TASK D.1. Collection, validation and rationalization of the existing data (data inventory)
Principal scientist: Dr. S. Guerzoni (IGM-CNR, Bologna)
Background
The paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic evolution of the last 18 kyrs represents for the Mediterranean basin an interesting period for understanding the dynamic system of this particular natural laboratory. Up to now a wealth of geochemical, micropaleontological and sedimentological data exist concerning this time interval. In order to meet the time resolution requested (seasonal to decadal) an effort to validate and rationalize all data collected by the Italian scientific community is essential. To provide a refined data base of multi-proxy paleoenvironmental data we need to collect and validate all the existing data for each of the three time slices selected. Since multiple and independent stratigraphic techniques (pollen, foraminifera, ostracods, magnetic properties, tephras, grain-size, etc.) are normally applied to parts of the stratigraphic records, a refined chronology will be achieved only by comparing different independent techniques and evaluating the significance and reliability of proxy records. Between-site correlation will be also necessary. The rationalization of existing data will be also performed by time series analyses to extract short-term and longer term components of climate variability. These series generally represent multivariate non-stationary and non-linear processes; furthermore, in marine environments these series are not sampled uniformly through time but reflect inevitably the changes in sediment accumulation rates.
Scientific objectives
- compare chronologies to give improved definition in calibrated years;
- construct a data base, including (but not restricted to) core-top data, modern benthic and planctonic associations and main seasonal turnovers, modern chemical and physical characters of water masses;
- validate techniques and evaluate the significance and reliability of proxy records;
- analyze trace elements content (Sr, Ca, Ba, Cd, Ce, Zn. As, Mn, Mg, Fe) for foraminiferal shells, by using isotopic dilution for the ICP-MS technique of selected cores
- to apply multivariate statistical analysis and to extract time series analyses of existing data.
Work plan
- Inventory of existing core data available and collection of existing records for the Mediterranean amongst the Italian community (connections with other tasks)
- Organisation of intercalibrations (dating methods, organisms counts, chemical data), by using twin cores (if available)
- Comparison between isotopic, micropaleontological available data with the new geochemical indicators
- Organization of a geological and paleoenvironmental data base to point out key-areas and key-cores for a future paleoceanographic modeling.
- suggestion for new analyses to improve information in selected cores
Understanding climate variability on different time scales (inter-annual, decadal and secular) is important to the interpretation and modeling of the present and past Mediterranean atmospheric circulation and to design global circulation model experiments to define climate sensitivity. Beside historical records, natural archives such as glaciers, tree rings, corals, deep sea and lake sediments provide paleoclimatic information with a seasonal-decadal accuracy over several millennia. During the last 1000 years three major loosely-defined paleoclimatic subdivisions are generally identified: the Middle Age warm period, the Little Ice Age, the 20th century warming. In the Mediterranean area, land based paleoclimatic data-sets can be obtained from cold ice, tree rings and lake sediments.
Cold ice (temperature permanently well below 0 °C, no melting) in the Alpine glaciers may be found only above 4000 m. In this condition chemical and isotopic properties of the ice, derived by snow precipitation and diagenesis, do not change with time. The analyses on samples from continuous ice core drillings permit to obtain records covering 10 to 200 years of climatic and environmental change (natural and man-made). Seasonal variations of the chemical compounds (major anions and cations) and stable isotopes (dD and d18O) are recorded in the snow accumulated on the glaciers. Saharan dust events and volcanic explosive events are also recorded. Two ice-core drillings on the Monte Rosa area (Colle Gnifetti, Colle del Lys) have been done by University of Milano-ENEL research groups.
Tree-ring studies provide paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental data-sets with seasonal/annual resolution (dendroclimatology). In general, information can be obtained on the tree-growth limiting factors, mainly temperature and precipitation. Because other factors, biotic and abiotic, affect the tree-growth, a great accuracy in the analyses is requested to decipher climatic signals. Several Italian groups are active in these studies (CNR-Fisbat Bologna, Museum of Verona, Pavia, Milano, Lecce universities).
