Climate variability in New England during the Holocene

Climate-scale climate variability in New England during the Holocene: New insights from compound-specific hydrogen isotope analysis. This research aims to acquire the first set of centennial-scale, high-resolution hydrogen isotope records of Holocene climate variations for New England from five selected lakes. We will apply the new approach of compound-specific hydrogen isotope analyses of palmitic acid, which has been validated by an extensive calibration using surface lake sediments and downcore studies (Huang et al., 2002).

The lakes selected lie in a south to north transect, and have similar hydrology to Crooked Pond, MA which has been shown to record the temperature changes for the last 14,000 cal. years (Huang et al., 2002; Shuman et al., 2003). One core (Pout Pond) has annual lamination, allowing further calibration of our hydrogen isotope proxy against instrumental records. The approach is particularly suited for studying New England lakes because carbonate minerals (which have provided numerous high-resolution climate records based on d¹⁸O values) are not preserved in New England lake sediments.

The proposed study will provide new and independent measurements of Holocene climate change in New England with resolution more than one order of magnitude higher than currently available data (mainly pollen assemblages and lake level data). Such high-resolution data are important for detecting the amplitude, exact timing, abruptness, periodicities and spatial patterns of the Holocene climate variations in New England and Eastern North America. New England provides a key terrestrial archive because its climate is highly sensitive to North Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, atmospheric circulation patterns related to ice sheet extent, and changes in insolation forcing. Consequently, New England offers an ideal setting to assess century-scale climate variability influenced by changes in North Atlantic (Bond et al., 1997, 2001), to examine marine-terrestrial-atmosphere-cryosphere connections, and to understand the climate forcing mechanisms (e.g., externally versus internally forced). The proposed work meets several of ESHs priority areas, specifically collect new Holocene paleoclimate records from key terrestrial . archives, examine marine-terrestrial-atmosphere-cryosphere connections and North American climate response, and characterize and quantify the response of the various components of the Earth system to rapid changes in climate.

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