Moisture variability in the southwestern United States linked to abrupt glacial climate change

Wagner, J.; Cole, Julia E.; Beck, J. Warren; Patchett, P. Jonathan; Henderson, Gideon M.; Barnett, H.

doi:10.1038/ngeo707

Cited by 211 publications

(223 citation statements)

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“…A warm and arid period began around 13,000 14 C yBP (15,000 cal BP), culminating in a severe drought that coincided with mammoth extinction and Clovis occupation of the SPV (10,900 14 C yBP or 12,800 cal BP) (18). Immediately thereafter, the Younger Dryas (YD) period brought a return to cool, wet conditions (19) and deposition of an organic-rich "black mat" over the Clovis-age landscape (18).…”

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confidence: 99%

Isotopic paleoecology of Clovis mammoths from Arizona

Metcalfe

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Ballenger

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The causes of megafaunal extinctions in North America have been widely debated but remain poorly understood. Mammoths (Mammuthus spp.) in the American Southwest were hunted by Clovis people during a period of rapid climate change, just before the regional onset of Younger Dryas cooling and mammoth extirpation. Thus, these mammoths may provide key insights into late Pleistocene extinction processes. Here we reconstruct the seasonal diet and climatic conditions experienced by mammoths in the San Pedro Valley of Arizona, using the carbon ( 13 C/ 12 C) and oxygen ( 18 O/ 16 O) isotope compositions of tooth enamel. These records suggest that Clovis mammoths experienced a warm, dry climate with sufficient summer rainfall to support seasonal C 4 plant growth. Monsoon intensity may have been reduced relative to the preceding time period, but there is no isotopic evidence for severe drought. However, it is possible that the "Clovis drought", inferred from stratigraphic evidence, occurred suddenly at the end of the animals' lives and thus was not recorded in the enamel isotopic compositions. Unlike mammoths that lived before the Last Glacial Maximum, Clovis mammoths regularly increased C 4 grass consumption during summer, probably seeking seasonally green grasslands farther from the river valley. This predictable seasonal behavior may have made mammoths easier to locate by Clovis hunters. Furthermore, Clovis mammoths probably had no previous experience of such sudden climatic change as is believed to have occurred at the time of their extinction.geochemistry | stable isotopes | bioapatite | paleoclimate | Paleoindian

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confidence: 99%

Isotopic paleoecology of Clovis mammoths from Arizona

Metcalfe

Longstaffe

Ballenger

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The additional paleoclimate records, used for comparison are found denoted by the black stars and circles. Data from previous studies includes a ΔP-ET proxy using ( 234 U/ 238 U) 0 for pedogenic carbonates from Wind River, Wyoming (WR) (Sharp et al, 2003), deep vadose zone opal from Yucca Mountain (YM) (Paces et al, 2010) and pedogenic opal from Diamond Valley, Nevada (DV), Newark Valley, Nevada (NV), Fish Lake Valley, Nevada (FLV) and Barstow, California (BA) (Maher et al, in prep); vein calcite from Devils Hole, Nevada (DH) (Winograd et al, 2006); speleothem from Cave of the Bells, Arizona (COB) (Wagner et al, 2010); and the timing of lake highstands at Lake Bonneville, Utah (Oviatt et al, 1992); Lake Lahontan, Nevada (Adams and Wesnousky, 1998); Lake Newark, Nevada (Kurth et al, 2011); Lake Diamond, Nevada (Tackman, 1993); Lake Jakes Lake, Nevada (Garcia and Stokes, 2006); Lake Manly, California (Ku et al, 1998) and Searles Lake, California (Lin et al, 1998).…”

Section: Late Pleistocene Pluvial Lakes In Western North Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many authors have postulated a southward deflection of the jet stream and westerly storm tracks with increasing growth of the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets (Negrini, 2002;Benson et al, 1990;Adams and Wesnousky, 1998;Zic et al, 2002). Interpretations of several speleothem records, such as the Cave of the Bells record (Wagner et al, 2010) presented in Figure 10 have also invoked the shifting westerly winds as the atmospheric connection between increased rainfall and increased ice sheet extent (Oster et al, 2009;Asmeron et al, 2010). ka (Toggweiller et al, 2006;Lamy et al, 2007).…”

Section: Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lake level curves (right panel) are arranged approximately north to south. (a) NGRIP Greenland ice core δ 18 O on extended GICC05 timescale (Rasmussen et al, 2006), red line is smoothed at 1 %; (b) δ 18 O from Cave of the Bells (Wagner et al, 2010); (c) vein calcite δ 18 O from Devils Hole, Nevada (Winograd et al, 2006); (d) Alkenone SST proxy from Ocean Drilling Program sites 1012 (Liu et al, 2005) and 2020 (Liu, 2004); (e) reconstructed relative ΔP-ET (%) from Maher et al, (in prep) pink, Newark Valley; dark blue, Diamond Valley; light blue, Fish Lake Valley; purple, Yucca Mountain. (f) January and July insolation for 40˚N calculated using the program of (Laskar et al, 2004); (g) SPECMAP δ 18 O record (Martinson et al, 1987); (h) Chewaucan Basin relative lake level curve from sediment cores (Licciardi, 2001) and 230 Th-U dated tufa samples (this study); (i) Lake Surprise lake level fluctuations from 230 Th-U dated tufa samples (this study), BSE detrital corrected ages only; (j) and (k) Lake Lahontan, NV and Lake Bonneville, UT relative lake levels (Compiled by Brook et al, 2006, from McCoy, 1987Oviatt et al, 1987;Benson et al, 1990;Oviatt et al, 1992); (e) Lake Manly, CA lake level (m) (Ku et al, 1998); (f) Searles Lake, CA relative lake level (Smith, 1984); (i) Babicora Basin, Mexico relative lake level (Metcalfe et al, 2002).…”

