Climate of the Past www.clim-past.net 1814-9324 1814-9332 3 3 2007 10.5194/cp-3-513-2007 http://www.clim-past.net/3/513/2007/ http://www.clim-past.net/3/513/2007/cp-3-513-2007.html http://www.clim-past.net/3/513/2007/cp-3-513-2007.pdf 513 526 2007-08-28 Surface thermal perturbations of the recent past at low latitudes – inferences based on borehole temperature data from Eastern Brazil V. M. Hamza hamza@on.br A. S. B. Cavalcanti L. C. C. Benyosef Observatório Nacional – ON/MCT, Rua General José Cristino, 77, São Cristóvão, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Exploration and Production – SERV/US-SUB/GDS, PETROBRÁS S/A, Macaé, Rio de Janeiro Borehole temperature data from the eastern parts of Brazil has been examined in an attempt to extract information on surface thermal perturbations of the recent past at low latitudes. Forward models were employed in the analysis of temperature logs from 17 localities and, in addition, Bayesian inverse modeling was carried out for data from 14 selected sites. The model results have allowed determination of the magnitude as well as the duration of ground surface temperature (GST) changes in three major geographic zones of Brazil. Prominent among such changes are the warming episodes that occurred over much of the subtropical highland regions in the southeastern parts of Brazil. The present magnitude of GST changes in this region are in the range of 2 to 3.5°C but have had their beginning during the early decades of the 20th century. Nearly similar trends are also seen in temperature-depth profiles of bore holes in the subtropical humid zones of the interior and coastal areas of southern Brazil. The data from semi arid zones of northeast Brazil also indicate occurrence of surface warming events but the magnitudes are in the range of 1.4 to 2.2°C while the duration of the warming event is larger, extending back into the last decades of the 19th century. There are indications that changes in both climate and vegetation cover contribute to variations in GST. Thus the magnitudes of GST variations are relatively large in localities which have undergone changes in vegetation cover. Also there are indications that GST changes are practically insignificant in areas of tropical rain forest. Another important result emerging from model studies is that the climate was relatively cooler during the 17th and 18th centuries. The climate histories, deduced from geothermal data, are found to be consistent with results of available meteorological records in southern Brazil. Comparative studies also indicate that the magnitudes and duration of recent climate changes in southern and eastern Brazil are similar to those found in other continental areas such as North America, Asia and Europe. Appleyard, S. J.: Late Holocene temperature record from southwestern Australia: evidence of global warming from deep boreholes, Australian J. Earth Sci., 52, 161–166, 2005. Ara\'ujo, R. L. C.: Heat flow measurements in the Alkaline intrusive complex of Poços de Caldas (in Portuguese). Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 1978. Beltrami, H., Jessop, A. M., and Mareschal, J. C.: Ground temperature histories in eastern and central Canada from Geothermal measurements: Evidence of climatic change, Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Pallaeoecol., 98, 167–184, 1992. Beltrami, H. and Bourlon, E.: Ground warming patterns in the Northern Hemisphere during the past five centuries, Earth Plnet. Sci. Lett., 227, 169–177, 2004. Birch, F.: The effects of Pleistocene climatic variations upon geothermal gradients, Am. J. Sci., 246, 729–760, 1948. Bodri, L. and Cermak, V.: Climate changes of the last millennium inferred from borehole temperatures: results from the Czech Republic – Part I, Global and Planetary Change, 11, 111–125, 1995. Carslaw, H. S. and Jaeger, J. C.: Conduction of Heat in Solids, 386pp, Oxford University Press, New York, 1959. Cavalcanti, A. S. B.: