Date

Call for Expression of Interest
Proposed Special Session at American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2004
"Paleoecological Approaches to Late Quaternary Climate Change and
Landscape Evolution in the Circumarctic"

To express interest or for further information, please e-mail:
Wendy R. Eisner, University of Cincinnati
E-mail: Wendy.Eisner [at] uc.edu

Kenneth M. Hinkel, University of Cincinnati
E-mail: Kenneth.Hinkel [at] uc.edu


Dear Colleagues,

We are thinking of proposing a special session at the 2004 AGU meeting
(13-17 December in San Francisco) titled: Paleoecological Approaches to
Late Quaternary Climate Change and Landscape Evolution in the
Circumarctic.

We have contacted the chair of the AGU Cryosphere Focus group, Mark
Williams, and he is very supportive. Below is our draft abstract. We
would like to know if there is community interest in the session. Please
send us an email if you think you might consider submitting an abstract,
if you have suggestions for any changes in the abstract, and/or you
might be interested in also proposing a related session.

PROPOSED SESSION DESCRIPTION
Interdisciplinary research in the Arctic has grown in the past decade,
and paleoenvironmental research has been in the forefront of this
effort. The emphasis on Arctic System Science has encouraged the
development of cooperative projects with researchers focusing on a broad
range of paleoclimatic questions. Arctic paleoclimatologists are
addressing the importance of interpreting past archives of climate
change in conjunction with the study of landscape processes such as soil
development, vegetation succession, and cryogenic processes. The modern
Arctic environment is dominated by these dynamic processes, and the
challenge for Arctic paleoecologists is to understand the interaction of
climate and edaphic processes, and to differentiate between them.

This session focuses on climate and climate change in the late Glacial
and Holocene with emphasis on methods of climate reconstruction, spatial
and temporal scales of variability, evolutionary landscape processes,
and regional synthesis. These topics should be interpreted broadly, and
are not meant to be limiting. A primary goal is to promote interaction
between disciplines.

CONVENERS
Wendy R. Eisner, University of Cincinnati, USA
E-mail: Wendy.Eisner [at] uc.edu

Kenneth M. Hinkel, University of Cincinnati, USA
E-mail: Kenneth.Hinkel [at] uc.edu