Mid to Late Holocene climate and sea level changes and its relation to culture in Japan

Abstract:

Mid to Late Holocene period is the time when atmospheric pCO2 marked to the present level (ie. pre-industrial) and sea level reached similar to the present. What is different was the orbital parameter of Earth that provided stronger seasonality compare to the present. Large number of paleoclimate studies including Chinese speleothems suggested that strengthen and fluctuations in summer monsoon was occurred during this period. Japanese archipelago is also under influence of the Asian monsoon climate and Jomon culture spans around this time that may also be affected. Timing of cessation in melting of ice sheets is also an important factor to control shoreline location in Japan since it is induced by solid earth deformation (eg., Yokoyama et al., 2012). In this presentation we review several climatological reconstructions in Japan to see correlations to cultural transitions during the Jomon period (eg., Seki et al., 2012).

Reforence

Seki, A., Y. Yokoyama, A. Suzuki, Y. Kawakubo, T. Okai, Y. Miyairi, H. Matsuzaki, N. Namizaki and H. Kan, Mid-Holocene sea-surface temperature reconstruction using fossil corals from Kume Island, Ryukyu, Japan, Geochemical Journal Vol. 46, p27-32, 2012.

Yokoyama, Y., Okuno, J., Miyairi, Y., Obrochta, S.P., Demboya, N., Makino, Y., and Kawahata, H., Holocene sea-level change and Antarctic melting history derived from geological observations and geophysical modeling along the Shimokita Peninsula, northern Japan, Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 39, p L13502, doi:10.1029/2012GL051983, 2012.