Palaeoclimate variations in Brazil based on the geothermal method (in Portuguese), Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, Observatório Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2003. Cavalcanti, A. S. B. and Hamza, V. M., Climate changes of the recent past in southern parts of Brazil (Extended abstract), 7th International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society, Salvador (BA), Brazil, 1–4, 2001. Cermak, V.: Underground temperature and inferred climatic temperature of the past millennium, Palaeogrogr., Palaeoclimatol., Palaeoecol., 10, 1–19, 1971. Cerrone, B. N. and Hamza, V. M.: Climate changes of the recent past in the state of Rio de Janeiro, based on the geothermal method (Extended abstract in Portuguese), 8th International Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society – SBGf, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1–4, 2003. Chisholm, T. J. and Chapman, D. S.: Climate change inferred from analysis of borehole temperatures: an example from western Utah, J. Geophys. Res., 97, 14 155–14 175, 1992. Conceição, E. and Hamza, V. M.: Subsurface thermal signals of the greenhouse effect in the state of São Paulo (Extended Abstract in Portuguese), 2nd International Symposium of the Brazilian Geophysical Society – SBGf, Natal (RN), Brazil, 1–6, 2006. Cull, J. P.: Climatic corrections to Australian heat flow data. BMR Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics, 4, 303–307, 1979. Cull, J. P.: Geothermal records of climate change in New South Wales, Search, 11(6), 201–203, 1980. Del Rey, A. C.: Hydrogeothermal studies of the regions of Águas de Lindoia, Amparo e Socorro – Northeastern parts of the state of São Paulo (in Portuguese), Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 1989. Del rey, A. C. and Hamza, V. M.: Terrestrial heat flow variations in the northeastern part of the state of São Paulo: A case for transport of geothermal heat by inter-fracture fluid flows, in: Hydrogeological regimes and their subsurface thermal effects, edited by: Beck, A. E., Garven, G. and Stegena, L., Geophysical Monograph, 47, IUGG volume 2, American Geophysical Union, Washington, 137–148, 1989. Duchkov, A. D. and Sokolova, L. S.: Investigation of temperature changes at the Earth's surface via borehole geothermometry, in: Problems of climatic recontruction and enviroment of the Holocene and Pleistocene in Siberia (in Russian), 1, 151–157, Nauk, Novosibirsk, Russia, 1998. Eston, S. M., Hamza, V. M., Becker, E. A., and Furumoto, S.: Geothermal research in exploration of hydrocarbons in the Paraná basin (in Portuguese), Internal Report, No. 18106, Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnológicas, São Paulo, Brazil, 1982. Golovanova, I. V., Harris, R. N., Selezniova, G. V. and Stulc, P.: Evidence of climate warming in the southern Urals region derived from borehole temperatures and meteorological data, Global and Planetary Change, 29, 167–188, 2001. Gomes, A. J. L.: Assessment of Geothermal Resources of the state of Rio de Janeiro (in Portuguese), Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, National Observatory, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). 138pp, 2003. Gomes, A. J. L. and Hamza, V. M.: Geothermal gradients and heat flow in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian J. of Geophysics, 23, 4, 325–348, 2005. Gosnold, W. D., Todhunter, P. E. and Schmidt, W.: The borehole temperature record of climate warming in the mid continent of North America, Global and Planetary Change, 15, 33–45, 1997. Hamza, V. M.: Terrestrial heat flow in the alkaline intrusive complex of Poços de Caldas, Brazil. Tectonophysics, 83, 45–62, 1982. Hamza, V. M.: A proposal for continuous recording of subsurface temperatures at the sites of Geomagnetic field Observatories. Rev. Geofísica, 48, 183–198, 1998. Hamza, V. M.: Recent climate changes in the southern hemisphere: the geothermal