Section: Recordsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Examples include δ 18 O and δ 13 C data from cave deposits (e.g. Oster et al, 2009;Wagner et al, 2010), basin analysis from lake sediment cores (e.g., Negrini et al, 2000;Cohen et al, 2000;Licciardi et al, 2001), dating of lake shoreline deposits (e.g. Oviatt et al, 1992;Garcia and Stokes, 2006), dating fluvial terraces (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Assessment of Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene Lake Level Fluctuations in Surprise Valley, California

Ibarra¹

2018

Preprint

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Knowledge of Earth’s climate history and sensitivity, combined with modeling past and future climate, are central to informing policy decisions regarding future climate change. The hydrologic response to future warming scenarios due to increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions remains uncertain. Freshwater availability in the arid western United States is projected to decrease in availability as increased agricultural, urban and industrial uses continue to stress supplies. Motivated by the potential for dramatic future hydrologic changes, studies recording the abrupt transitions between different equilibrium states of natural past climate variability shed light on our understanding of the modern climate system.The presence of pluvial lakes in the Basin and Range Province, in the western United States, during the late Pleistocene (40 to 10 ka) indicates far greater moisture availability during the Pleistocene glacials. This study investigates the timing and magnitude of the most recent pluvial lake cycle that filled Surprise Valley, California using geophysical, geochemical and geochronologic tools. Spanning 31.2 to 4.6 ka, this new lake level record places the highest lake level, at 180 meters above present day playa, at 13.9 ± 1.2 ka. This age appears to be nearly synchronous with highstands of Lake Lahontan to the south and the Chewaucan Basin to the north. Additionally, most of the Basin and Range lake highstands, including Lake Surprise, follow peaks in precipitation minus evapotranspiration (P-ET) by 8-10 kyr. By compiling a diverse set of paleoclimate data available for western North America, I found that the timing and geographic distribution of lake highstands is inconsistent with increased precipitation in response to shifting westerly winds, the current model for the genesis of large lakes in western North America. Rather, lakes levels are more strongly correlated with changes in summer insolation, suggesting that lake highstands were likely facilitated by colder temperatures and increased humidity due to the presence of continental ice sheets and increased atmospheric convergence. I compared the constraints from lake and soil-based records to Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Model simulations from the Paleoclimate Model Intercomparison Project 2. Based on model-proxy intercomparison, the Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models, the same models used to also assess future climatic changes, poorly predict hydrologic quantities for the Last Glacial Maximum.

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Development of topographic asymmetry: Insights from dated cinder cones in the western United States

2014

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Topographic asymmetry, that is, differences in the morphology of landscapes as a function of slope aspect, can be used to infer ecohydrogeomorphic feedback relationships. In this study, we document the dependence of topographic gradients and drainage densities on slope aspect and time/age in four Quaternary cinder cone fields in Arizona, Oregon, and California. Cinder cones are particularly useful as natural experiments in geomorphic evolution because they begin their evolution at a known time in the past (many have been radiometrically dated) and because they often have simple, well‐constrained initial morphologies. North‐facing portions of cinder cones have steeper topographic gradients and higher mean vegetation cover (i.e., Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, or NDVI, values) under current climatic conditions compared with corresponding south‐facing portions of cones within each volcanic field. Drainage density is also higher on north‐facing portions of cones in three of the four volcanic fields. These differences in topography were not present initially but developed progressively over time, indicating that the asymmetry is a result of post‐eruption geomorphic processes. To test alternative hypotheses for the slope‐aspect control of topography, we developed a numerical model for cinder cone evolution and a methodology for estimating local paleovegetation cover as a function of elevation, slope aspect, and time within the Quaternary. The numerical model results demonstrate that rates of colluvial transport were higher on south‐facing hillslopes in at least three of the four cinder cones fields. Our paleovegetation analysis suggests that in the two Arizona volcanic fields we studied, higher rates of colluvial transport on south‐facing hillslopes were the result of greater time‐averaged vegetation cover and hence higher rates of sediment transport by floral bioturbation. Our results illustrate the profound impact that relatively small variations in solar insolation can have on landscapes via feedbacks among hydrology, vegetation cover, and sediment transport.

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Moisture variability in the southwestern United States linked to abrupt glacial climate change

Cited by 211 publications

References 28 publications

Isotopic paleoecology of Clovis mammoths from Arizona

Isotopic paleoecology of Clovis mammoths from Arizona

An Assessment of Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene Lake Level Fluctuations in Surprise Valley, California

Development of topographic asymmetry: Insights from dated cinder cones in the western United States

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