Geochemical, sedimentological and paleobotanical studies on lacustrine sediment offer good information on the seasonal/annual and longer term climatic and environmental variations. Many Italian groups are presently involved in paleolimnological studies (CNR-Pallanza, CNR-IGM Bologna, and several university groups). The work on ice records should provide a refined high-resolution chronological reference to other groups working on carved lacustrine and expanded marine stratigraphic records.
Scientific objective
Given the above consideration, we plan to study the records obtained from ice, tree-ring, and lacustrine sediments.
- Ice core from cold alpine glaciers are currently the only available mid-latitude ice cores. Being collected in the middle of a heavy industrialized area they show a clear record of the anthropogenic changes of the atmospheric aerosol load, much more than in the remote polar glaciers. The high accumulation rate of Colle del Lys (1.6 m of water equivalent) permit a detailed reconstruction of the climatic conditions and the anthropogenic influences in the last 100 years. The isotopic (d18O, dD) record will allow the set-up of a detailed chronological scale, temperature variations and the estimate of the accumulation rates. Information on humidity and temperature conditions of air masses source regions may be obtained by the deuterium excess profile (d = dD -8 d18O). Chemical records will give information on the man made influences on the atmospheric load of aerosol components (mainly sulphate) in the free troposphere over Western Europe. Nitrogen species document the natural variability in the pre-industrial epoch. The relative anthropogenic contribution can be evaluated with the atmospheric mineral dust load record.
Extensive networks of tree-ring series provide a great opportunity for annually-dated spatial reconstruction of past climate variability extending back several centuries. Dendrogeomorphological research in the Alps allows the reconstruction of the advance/retreat phases of glaciers, depending on mass balance-climate variations. Studies in the western and central Alps showed how the dendrochronological series made detailed the Little Ice Age glaciers and climate fluctuations.
The goal is to reconstruct the history of the climate over the past centuries through an integrated research which include dendrochronological analysis, geomorphological survey and glaciological data analysis. In particular dendrochronological series permit to detect the maximum of the LIA for each glacier, to control the simultaneity/out of phase of the glacier advances and to evaluate the delay between climatic input and glacier response. For the period pre LIA tree rings series allow to identify and characterize the critical interval connected with climatic deterioration and the preceding middle age warm period.
- Lake sediments: The temporal and spatial sensitivity of a lake system to climate changes depends primarily on the extent and hydrological-hydrogeological behavior on its catchment. Continuous records from lake sediments may provide paleolimnological data-set related to climatic/environmental variability. Sedimentological, geochemical and paleobiological studies provide information on environmental changes affecting the water mass and the catchment area. Palynological studies traditionally offer a picture of the changes of the vegetation cover. New techniques of 14C dating allow an accuracy of +/- 50 years.
Workplan
- Collection of the existing records on the Mediterranean area (connection with task D.1) on the last centuries.
- Study of the collected samples from Colle del Lys ice core, Alpine tree rings and the lake sediment collected in the Mediterranean area.
- Reconstruction of the inter-annual and decadal records and determination of the chronology of this records
- Determination of the main cycles observed from the records reconstructed.
Principal scientist: Prof. Cesare Corselli (DISTER, Milano)
Background
The climate history of Quaternary is well documented in the land and sea records of the Mediterranean region. Particular details are available on the Late Pleistocene and Holocene times. The global paleoclimate has been documented by the marine isotopic curve, and several methods of correlation for this marine parameters with land series have helped to establish that events observed on a regional scale had a world wide occurrence (Rossignol-Strick, 1993). The isotopic records of many long marine sequences in the word ocean have been combined into a generalized isotopic curve called SPECMAP (Imbrie et al. 1989). In particular, the decay of the great ice-sheets produced melt-water influxes and global sea-level rise. The progressive decrease of the 18O/16O ratio in sea-water also reveals the influx into the global ocean of isotopically depleted melt-water and sea-water temperature rise (Duplessy et al. 1981, 1986).
