Chapter 1: Understanding Climate Measurement Proxies for GARP SCR Examination

Below is a topic based on which a question can come in GARP SCR examination which tests the climate measurement proxies.

In most places, daily weather records have only been kept for the past 100 to 150 years. So, to learn about the climate hundreds to thousands of years ago, scientists need to use other sources, such as trees, corals, and ice cores (layers of ice drilled out of a glacier).

1. Corals: Analysis of the skeletons of these sea creatures can yield climate conditions in the ocean over millions of years.

2. Speleothems (e.g., stalactites and stalagmites): These cave structures can yield estimates of the climate in the region around the cave over the past few hundred thousand years.

3. Ice cores: Measuring the chemical composition of ice (mainly in Greenland and Antarctica) yields estimates of the climate over the past million years or so.

4. Ocean sediment cores: Analyzing the composition of the mud at the bottom of the ocean provides information about the climate covering the past tens of millions of years.

5.Tree rings: These measurements can reveal climate variations in regions where trees grow and experience sea-sons for the past millennium. These rings can tell us how old the tree is, and what the weather was like during each year of the tree’s life. The light-colored rings represent wood that grew in the spring and early summer, while the dark rings represent wood that grew in the late summer and fall. One light ring plus one dark ring equals one year of the tree’s life.

Because trees are sensitive to local climate conditions, such as rain and temperature, they give scientists some information about that area’s local climate in the past. For example, tree rings usually grow wider in warm, wet years and they are thinner in years when it is cold and dry. If the tree has experienced stressful conditions, such as a drought, the tree might hardly grow at all in those years.

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