Climatic and in-cave influences on δ18O and δ13C in a stalagmite from northeastern India through the last deglaciation

Franziska A. Lechleitner; Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach; Hai Cheng; Birgit Plessen; Kira Rehfeld; Bedartha Goswami; Norbert Marwan; Deniz Eroglu; Jess Adkins; Gerald Haug

doi:10.1017/qua.2017.72

Climatic and in-cave influences on δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C in a stalagmite from northeastern India through the last deglaciation

Franziska A. Lechleitner, Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach, Hai Cheng, Birgit Plessen, Kira Rehfeld, Bedartha Goswami, Norbert Marwan, Deniz Eroglu, Jess Adkins, Gerald Haug

Earth and Environmental Sciences-Twin Cities

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

Northeastern (NE) India experiences extraordinarily pronounced seasonal climate, governed by the Indian summer monsoon (ISM). The vulnerability of this region to floods and droughts calls for detailed and highly resolved paleoclimate reconstructions to assess the recurrence rate and driving factors of ISM changes. We use stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios (d18O and δ¹³C) from stalagmite MAW-6 from Mawmluh Cave to infer climate and environmental conditions in NE India over the last deglaciation (16-6 ka). We interpret stalagmite δ¹⁸O as reflecting ISM strength, whereas δ¹³C appears to be driven by local hydroclimate conditions. Pronounced shifts in ISM strength over the deglaciation are apparent from the δ¹⁸O record, similarly to other records from monsoonal Asia. The ISM is weaker during the late glacial (LG) period and the Younger Dryas, and stronger during the Bølling-Allerød and Holocene. Local conditions inferred from the δ¹³C record appear to have changed less substantially over time, possibly related to the masking effect of changing precipitation seasonality. Time series analysis of the d18O record reveals more chaotic conditions during the late glacial and higher predictability during the Holocene, likely related to the strengthening of the seasonal recurrence of the ISM with the onset of the Holocene.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	458-471
Number of pages	14
Journal	Quaternary Research (United States)
Volume	88
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2017.72
State	Published - Nov 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Fond (SNF Sinergia grant CRSI22 132646/1 and grant P2EZP2_172213), the German Science Foundation (DFG project MA4759/8-1—Impacts of uncertainties in climate data analysis [IUCliD]: approaches to working with measurements as a series of probability distributions—and grant no. RE3994-1/1), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants 4123054 and 2013CB955902, the U.S. National Science Foundation grant 1103403, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 691037 (QUEST). We thank our Indian colleagues Bijay Mipun and Gregory Diengdoh for their logistic help. We thank Daniel Gebauer for support during fieldwork. We also thank Lydia Zehnder and Stewart Bishop (both at ETH Zürich) for assistance during XRD and stable isotope analysis, respectively. Tim Eglinton is acknowledged for financial support of F.A.L. We thank Ashish Sinha, Max Berkelhammer, James Baldini, Yanjun Cai, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback and fruitful discussions on this and earlier versions of this manuscript. We thank the editors, Matthew Lachniet and Lewis Owen, for feedback and handling of the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Keywords

Carbon isotopes
Deglaciation
Indian Summer Monsoon
Oxygen isotopes
Stalagmite

Publisher link

10.1017/qua.2017.72

Find It

Find It at U of M Libraries

Cite this

@article{833c7d306b2c4ad2b3c572afc27f1b94,

title = "Climatic and in-cave influences on δ18O and δ13C in a stalagmite from northeastern India through the last deglaciation",

abstract = "Northeastern (NE) India experiences extraordinarily pronounced seasonal climate, governed by the Indian summer monsoon (ISM). The vulnerability of this region to floods and droughts calls for detailed and highly resolved paleoclimate reconstructions to assess the recurrence rate and driving factors of ISM changes. We use stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios (d18O and δ13C) from stalagmite MAW-6 from Mawmluh Cave to infer climate and environmental conditions in NE India over the last deglaciation (16-6 ka). We interpret stalagmite δ18O as reflecting ISM strength, whereas δ13C appears to be driven by local hydroclimate conditions. Pronounced shifts in ISM strength over the deglaciation are apparent from the δ18O record, similarly to other records from monsoonal Asia. The ISM is weaker during the late glacial (LG) period and the Younger Dryas, and stronger during the B{\o}lling-Aller{\o}d and Holocene. Local conditions inferred from the δ13C record appear to have changed less substantially over time, possibly related to the masking effect of changing precipitation seasonality. Time series analysis of the d18O record reveals more chaotic conditions during the late glacial and higher predictability during the Holocene, likely related to the strengthening of the seasonal recurrence of the ISM with the onset of the Holocene.",

keywords = "Carbon isotopes, Deglaciation, Indian Summer Monsoon, Oxygen isotopes, Stalagmite",

author = "Lechleitner, \{Franziska A.\} and Breitenbach, \{Sebastian F.M.\} and Hai Cheng and Birgit Plessen and Kira Rehfeld and Bedartha Goswami and Norbert Marwan and Deniz Eroglu and Jess Adkins and Gerald Haug",