A first phase of isotopic decrease takes place from 15.800-14.500 to 12.000-11.500 yr BP, called Termination. On land, in northwestern Europe, Termination Ia is coeval with the Bolling (13.300-12.400 yr BP) and Allerod (11.900-10.800 yr BP) (Couteaux, 1983), chronozones of warmer climate when tree growth again becomes possible. The set-back to more glacial conditions from 11.000 to 10.000 yr BP is the Younger Dryas, now recognized as a global events (Kennet, 1990), during which the dominant climate character affecting land vegetation is cold in the high and middle latitudes, dry in the low and subtropical ones. A rapid warming (called Termination Ib to differentiate the previous warming trend before the Younger Dryas) characterize the word climate few thousand years BP (10.000-8.000 yr).
Between 8.000-6.000 yr BP the isotopic records, the faunal assemblages composition of marine sediments and the pollen analysis on land, show a warmer climate than the present, especially in the Mediterranean, a region that amplifies the climate signal. In particular, in the deep Eastern Mediterranean, this time is characterized by the deposition of a rich organic carbon layers, the sapropel S-1. Deciduous oak parkland followed by forests at moderate altitude, and Mediterranean forests of Pistachio trees in the lowlands, prevail from 9.000 to around 7.500 yr BP, perhaps somewhat earlier. This clearly is a Climate Optimum and, except for a few hundred years of winter temperature decreasing, the climate is characterized by more summer precipitation and warmer winters until 6.000 yr BP This land climate trend is confirmed by the high percentage of Globigerinoides ruber (a warm species indicator) in cores within a west-east transect in the Mediterranean (Capotondi et al. 1989).
Scientific objectives and Workplan
The main aims of this task are:
3.1.To collect the available data of the optimum climatic time in the Mediterranean (sea and land records), in particular:
- deep sea records of the western and eastern Mediterranean;
- continental shelf records;
- lake and pollen records of land surrounding the basin.
3.2. To determine if and to what extent this event may be diachronous within different areas of the Mediterranean sea. In general, this event is well documented by changes in plankton assemblages (forams, pteropods), in particular coincident with the ingress in the Mediterrenean of warm specie indicators (van Straaten, 1971, Bianchi e Corselli, 1996). To establish, with a correct analysis of the related isotopic curve available, if events, such as the S-1 deposition, have been isochronous or diachronous (as supposed by some data).
3.3. To identify bioevents (fluctuation in the relative frequence and presence/absence of a number of species), using different kind of assemblages, as:
- forams;
- pteropods;
- nanoplankton;
- siliceous plankton.
3.4. To create a series of integrate ecobiozones (with the aid of the bioevents), a useful tools for a ecobiostratigraphic subdivision peculiar of the last glacial time (in particular the time period before, during and after the optimum climatic time).
3.5. To analyze the available data and study in depth two key situation chosen between the deep pelagic and coastal areas as examples of the of optimum climatic time.
3.5. To integrate the previous detailed climatic records in order to obtain a ecozonation that characterize the optimum climatic time of the Mediterranean sea.