evidence (In Portuguese), Proceedings 2nd Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society, Salvador (BA), 971–973, 1991. Hamza, V. M. and Cavalcanti, A. S. B.: Thermal imprints of changes in vegetation cover and climate patterns in borehole temperature profiles in Brazil (Abstract), IAGA-IASPEI Assembly, Hanoi, Vietnam, Book of Abstracts, 413-414, 2001. Hamza, V. M., Cerrone, B. N., Gomes, A. J. L., Cardoso, R. A.: A Geothermal Climate Change Observatory in the Southern Hemisphere (Abstract), Proceedings of XXIII General Assembly, IUGG, Sapporo, Japan, v. A, p197, 2003. Hamza, V. M., Eston, S. M., Araujo, R. L. C., Vitorello, I., and Ussami, N.: Brazilian Geothermal Data Collection – Series-1, Publication IPT No. 1109, 1–316, 1978. Hamza, V. M., Frangipani, A. and Becker, E. A.: Geothermal Maps of Brazil (In Portuguese) Internal Report No. 25305, Instituto de Pesquisas Tecnologicas, São Paulo, Brazil, 1987. Hamza, V. M. and Muñoz, M.: Heat flow map of South America, Geothermics, 25(6), 599–646, 1996. Hamza, V. M., Ribeiro, F. B., and Becker, E. A.: Recent Climatic Changes in the Southern Hemisphere. \textitXX General Assembly, IUGG, Vienna (Austria), 1991. Hamza, V. M., Silva Dias, F. J. S., Gomes, A. J. L., and Terceros, Z. G. D.: Numerical and functional representations of regional heat flow in South América. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 152, 223–256, 2005. Harris, R. N. and Chapman, D. S.: Mid-Latitude (30–60 N) climatic warming inferred by combining borehole temperatures with surface air temperatures, Geophys. Res. Lett., 28, 747–750, 2001. Huang, S., Pollack, H. N. Wang, J., and Cermak, V.; Ground surface temperature histories inverted from subsurface temperatures of two boreholes located in Panxi, SW China. Journal of Southeast Asian Earth Sciences, 12, 113–120, 1995. Huang, S., Pollack, H. N., and Shen, P. Y.: Temperature trends over the past five centuries reconstructed from borehole temperatures, Nature, 403, 756–758, 2000. Jones, W. Q. W., Tyson, P. D., and Cooper, G. P. R.: Modeling climate change in South Africa from perturbed borehole temperature profiles, Quaternary International, 57/58, 185–192, 1999. Lachenbruch, A. H., Claudouhos, T. T., and Saltus, R. W.: Permafrost temperature and the changing climate, Proc. Fifth International Conference on Permafrost, Trondheim, Norway, 1–9, 1988. Lachenbruch, A. H., Sass, J. H., and Marshall, B. V.: Changing Climate: Geothermal Evidence from Permafrost in the Alaskan Artic, Science, 234, 689–696, 1986. Lachenbruch, A. H., Sass, J. H., Marshall, B. V., and Moses, T. H. Jr.: Permafrost, heat flow and geothermal regime at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, J. Geophys. Res., 87, 9301–9316, 1982. Lewis, T. and Wang, K.: Geothermal evidence for deforestation induced warming: Implications for the climatic impact of land development, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25(4), 535–538, 1998. Majorowicz, J. A. and Safanda, J.: Composite surface temperature history from simultaneous inversion of borehole temperatures in western Canadian plains, Global Planetary Change, 29, 231–239, 2001. Pollack, H. N. and Huang, S.: Climate reconstruction from subsurface temperatures, Ann. Rev. Earth. Planet. Sci., 28, 339–365, 2000. Pollack, H. N. and Smerdon, J. E.: Borehole climate reconstructions: spatial structure and hemispheric averages, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D11106, doi:10.1029/2003JD004, 2004. Pollack, H. N., Huang, S., and Smerdon, J. E.: Five centuries of climate change in Australia: The view from underground, J. Quat. Sci., 21(7), 701–706, 2006. Press, W. H., Flannery, B. P., Teukolsky, S. A., and Vetterling, W. T.: Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (U.S.A.), pp 818, 1986. Rajver, D., Safanda, J. and Shen, P. Y.: The climate record inverted from borehole temperatures in Slovenia, Tectonophysics, 291, 263–276, 1998. Ribeiro, F.: