Flevoland (central Netherlands) is an area of long-term discontinuous deposition that has been reclaimed from the Zuiderzee in the 20th century. Before the reclamation, the Zuiderzee had been in a phase of enlargement, threatening inhabitants on the islands and the shores, since the Medieval Period. During this phase, a surficial clay cover was deposited on the island of Schokland (World Heritage Site: Noordoostpolder, northern Flevoland). We have studied the clay sequence in order to reconstruct the island’s flooding history during the last 1200 years. The depositional history of the youngest clay deposit on Schokland is inferred from a literature study, analyses of a digital elevation model, six coring transects, three new 14C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates and laboratory analyses. The laboratory analyses include thermogravimetric analysis, grain-size end-member modelling (unmixing grain-size distributions), foraminifera, bivalves and ostracods. The geological data were combined with information from historical archives. Together, the results show that a combination of embankments and proximity to the coastline determined the sedimentation history and spatial distribution pattern of the sediment. The results also indicate that sedimentary remains of Late Holocene storm events are still present in the clay deposit on Schokland.

Strong-wind events occur 10–20 times per year at Kohnen Station, East Antarctica (75°00′S, 0°04′E, 2892 m above sea level), and are often caused by warm-core cyclones in the north-eastern Weddell Sea. An uncommon event occurred in January 2002, when blocking both in the south Atlantic Ocean and in the south Tasman Sea caused a split-up of the circumpolar vortex, and large amounts of heat and moisture were transported onto the Antarctic Plateau. During strong-wind events over the plateau the near-surface temperature can increase by tens of degrees, which is partly caused by the advection of heat, but for an important part by the destruction of the stable temperature-deficit layer by enhanced vertical mixing. The temperature rise is larger during the winter/night than during the summer/day, due to a better-developed temperature deficit. Snowdrift during the January 2002 event linearly increased surface roughness for momentum with friction velocity, for values over about 0.18 m s-1. The cloud cover during the event reduced down-welling solar radiation by 32%, and increased the albedo from about 0.86 to 0.92. Changes in longwave radiation largely cancelled the daytime changes in shortwave radiation, thus net radiation was most affected at night.