Description of team
Institution Personnel Position
DST Milano (1) Cesare Corselli Professor
UNI Ancona (2) Alessandra Negri Scientist
IGM-CNR Bologna (3) Lucilla Capotondi Scientist
Annamaria Borsetti Scientist
Luigi Vigliotti Scientist
Financial budget *
Total
1997
85
1998
80
Total
165
*All costs are in Millions of Lire
Detailed explanation of costs (in Millions of Lire)
Task D.4. The exit from the Younger Dryas: a short-term cold-warm transition
Principal scientist: Dr. F. Trincardi (IGM-CNR, Bologna)
Background
The interval of ice-sheet melting and global sea level rise after the last glacial maximum (LGM) was punctuated by short-term climatic events some of which related to the rapid emission of fresh water in the Atlantic Ocean. Large-scale processes in the ocean-atmosphere system played a central role in determining global climate (Broecker, 1995). The thermohaline circulation may have undergone abrupt changes in response to rising temperatures and ice-sheet melting at the end of the LGM. The effects on global climate of several major floods caused by the drainage of ice-dammed lakes appear to have been considerable on short time scales. Analyses of the rates of glacio-eustatic sea level rise indicate that the rate of sea level rise slowed down significantly during the YD (Fairbanks, 1989). Instead, the periods of rapid ice-sheet melting, before and after the YD, were characterized by extremely rapid rates of sea level rise.
The YD cooling associated with the late-glacial Younger Dryas stadial was the last major ice-sheet advancement that lasted 1.5 thousands calibrated years and followed the warming trend of the Bølling-Allerød interstadials. Pollen records in northwestern Europe show that trees that had started colonizing the area in response to climatic warming were suddenly replaced by shrubs and herb typical of glacial conditions. Faunal turnovers in marine cores suggest large-scale movements of the polar front during this interval. A relatively-slow cooling trend was halted by an abrupt climatic amelioration that occurred over a few years to a few decades (Alley et al., 1993). Oceanographic models for the North Atlantic ocean suggest that this basin may have experienced jumps from one state to another in response to the input of fresh waters in the northern part of the basin. Fresh water is thought to dilute the surface waters impeding the formation of dense (salty) Atlantic deep waters.
There is no clear evidence that extreme climatic oscillations similar to the YD have occurred during the past 10,000 years; although other short-term climatic oscillations occurred during the Holocene, they do not have a comparable magnitude. Furthermore, all data support the idea that during this event the climate system was capable of rapid and extreme changes on global scale and within a few decades. We choose to review all the geologic evidences of the YD event in the Mediterranean region and in particular to quantify the sea-surface temperature increase at the end of it. This review work is designed to improve chronologies and quantitative multi-proxy analysis as a preliminary attempt toward the coupled ocean-atmosphere modeling of this event.
Workplan
To be successful in our attempt we need to solve some important problems:
1) chronology: a change in 14C production by cosmic rays resulted in a plateau of ages close to the end of the YD event; this plateau, as others during the deglaciation, is an interval when chronological definition is lost. Calibration techniques interpolate the data across the plateau by matching the 14C curve with other independent curves (dendrochronology, U/Th dating methods, varve counts). It should be noted that significant discrepancies (several hundreds of years) result from different calibration techniques and/or different regional data bases. Therefore we need to refine our chronology directly on marine data. For this purpose, we can relay on U/Th dating methods on carbonates. These methods are commonly applied to corals and molluscs and we plan to apply them to planktic foraminifera;
2) reservoir effects: significant differences in 14C ages between the same event within marine cores compared to land records may also derive from changes in marine reservoir. Commonly a marine reservoir is calculated for modern shells (foraminifera, molluscs, etc.) and is assumed constant through time; recent work in the North Atlantic demonstrate that this assumption is simplistic. Preliminary work in the Adriatic basin confirms that the same is probably valid for the Mediterranean region. The recognition and dating of tephra layers formation during the YD event on land and their correlation in marine records may help quantifying if the reservoir during that interval was higher than today; the same approach can be adopted with some of the tephras that immediately predate or postdate the YD event and that are widespread in the Mediterranean region.
