Geological Society of America

T61 Lakes through Space and Time II

Sunday, 4 November 2018
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Room 134

HOLOCENE MONSOON RAINFALL AND LAKE LEVELS IN GALANG CO, SOUTHEASTERN TIBET

Paper number: T61-10
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 3:35 PM – 3:50 PM

Authors

Melanie Perello Presenting Author
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN
Broxton W. Bird
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, Indianapolis, IN
Yanbin Lei
Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing
Pratigya J. Polissar
Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY
Lonnie G. Thompson
The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Tandong Yao
Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing

Abstract

Projections of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) under climate change indicate that the system will be less reliable in the future. This unreliability with decreasing glacial melt will have impacts on water availability throughout southern Asia, while the region undergoes a simultaneous population growth and increased water demands. Based on these scenarios, it is imperative to make accurate projections of future monsoon rainfall, but modeling is limited by a very short record of regional weather monitoring. Lake sediments serve as an important archive of both past precipitation and lake levels along with other environmental conditions. In this study, we sampled five lakes in southeastern Tibet to collect surface and Livingstone cores along with water and vegetation. The paleoclimate record for each lake is developed by incorporating proxies including leaf waxes (δ²H) and carbonate (δ¹⁸O) isotopes, sedimentology, diatom communities, and geochemistry. Here we present data from Galang Co, a previously unstudied lake that we sampled in 2015. Our initial results for this study show that monsoon conditions in this lake reflect trends in other regional records, but with greater variability. This paleoclimate reconstruction furthers our understanding of strong versus weak monsoon intensities and can be incorporated in climate models for predicting future monsoon conditions.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 50, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2018AM-323963

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