Past environmental conditions can be inferred from fossil pollen and other microfossil assemblages. A new study allows these reconstructions, which provide important evidence for interpreting past climatic conditions, to be assessed statistically.

An expansive megadrought that parched ancient Africa and southern Asia about 16,000 years ago was one of the most intense and far-reaching dry periods in the history of modern humans.

During the period AD 1650-1760, farmers living in Nordfjord were repeatedly forced to apply for tax reductions following damage to farms and farmland caused by snow-avalanches. A new study from the Bjerknes Centre indicates that this period featured the highest snow-avalanche frequency of the last 7000 years.

In a recent study published in Climate of the Past, Carin Andersson and co-workers at the Bjerknes Centre focus on the conflicting trends in reconstructed surface ocean temperatures for the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea since the last ice age.

Upper ocean properties in the Southeast Pacific show rapid changes with high amplitudes on decadal to centennial time scales. This variability may be linked to the tropical ocean and climate via an intermediate depth “ocean tunnel”.

Grease ice is not described by the climate models, but may play a central role in Arctic sea ice production in the future. A new publication describes grease ice measurements from Svalbard, and predicts the grease ice thickness based on wind and current forcing.

The inflow of warm Atlantic water and the ocean-atmosphere fluxes are of significant importance to the regional ocean climate, as well as for the biomass production and fish distribution in the Barents Sea.

Scientists from the Bjerknes Centre with results that can revise our understanding of past ocean circulation changes.

While most world oceans, such as the North Atlantic, exhibit slowing down in anthropogenic carbon uptake, the polar Southern Ocean uptake strength will continue to increase in the future.

Model simulations show that winter sea ice cover in the Nordic Seas caused abrupt climate swings during the last ice age.