3) physical resolution: a drop in sediment accumulation rates at the end of the YD derives from the climatic factors and resumed sea level rise (Trincardi et al., 1996). This reduction in sediment accumulation rate results in a decreased physical resolution. For this reason we need a careful search for stratigraphic settings where local factors maintain high sedimentation rates through the YD-PreBoreal transition;
4) a refined calibration of the chronology and detailed resolution of multi-proxy stratigraphy for this interval may in turn allow a correlation to land records in the nearby areas and to other land and marine records worldwide;
5) time series analyses will be performed on our multiproxy stratigraphic data in order to extract trends and oscillations of various frequency;
6) transfer-functions will be developed on three different and independent parameters: alkenones, 18O, and foraminifera; pollen indicate changes in temperature, humidity and timing of seasons on land and may be also used to extract quantitative estimates of air temperatures.
Description of team
Institution Personnel Position
IGM-CNR A. Asioli Scientist (Forams and
transf. functions)
A. Correggiari Scientist (Age-depth models
time-series analyses)
F. Trincardi Scientist (Stratigraphy)
L. Vigliotti Scientist (Magnetic properties)
boursary
UNI Modena C. Accorsi Professor (Palinology)
UNI Bologna E. Dinelli Scientist (Tephra)
Financial budget *
Total
1997
65
1998
50
Total
115
*All costs are in Millions of Lire
TASK D.5 The paleoclimatic record of deep-sea coral buildups and aphotic carbonates
Principal scientist: Dr. M.Taviani (IGM-CNR, Bologna)
Background
Deep-sea coral buildup commonly occur in the World oceans, mostly at high latitudes where they may form reefs of considerable vertical and horizontal dimensions below 200 meter water depth. Such carbonate biogenic constructions typically consist of a limited number of azooxanthellate corals, among which Lophelia is the most important. They typically inhabit low-silted (sediment starved) settings as steep slopes, seamount flanks and edges, bedrock outcrops. Such buildup have colonized lower latitudes during Quaternary colder pulses, invading the Mediterranean basin many times during the glaciations. The last important invasion dates back to the last glacial maximum, as proven by the their recurrence in submerged thanatocoenoses of such an age in many sectors of the Mediterranean between 400-2500m (Delibrias & Taviani, 1985, Taviani et al., 1993). Since the beginning of the last deglaciation, Lophelia-reefs are strongly in regression within the Mediterranean because of the onset of unfavorable hydrologic conditions (sluggish deep-sea circulation and ventilation, decrease in nutrient supply, increase in temperature). At present, living Lophelia-reefs are confined to a few spots of the Mediterranean. The presence of a mineralized (aragonite) skeleton allows for their easy preservation as fossil buildups (and related aphotic carbonates, such as molluscs, bryozoans, serpulids, barnacles etc.). This fact is of primary importance since it offers a tool for evaluating some aspects on intermediate and deep-sea circulation throughout the glacial-interglacial cycle. In fact, these carbonates are suitable for /AMS dating. Furthermore, they act as archives for some important parameters of past circulation by incorporating in their , stable carbon and oxygen information of the water column properties (temperature, salinity, isotopic composition). Moreover, these carbonates are prone to be analyzed also for other geochemical indicators, as, for example, SrCa ratios similarly to what done on shallow water corals. The study of this peculiar and widespread carbonate faces must be seen as an important window to be opened on aspects of paleocirculation not easily obtainable through the standard use of planktic and benthic forams. As such, their use in modern paleoceanography is getting momentum (Cheng et al., 1995, adkins et al., 1995)
Workplan
We have already to our disposal a number of corals and other deep-sea carbonates suitable to be studied for their geochemical properties. Their ages encompasses Recent to 20 ka BP, offering a wide range of time-slices where to concentrate out study.
Available material needs to be properly analyzed in terms of age and geochemistry and this is precisely the scope proposed by this team. Because of the presence of annual bands, it is possible to analyze annual fluctuations of water column properties. Thus, the corals need to be first sliced and x-rayed.
The required budget should provide the funding of extensive AMS and Th/U dating and costs for stable isotope and trace element geochemistry.
