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Atmospheric Circulation during the Last Ice Age

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

H. H. Lamb  and
A. Woodroffe
H. H. Lamb
Affiliation:
Meteorological Office, Bracknell, England
A. Woodroffe
Affiliation:
Meteorological Office, Bracknell, England
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Abstract

The prevailing surface temperatures in summer and winter at several different stages of the last ice age, indicated at various points scattered over the Northern Hemisphere, by botanical, glaciological, marine biological, oceanographic, etc. evidence, are used to derive probable distributions of 1000−500 mbar thickness, roughly equivalent to mean temperature of the lowest 5 km of the atmosphere and indicating the general flow pattern of the atmosphere in depth. From these thermal wind patterns computation of the tendency to cyclonic and anticyclonic development is possible. Maps of this development field, taken together with the indicated steering of surface cyclones and anticyclones by the thermal winds, make it possible to sketch probable distributions of surface pressure (and, by implication, surface winds) prevailing during each of the glacial stages studied. New light is thrown on the onset of glaciation and on the regimes associated with the maximum extent of glaciation, with the Alleröd warm epoch and the Post-Alleröd cold stage when there was some readvance of the ice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , September 1970 , pp. 29 - 58
Copyright
University of Washington

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