Abstract ATM-9423020 Wright, Herbert E. University off Minnesota Title: Late-Glacial Climate Transition in the Near East This research project will focus on the nature and timing of late- glacial climatic transitions in the Near East, primarily by stable- isotope studies of lacustrine carbonates. Our current understanding of climate change in the region is based on pollen studies conducted before adequate models of insolation-driven climatic changes became available. Hence, the proposed investigation is specifically aimed at reevaluating past climate changes in the Near East in terms of changes in insolation as well as the shift in global atmospheric circulation patterns accompanying the retreat of the Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. Stable-isotope stratigraphy of late-glacial to Holocene abrupt changes in moisture-balance will be developed from cores with carbonate-rich sediments from four lakes in little known parts of the Near East. The objective is to test the coherency of rapid change along a climatic transect.