Description of team
Institution Personnel Position
IGM-CNR M.Taviani Scientist
M.Roveri Scientist
GEOMARE-SUD B.D’Argento Scientist
Financial budget *
Total
1997
25
1998
35
Total
60
*All costs are in Millions of Lire
TASK D.6 Marine Record Of Environmental Changes Over The Past 5000 Years
Principal scientist: Dr. M. Roveri
Background
Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimate reconstructions from marine sediments generally lack sufficient resolution to be compared directly to ice-core records or instrumental observations. As a consequence, there is a data gap in our knowledge of the ocean climate system between the millennial-scale climate changes detected in sediment cores from ocean basins and decadal scale changes observed in instrumental data. This gap occurs on the centennial time scale; the scale on which anthropogenic warming is thought to be occurring. It is extremely important to document "natural" climate variability at this century scale before attempting to disentangle the impact of anthropogenic forcing on natural systems. There are only few marine sites (on heavilly-sedimented continental margins or borderland anoxic basins) where decadal scale resolution can be achieved. Among these, the Adriatic basin provides complementary expanded nearshore/shelf records of the last 5000 years, since the modern sea-level highstand has been attained.
Recent studies on the morphological and sedimentary evolution of the Adriatic basin shown the great recording potential of such basin of the late-quaternary climatic events, due to its peculiar morphological, structural and sedimentary features.
The above mentioned studies used a sequence-stratigraphy approach that allowed the recognition of stratigraphic units (three-dimensional sedimentary bodies) organized hyerarchically and bounded by surfaces with clear genetic and temporal connotations; thus this units are easily correlatable within the basin and on a global scale.
A phisical stratigraphic scheme of the late-Quaternary Adriatic basin have been reconstructed and cronostratigraphically calibrated integrating different methodologies (AMS 14C, d18O, bio- e magnetostratigraphy,
tephrocronology, palinology); such a scheme can be used for global scale correlations with other continental margins. The late-Quaternary glacio-eustatic cycle (0-120 kyr) is recorded by several units; the recentmost one (high-stand deposits - HST) is made up of the deposits formed after the maximum marine ingression occurred 5 kyr B.P. at the end of the faster phase of sea-level rise started at 18 kyr B.P. The base of HST unit is represented by the Maximum Flooding Surface (MFS); this surface is sinchronous and corresponds in the marine setting to a moment of minimum sedimentation rate, due to the shoreline retreat during transgression and the entrapment of fluvial sediments in continental setting. In the following phase when sediment volume carried to the sea begins to exceed the space made available for sediment accumulation (accommodation), the shoreline starts to move seaward, generating a prograding coastal wedge (high-stand deposits).
In the Adriatic basin the thickness of HST wedge is controlled by both the Po plain and Apenninic sediment input and the geostrophic circulation which distribute sediments against the western (italian) shoreline limiting the
dispersion toward the basin center; depocenters are thus localized along the shoreline and particularly near the main deltas (25 m of HST sediments in the Scardovari 1 well - a continuous coring well drilled in the Sacca di
Scardovari, Po delta).
The HST unit provide a complete high-resolution record of the climatic events and of the environmental and antropic changes ciclically occurred during the last 5 kyrs. This time interval is characterized by the development of human civlization; for this reason it is crucial for the best comprehension of how climatic changes affect human activity provoking complex feedback relationships between all the factors. The marine HST deposits represent a unique opportunity to elaborate independent models of the sedimentary response of a basin or of a single dep
ositional system to high-frequency cyclic events at a variable time scale. The Adriatic basin is particularly indicated for such kind of studies due to the high-sedimentation rates and the correlability with available lacustrine paleoclimatic records and historical-archeological data from continental sorrounding areas.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES
The main aims of this task are the following:
1) the characterization in detail of HST deposits distribution in the Adriatic basin using the available seismic database;
2) the correlation of HST marine deposits with coeval continental deposits in the coastal plain areas of the Adriatic sea, using all the available well, archeological and historical data;
3) the interdisciplinary paleoclimatic study of the late Holocene interval using different proxies (susceptibility and other magnetic properties of sediments, foraminifera, pollen and organic carbon), using the available wells and shallow cores;
4) the chronologic and genetic definition (autocyclic vs allocyclic) of the very high-frequency sedimentary cycles recognizable in the HST unit;
5) the geometric modeling at different time scales (103-102-101 years) of the HST deposits as a function of sediment input, basin and land area morphology and sediment distribution by oceanographic processes.