Study of the problem of determination of equilibrium temperatures in boreholes (in Portuguese), Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 187pp, 1988. Ribeiro, F.: Reconstruction of the climate change from geothermal profiles: Advances in Theory (in Portuguese), Proceedings 2nd Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society, Salvador (BA), 959–964, 1991. Rimi, A.: Evidence of recent warming in the north of Morocco from disturbed geothermal gradients, Geodinamica Acta 1, 19–27, 2000. Roy, S., Harris, R. N., Rao, R. U. M., and Chapman, D. S.: Climate change in India inferred from geothermal observations, J. Geophys. Res., 107(B7), 1–16, 2002. Safanda, J. and Rajver, D.: Signature of last ice age in the present subsurface temperatures in the Czech Republic and Slovenia, Global and Planetary Change, 29, 241–257, 2001. Santos, J.: Heat flow density measurements in the northern parts of the Paraná basin (in Portuguese), Unpublished M.Sc. Thesis, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, 124pp, 1986. Santos, J., Hamza, V. M., and Shen, P. Y.: A method for measurement of terrestrial heat flow density in water wells, Brazilian J. Geophysics, 4, 45–53, 1986. Shen, P. Y. and Beck, A. E.: Least square inversion of borehole temperature measurement in functional space, J. Geophys. Res., 96, 19 9650-19 979, 1991. Shen, P. Y. and Beck, A. E.: Palaeoclimate and heat flow density inferred from temperature data in the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield, Global and Planetary Change, 98, 143–165, 1992. Shen, P. Y. Wang, K., Beltrami, H., and Mareschal, J.-C.: A comparative study of inverse methods for estimating climatic history from borehole temperature data, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 98, 113–127, 1992. Shen, P. Y., Pollack, H. N., and Huang, S.: Inference of ground surface temperature history from borehole temperature data: a comparison of two inverse methods, Global and Planetary Change, 14, 49–57, 1996. Souza, J. R. S., Ara\'ujo, R. L. C., and Makino, M.: Transient variations in shallow thermal profiles associated with microclimatic changes in the Amazon (in Portuguese), Proceedings 2nd Congress of the Brazilian Geophysical Society, Salvador (BA), 965–970, 1991. Stulc, P., Golovanova, I. V., and Selezniova, G. V.: Climate change record in the Earth – Example of borehole data analysis in the Urals region, Russia, Phys. Chem. Earth, 23, 1109–1114, 1998. Taniguchi, M., Williamson, D. R., and Peck, A. J.: Disturbances of temperature-depth profiles due to surface climate change and subsurface water flow: 2. An effect of step increase in surface temperature caused by forest clearing in southwestern Australia, Water Resour. Res., 35, 1519–1529, 1999a. Taniguchi, M., Williamson, D. R., and Peck, A. J.: Estimations of surface temperature and subsurface heat flux following forest removal in the south-west of Western Australia, Hydrological Processes, 12, 2205–2216, 1999b. Tarantola, A. and Valette, B.: Inverse problems = quest for information, J. Geophys., 50, 159–170, 1982. Torok, S. and Nicholls, N.: An historical temperature record for Australia, Aust. Met. Mag., 45, 251–260, 1996. Tyson, P. D., Mason, S. J., Jones, M. Q., and Cooper, G. R.: Global warming and geothermal profiles: the surface rock-temperature response in South Africa, Geophys. Res. Lett., 25, 2711–2713, 1998. Vasseur, G., Bernard, Ph., van de Mentebrouch, J., Kast, Y., and Jolivet, J.: Holocene palaeotemperatures deduced from geothermal measurements, Paleogeography, Paleoclimatology, Palaeontology, 43, 237–259, 1983. Vitorello, I.: Heat flow and radiogenic heat production in Brazil, with implications for thermal evolution of continents. Ph. D. dissertation, Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., 1978. Vitorello, I., Hamza, V. M., Pollack, H. N., and Ara\'ujo, R. L. C.: Geothermal Investigations in Brazil, Rev. Bras. Geof., 8(2), 71–89, 1978.