On Climate Reconstruction using Bivalve Shells: Three Methods to Interpret the Chemical Signature of a Shell

Abstract

The chemical composition of a bivalve shell is strongly coupled to the seasonal variations in the environment. The nonlinear nature of this relation however makes it hard to predict, e.g. the temperature, from the chemical composition of a shell. In this paper we compare the ability of three nonlinear system identification methods to reconstruct the temperature from the chemical composition of a shell. The comparison shows that nonlinear multi-proxy approaches are potential tools for climate reconstructions with a preference for manifold based methods that results in smoother and a more precise temperature reconstruction.