The ‘Little Ice Age’ recorded by sediment chemistry in Lake Erhai, southwest China

Abstract

On the basis of concentrations of 21 major and minor elements in a well-dated sediment core from the deepwater part of Lake Erhai, principal component analysis (PCA) reveals three main factors controlling the inorganic chemical composition of lake sediments. These are physical erosion in the watershed (Component 1), autochthonous calcite precipitation in lake water (Component 2) and early diagenesis in sediments (Component 3). Variations of factor scores of Component I and Component 3 may reflect fluctuations in rainfall and temperature, respectively in the lake region. High factor scores of Component 3 correlate with low factor scores of Component 1 in sediments within the intervals AD 1340-1550 and AD 1890-1950, indicating two warm-dry episodes. Low factor scores of Component 3 correlate with high factor scores of Component 1 from AD 1550-1890, indicating a cold-wet climate corresponding to the ‘Little Ice Age’ in Europe. Our study provides a new approach to reconstructing palaeoclimate, and adds to a growing body of evidence for a widespread cooling during the ‘Little Ice Age’. The alternation between warm-dry and cool-humid conditions possibly implies different climate change characteristics between the southwest monsoon zone and the southeast monsoon zone where the climate pattern is warm-humid and cool-dry.

Increased precipitation during the Little Ice Age in northern Taiwan inferred from diatoms and geochemistry in a sediment core from a subalpine lake

“…The conventional view of a dry and cold climate during the LIA, however, is based largely on data from Western Europe and elsewhere in the North Atlantic region. This view has been challenged by findings of increased rainfall during the LIA in southern Norway (Nesje and Dahl 2003;Rasmussen et al 2010), northern Patagonia, South America (Villalba 1994), southwest China (Chen et al 2005), southern tropical China (Chu et al 2002) and northern Taiwan (Chen et al 2009;Wang et al 2011). Such spatial variations in precipitation reflect the regional characteristics of climate, such as the East Asia monsoon.…”

Late Holocene environmental reconstructions and their implications on flood events, typhoon, and agricultural activities in NE Taiwan

“…This view has been challenged by findings of increased rainfall during the LIA in South China (Chen et al, 2005;Chu et al, 2002) and Taiwan Wang et al, 2011Wang et al, , 2013. Such spatial variations in precipitation reflect the regional climate characteristics, such as monsoonal precipitation or TC-triggered heavy rainfall.…”

The ‘Little Ice Age’: the first virtual issue of The Holocene

“…The 30-year discrepancy between the responses of the two glaciers is attributed to temperature and precipitation changes thought mainly associated with fluctuations in the Westerlies. Chen et al (2005) used principal components analysis on 21 elements in their examination of the sediment chemistry of Lake Erhai, southwest China, and found three controlling factors: (1) physical erosion in the catchment; (2) autochthonous precipitation of calcite; (3) early digenesis in sediment. The LIA was characterised by low factor (3) and high (1), implying a cool-wet climate from AD 1550 to 1890, which the authors linked to the timing of the LIA in Europe; this contrasted with high factor (3) and low (1) around Lake Erhai from AD 1340-1550 and AD 1890-1950, implying warm-dry episodes.…”

“…This selection of papers includes proxy-climate data from five continents: North America, from Alaska (Wiles et al, 1999), Canada (Johnston et al, 2010); South America, from Chile (Araneda et al, 2009), Argentina (Chambers et al, 2014); Europe, from Britain (Harrison et al, 2014) and Spain (Garcia-Ruiz et al, 2014); Asia, from China (Chen et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2011); Australasia, from New Zealand (Winkler, 2004); and the ocean, from the Alboran Sea (Nieto- Moreno et al, 2013) It includes proxy-climate data from a range of archives: aeolian sand (Liu et al, 2011), documentary sources (Araneda et al, 2009), lake (Chen et al, 2005;Johnston et al, 2010), marine records (Nieto-Moreno et al, 2013), mire (Chambers et al, 2014) and tree-rings (Wiles et al, 1999). It deals with LIA temperatures (Nesje and Dahl, 2003), hydrology (Chambers et al, 2014;Johnston et al, 2010;Liu et al, 2011;Nesje and Dahl, 2003;NietoMoreno et al, 2013), glacier activity (Araneda et al, 2009;Garcia-Ruiz et al, 2014;Harrison et al, 2014;Wiles et al, 1999;Winkler, 2004) and with inter-hemispheric comparison (Chambers et al, 2014).…”

“…Proxy-climate evidence is provided from analysis of plant macrofossils and peat humification (Chambers et al, 2014), dendroclimatology (Wiles et al, 1999), lake-sediment chemistry (Chen et al, 2005) and marine sediments (Nieto-Moreno et al, 2013); lake-level variation is derived from palaeolimnology and geophysical analyses (Johnston et al, 2010); glacier limits are reconstructed from geomorphology (Garcia-Ruiz et al, 2014), tree-ring data (Wiles et al, 1999), lichenometry (Winkler, 2004) and inferred from documentary records (Araneda et al, 2009) and glacier modelling (Harrison et al, 2014).…”