WORKPLAN
The study will be carried out on the available high-resolution seismic profiles (9500 nautical miles), 90 cores (conventional cores in the HST) and shallow borehole data (Scardovari 1), collected in the Adriatic basin during recent years (1991-1997). The first working phase will be the reconstruction of the physical stratigraphic framework of the HST wedge of the Adriatic basin; this will be obtained with the definition of basic seismic units recognizable on a basin-wide scale, based on geometries and sedimentary facies; these units will be dated with AMS 14C determinations on Mollusk shells, Foraminifera tests and organic-rich horizons.
In the subsequent phase, the recognized units will be carefully studied on a interdisciplinary bases using different paleoclimatic proxies; during this phase a large number of accurate analysis (magnetic properties of sediments, foraminifera, pollen and organic carbon) will be carried out for the recognition of sedimentary cycles and their genetic meaning. The AMS 14C determinations will refine the cronostratigraphy of the subunits that have contrasting climatic meaning.
Staff
IGM-CNR M. Roveri scientist sedim., strat. sequenziale
A. Correggiari scientist sedim., strat. sequenziale
In order to start the discussion between the SINAPSI community on multidisciplinary climate issues, the SINAPSI Scientific Steering Committee15 (SSC) recommended to form four Working Groups . The aim of each group would be to analyze the state of the art and develop new methodologies of approach to important climate variability issues considered in SINAPSI. The Working Groups should overview the observational and modeling evidence for each topic and produce a final document which will synthesize the work and propose strategies to coordinate the scientific activities in the future. The four thematic groups are as follows:
The Eastern Mediterranean climatic event and its evolution. Possible future climatic scenarios. This working group will synthesize the observational and modeling knowledge of the climatic event occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean and correlate all the parameters of the ecosystem before and after its occurrence. Possible future climatic scenarios will be defined and new methodologies of investigations discussed.
Where is the Mediterranean ecosystem climate going toward?The functioning of the Mediterranean ecosystem as a whole will be discussed and synthesized, in its pelagic and benthic subparts, both at overall basin and regional scales, and the correlations between physical climatic parameters and the high trophic levels will be clarified.
The transfer functions of the climate system: Mediterranean examples.The usage of proxy data to infer the behavior of other parameters (such as temperature of the air or the water column, precipitation abundance, primary productivity, phytoplankton dominant species,etc.) will be analyzed and criticized. The hypothesis required to extrapolate from localized proxy data to larger areas will be critically assessed and new methodologies outlined.
A long term climate monitoring station in the Mediterranean Sea: feasibility study. SINAPSI will try to define the technical and scientific requirements for the installation of a permanent multisensor measuring open ocean station which could monitor and transmit in almost real time to a land station the state of the marine ecosystem and its multiyear fluctuations. This station promises to be the first multiparametric automatic transmission station for climatic monitoring in the Mediterranean.
/AMS dating. Furthermore, they act as archives for some important parameters of past circulation by incorporating in their 
, stable carbon and oxygen information of the water column properties (temperature, salinity, isotopic composition). Moreover, these carbonates are prone to be analyzed also for other geochemical indicators, as, for example, SrCa ratios similarly to what done on shallow water corals. The study of this peculiar and widespread carbonate faces must be seen as an important window to be opened on aspects of paleocirculation not easily obtainable through the standard use of planktic and benthic forams. As such, their use in modern paleoceanography is getting momentum (Cheng et al., 1995, adkins et al., 1995)