note = "Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Fond (SNF Sinergia grant CRSI22 132646/1 and grant P2EZP2\_172213), the German Science Foundation (DFG project MA4759/8-1—Impacts of uncertainties in climate data analysis [IUCliD]: approaches to working with measurements as a series of probability distributions—and grant no. RE3994-1/1), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants 4123054 and 2013CB955902, the U.S. National Science Foundation grant 1103403, and the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under the Marie Sk{\l}odowska-Curie grant agreement no. 691037 (QUEST). We thank our Indian colleagues Bijay Mipun and Gregory Diengdoh for their logistic help. We thank Daniel Gebauer for support during fieldwork. We also thank Lydia Zehnder and Stewart Bishop (both at ETH Z{\"u}rich) for assistance during XRD and stable isotope analysis, respectively. Tim Eglinton is acknowledged for financial support of F.A.L. We thank Ashish Sinha, Max Berkelhammer, James Baldini, Yanjun Cai, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback and fruitful discussions on this and earlier versions of this manuscript. We thank the editors, Matthew Lachniet and Lewis Owen, for feedback and handling of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2017.",

year = "2017",

month = nov,

doi = "10.1017/qua.2017.72",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "88",

pages = "458--471",

journal = "Quaternary Research (United States)",

issn = "0033-5894",

publisher = "Cambridge University Press",

number = "3",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Climatic and in-cave influences on δ18O and δ13C in a stalagmite from northeastern India through the last deglaciation

AU - Lechleitner, Franziska A.

AU - Breitenbach, Sebastian F.M.

AU - Cheng, Hai

AU - Plessen, Birgit

AU - Rehfeld, Kira

AU - Goswami, Bedartha

AU - Marwan, Norbert

AU - Eroglu, Deniz

AU - Adkins, Jess

AU - Haug, Gerald

N1 - Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Fond (SNF Sinergia grant CRSI22 132646/1 and grant P2EZP2_172213), the German Science Foundation (DFG project MA4759/8-1—Impacts of uncertainties in climate data analysis [IUCliD]: approaches to working with measurements as a series of probability distributions—and grant no. RE3994-1/1), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) grants 4123054 and 2013CB955902, the U.S. National Science Foundation grant 1103403, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 691037 (QUEST). We thank our Indian colleagues Bijay Mipun and Gregory Diengdoh for their logistic help. We thank Daniel Gebauer for support during fieldwork. We also thank Lydia Zehnder and Stewart Bishop (both at ETH Zürich) for assistance during XRD and stable isotope analysis, respectively. Tim Eglinton is acknowledged for financial support of F.A.L. We thank Ashish Sinha, Max Berkelhammer, James Baldini, Yanjun Cai, and two anonymous reviewers for constructive feedback and fruitful discussions on this and earlier versions of this manuscript. We thank the editors, Matthew Lachniet and Lewis Owen, for feedback and handling of the manuscript. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2017.

PY - 2017/11

Y1 - 2017/11

N2 - Northeastern (NE) India experiences extraordinarily pronounced seasonal climate, governed by the Indian summer monsoon (ISM). The vulnerability of this region to floods and droughts calls for detailed and highly resolved paleoclimate reconstructions to assess the recurrence rate and driving factors of ISM changes. We use stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios (d18O and δ13C) from stalagmite MAW-6 from Mawmluh Cave to infer climate and environmental conditions in NE India over the last deglaciation (16-6 ka). We interpret stalagmite δ18O as reflecting ISM strength, whereas δ13C appears to be driven by local hydroclimate conditions. Pronounced shifts in ISM strength over the deglaciation are apparent from the δ18O record, similarly to other records from monsoonal Asia. The ISM is weaker during the late glacial (LG) period and the Younger Dryas, and stronger during the Bølling-Allerød and Holocene. Local conditions inferred from the δ13C record appear to have changed less substantially over time, possibly related to the masking effect of changing precipitation seasonality. Time series analysis of the d18O record reveals more chaotic conditions during the late glacial and higher predictability during the Holocene, likely related to the strengthening of the seasonal recurrence of the ISM with the onset of the Holocene.

AB - Northeastern (NE) India experiences extraordinarily pronounced seasonal climate, governed by the Indian summer monsoon (ISM). The vulnerability of this region to floods and droughts calls for detailed and highly resolved paleoclimate reconstructions to assess the recurrence rate and driving factors of ISM changes. We use stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios (d18O and δ13C) from stalagmite MAW-6 from Mawmluh Cave to infer climate and environmental conditions in NE India over the last deglaciation (16-6 ka). We interpret stalagmite δ18O as reflecting ISM strength, whereas δ13C appears to be driven by local hydroclimate conditions. Pronounced shifts in ISM strength over the deglaciation are apparent from the δ18O record, similarly to other records from monsoonal Asia. The ISM is weaker during the late glacial (LG) period and the Younger Dryas, and stronger during the Bølling-Allerød and Holocene. Local conditions inferred from the δ13C record appear to have changed less substantially over time, possibly related to the masking effect of changing precipitation seasonality. Time series analysis of the d18O record reveals more chaotic conditions during the late glacial and higher predictability during the Holocene, likely related to the strengthening of the seasonal recurrence of the ISM with the onset of the Holocene.

KW - Carbon isotopes

KW - Deglaciation

KW - Indian Summer Monsoon

KW - Oxygen isotopes

KW - Stalagmite

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85050997891

UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85050997891&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1017/qua.2017.72

DO - 10.1017/qua.2017.72

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85050997891

SN - 0033-5894

VL - 88

SP - 458

EP - 471

JO - Quaternary Research (United States)

JF - Quaternary Research (United States)

IS - 3

ER -