Generating a benchmark record of Pliocene climate variability in Central Europe

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Matthias Hinderer; Professorin Dr. Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr; Professorin Dr. Laura Stutenbecker
• Subject Area: Geology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 543992614

In line with the increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO2) in Europe, significant challenges are emerging across sectors crucial to society, including agriculture, forestry, water management, and human health. However, climate model predictions used to anticipate future European climatic changes often exhibit substantial uncertainties. Therefore, exploring geological analogues for future climate conditions becomes a promising approach for climate predictions. Anticipated global climate conditions are expected to closely resemble those of the mid-Pliocene by 2030, potentially stabilizing at early Pliocene temperature levels with reduced emission trajectories until 2100. Consequently, studying Pliocene climate in Europe can yield crucial insights into climate dynamics expected to unfold in the near future in one of the world's most densely populated and industrialized regions. Yet, detailed studies on the paleoclimatic evolution of Europe during the Pliocene are currently limited. This proposal seeks to establish a comprehensive record of climate change in Central Europe from early to late Pliocene (2.5 to 4.7 Ma). The project targets both high-pCO2 warm climate intervals and lower-pCO2 colder climate intervals during the Pliocene to evaluate the European hydroclimate's sensitivity to pCO2 changes. The chosen core, UniNord, from the Heidelberg Basin within the northern Rhine Graben, is well-suited based on its quasi-continuous deposition, providing orbital to suborbital-scale temporal resolution. It exhibits strong sensitivity to climate change with respect to lithological variability. The project utilizes a multi-proxy approach, incorporating facies analysis, XRF core scanning, spectral gamma ray, heavy mineral geochemistry, and clay mineralogy, complemented by numerical modeling. Additionally, through a thorough assessment of proxy data generation in terrestrial clastic successions, climatic information extraction will contribute to a pilot study for paleoclimatic reconstructions in other long-term continental records. Expected deliverables from this project include: - Insights into local and subregional depositional and climate variability in the Upper Rhine Graben during the Pliocene. - Identification of sediment source regions and transport processes contributing to UniNord's lithological variations. - Assessment of potential sediment-source-related biases for paleoclimatological investigations. - An astronomically tuned age model for the Pliocene succession of the core UniNord for the time interval between 4.5 and ~2.5 Ma. - The first high-resolution wet-dry record for the early to late Pliocene (~4.5–2.5 Ma) in Central Europe. - Sensitivity testing of Central European hydroclimate to pCO2 forcing, offering insight into the potential future hydroclimatic evolution of Central Europe.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants