to deposition of thick halite sequences were studied only through analyses of the common modern, shallow environments, which are fundamentally different in their nature from halite-depositing, deep waterbodies. Thus, the spatiotemporal evolution of halite sequences remained ambiguous. I will present, first, a study of the active precipitation of halite layers from the only modern analog in the world for deep, halite-precipitating basin; the hypersaline Dead Sea. Then the implications of these results to the geological record will be emphasized. Novel in situ observations in the Dead Sea link seasonal hydroclimatic conditions, thermohaline stratification, halite saturation, and the characteristics of the actively forming halite layers. The main findings of this study are: (a) Halite deposition dynamics is directly related to the development of the thermohaline stratification and it is primarily temperature controlled; it is counter-intuitive to the common approach that focus on the role of the hydrological budget in the study of hypersaline environments. (b) A pronounced depth dependency of the degree of halite saturation and halite deposition. (c) A well-defined seasonality of halite deposition on the deep lakefloor. (d) Preferential halite accumulation at the deep, hypolimnetic lake floor (>25m depth) due to intensive halite dissolution at the shallow epilimnetic lakefloor, and its re-deposition at depth, in a process termed “halite focusing”. (e) Halite accumulates at high rates in the deep lakefloor, doubling (or even more) the expected thickness without halite focusing. (f) Freshwater inflows further amplify halite thickness at the drier parts of the lake. These findings provide insights and quantify the processes required for reconstructing past hypersaline environments from halite sequences, in the Dead Sea and worldwide. Close abstractClose abstract

Abstract: Sand seas on Mars are riddled with eolian landforms created by accumulating sand particles. When the sand supply is limited and the wind is approximately unidirectional, these landforms take the shape of crescentic barchan dunes, whose slip-faces are approximately perpendicular to the dominant wind direction, and their horns are oriented downwind. The morphology of barchan dunes is thus routinely used to infer wind conditions on Mars by manually analyzing aerial or satellite imagery. Despite the effectiveness of this technique on a local scale, employing it on a global scale remained challenging thusfar - as manually outlining individual dunes globally is impractical, and automatic detection methods have been largely ineffective at accurately segmenting dunes in images. Here we use Mask R-CNN, an instance segmentation convolutional neural network, to detect and outline dunes globally on Mars in images obtained by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera (MRO CTX). We measure the morphometrics of dunes from their detected outlines, and infer the direction of the winds that formed them. By comparing the global wind distribution we derived to a global climate model, we study Mars' past and recent climate, and constrain global sand mobility thresholds which offer insight into the erosion and dust lifting capabilities of the atmosphere of the Red Planet. Close abstractClose abstract