ISOTOPES
cod. 18880

Academic year 2008/09
2° year of course - First semester
Professor
Academic discipline
Geochimica e vulcanologia (GEO/08)
Field
Discipline mineralogiche, petrografiche e geochimiche
Type of training activity
Characterising
16 hours
of face-to-face activities
2 credits
hub:
course unit
in - - -

Learning objectives

<br />Introduce the students to the knowledge of the climatic and environmental variations occurred mainly during the Holocene the present interglacial. Give the tools for the interpretation of the natural processes involving isotopes in the environmental and palaeoclimatic field

Prerequisites

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Course unit content

<br />O, C, N and H stable isotopes in natural records as tracers of the present and past climatic variations<br />The past climate<br />The palaeoclimatology<br />Region covered by ice during the last glaciation<br />The principal natural records<br />Why does climate change?<br />Milennial climate changes: changes in Earth orbit<br />Secular and decadal scale changes<br />Interaction between atmospheric and oceanic circulation: El Nino<br />Interaction between atmospheric and oceanic circulation: PDO<br />Interaction between atmospheric and oceanic circulation: NAO and AO<br />Interaction between atmospheric and oceanic circulation: PDO, NAO, AO and thermoaline circulation<br />Solar cycle <br />Greenhouse warming<br />Geocronological scale<br />South pole position in relation to the Gondwana continent<br />Continental movements<br />Mean temperature variation during the last 1000 years<br />Mean temperature variation during the last 140 years<br />Mean temperature variation during the last 72 years<br />Natural climatic records studied by the stable isotope technique<br />Isotope geochemistry: isotope fractionation, delta notation, reference standards<br />Ice cores<br />Marine and aquatic cores<br />Speleothems<br />Skeletal remains

Full programme

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Bibliography

<br /><br />Earth's climate - W.F. Ruddiman - W.H. Freeman and Company, New York<br />Global warming - J. Houghton - Cambridge University Press<br />Ice sheets and Late Quaternary Environmental change - M.J. Siegert - Wiley<br />Climate change - W.J. Burroughs - Cambridge University Press

Teaching methods

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Assessment methods and criteria

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Other information

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