Shells from mollusk clams off the coast of the north-west of north america presents timeline correlation with climate drivers with most impactful magnitudes
Kendall Wilde, Dr. Marcus Lofverstrom, and Dr. Byran Black
Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
The University of Arizona, Tucson AZ
The pacific geoduck (Panopea Generosa) is a long-lived clam found along the northwestern coast of North America, with a lifespan of approximately 150 years. Similar to trees, geoducks form annual growth rings in their shells as they grow. The width of these rings is determined by the environment and climate conditions in the coastal waters where the organism lived. As a paleo proxy, these growth increments can be analyzed into a chronological timeline that reflects the sea surface temperatures of the past.
Through analysis of model simulations with the Community Earth System Model version 1 (CESM1), it is possible to investigate which climate driver or major climate events exert the strongest influence on the Pacific sea surface conditions over the last millennium. Such analysis can provide insight relevant for future climate predictions, ecological research, farmers and fisheries.
From what has been found currently, by matching up the simulations from fully forced models to volcanic forced models from CESM1, there is a strong match with outstanding cold years. Looking further into these matching cold years, the simulations could show after major volcanic events there is a strong negative ENSO phase (La Nina) that lasts for several years. If these simulations could consistently prove that massive volcanic events lead to stronger and longer La Nina events, then the next course of action is to see if chronology from the geoducks shell rings correspond with the simulations. However, this will need more analysis.