800-yr-long records of annual air temperature and precipitation over southern Siberia inferred from Teletskoye Lake sediments

Abstract

A unique 800-yr-long record of annual temperatures and precipitation over the south of western Siberia has been reconstructed from the bottom sediments of Teletskoye Lake, Altai Mountains using an X-ray fluorescence scanner (XRF) providing 0.1-mm resolution timeseries of elemental composition and X-ray density (XRD). Br content appears to be broadly correlative with mean annual temperature variations because of changes in catchment vegetation productivity. Sr/Rb ratio reflects the proportion of the unweathered terrestrial fraction. XRD appears to reflect water yield regime and sediment flux. Sedimentation is rather continuous because annual clastic supply and deposited mass are the same. The artificial neural networks method was applied to convert annual sedimentary time-series of XRD, Br content, and Sr/Rb ratio to annual records of temperature and precipitation using a transfer function. Comparison of these reconstructed Siberian records with the annual record of air temperature for the Northern Hemisphere shows similar trends in climatic variability over the past 800 yr. Estimated harmonic oscillations of temperature and precipitation values for both historical and reconstructed periods reveal subdecadal cyclicity.

Inorganic geochemistry data from Lake El'gygytgyn sediments: marine isotope stages 6–11

“…This depletion may be due to higher alteration and seems to be controlled by grain-size variations (Wennrich et al, 2013b). A similar relationship was reported for sediments in Teletskoe Lake (Kalugin et al, 2007).…”

Holocene climate aridification trend and human impact interrupted by millennial- and centennial-scale climate fluctuations from a new sedimentary record from Padul (Sierra Nevada, southern Iberian Peninsula)

“…Furthermore, van Geel et al (1983) described occurrences of Mougeotia and Zygnema type (Zygnemataceae) as typical of shallow water environments. The increase in organic matter accumulation deduced by TOC (and Br) could be considered as characteristic of high productivity (Kalugin et al, 2007) in these shallow water environments. Conversely, increases in clastic input in lake sediments have been interpreted as due to lowering of lake level and more influence of terrestrial-fluvial deposition in a very shallow and ephemeral lake (Martín-Puertas et al, 2008).…”

A multi-proxy approach for revealing recent climatic changes in the Russian Altai

“…Precise dating is possible only for annually laminated sediments. In addition, sedimentary records maybe affected by secondary alterations due to mineral-pore water interaction, and re-crystallization (Kalugin et al 2007).…”