The recent increase in typhoon (tropical cyclone) activity has attracted great interest and induced heated debates over whether it is linked to global warming or only a return to an active phase of the well-known multi-decadal variability. Due to the short instrumental record, our knowledge is quite scarce on the complex processes and mechanism of typhoon generation, development, and evolution, especially for the rare but highly destructive super-typhoons. It is therefore very important to extend the time span of typhoon activity records. Paleotempestology, a young science that emerged in the early 1990s, studies past typhoon activity spanning several centuries to millennia before the instrumental era through the use of geological proxies and historical documentary records. This paper presents a brief review and synthesis on the major research advances and findings of paleotempestology with an emphasis on proxy technique development and applications. The methodology has been evolving from single geologic proxy to multi-proxy techniques by integrating microfossils, sedimentary organic elemental ratios, and stable isotopes, together with typical sedimentary textures and structures, for the diagnosis of storm deposits. A newly-developed proxy technique is employing oxygen isotopes preserved in growing laminae of tree rings, cave stalagmites, and reef corals to diagnose typhoon rainwater impacts. Historical documentary records have been systematically compiled and analyzed to reconstruct the history of typhoon activity in some regions. The extracted typhoon-proxy data show that there does not exist a simple linear relationship between typhoon frequency and Holocene climate (temperature) change. Typhoon activity should have a secular and constant linkage with ENSO fluc- tuations, in that more typhoons and hurricanes make landfalls in China, Central and North America during La Ni?a years than El Ni?o years. This finding is consistent with that derived from recent in- strumental data. Shifts in positions of subtropical
A protocol was established for simultaneous measurements of zircon U-Pb ages and trace elements by LA-ICP-MS at spot sizes of 16 32 μm.This was accomplished by introducing N 2 into ICP to increase the sensitivity.The obtained U-Pb ages for zircon standards GJ-1,TEMORA and SK10-2 are consistent with the preferred values within about 1% uncertainty (2σ) by simple external calibration against zircon standard 91500.Different data reduction softwares could yield different uncertainties for calculation of U-Pb ages.The commercially available program GLITTER4.4 could apply an improper uncertainty calculation strategy,but it may yield artificial high precisions for single analyses.Our trace element analyses indicate that Si is not an ideal internal standard for zircon when calibrated against the NIST glasses.Calibration against the NIST glasses using Si as an internal standard,a systematic deviation of 10% 30% was found for most trace elements including Zr.However,the trace element compositions of zircon can be accurately measured by calibration against multiple reference materials with natural compositions (e.g.,BCR-2G,BHVO-2G and BIR-1G),or calibration against NIST SRM 610 and using Zr as an internal standard.Analyses of two pieces of GJ-1 demonstrate that it is relatively homogenous for most trace elements (except for Ti).
LIU YongShengHU ZhaoChuZONG KeQingGAO ChangGuiGAO ShanXU JuanCHEN HaiHong
