Biogenic silica concentration as a high-resolution, quantitative temperature proxy at Hallet Lake, south-central Alaska

McKay, Nicholas P. and Kaufman, Darrell S. and Michelutti, Neal (2008) Biogenic silica concentration as a high-resolution, quantitative temperature proxy at Hallet Lake, south-central Alaska. Geophysical Research Letters, 35 (5). L05709-L05709. ISSN 1944-8007

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Abstract

High-resolution, quantitative temperature records are valuable for placing recent warming in the context of long-term, natural climate variability. Here we use biogenic silica (BSi) concentrations preserved in lacustrine sediment from an oligotrophic lake to quantitatively reconstruct air temperature at Hallet Lake in south-central Alaska. Mean June through August temperature measured over the past 80 yr at Valdez (Alaska) correlate with BSi from Hallet Lake (r=0.87, p=0.01). We chose a nested function to model the non-linear relation between summer temperature and BSi in the calibration data set, and to reconstruct temperature for the past 2 ka. Our BSi-inferred temperature reconstruction shows synchronous changes with independent paleoclimatic proxies for southern Alaska, and provides evidence for a greater rate and magnitude of 20th century temperature warming at Hallet Lake than recorded by other quantitative temperature proxies in the region.

Item Type:	Article
Publisher’s Statement:	©2008. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
ID number or DOI:	10.1029/2007GL032876
Keywords:	Regional climate change; Paleoclimatology; Limnology; air temperature; Alaska; America; APEC countries; Aquatic Sciences; Atmospheric chemistry; Atmospheric temperature; biogenic processes; calibration; Cenozoic; climate; climate change; Developed Countries; Global change; Global warming; Hallet Lake; high-resolution methods; lacustrine deposits; lacustrine environment; Lake Sediment; Mathematical models; North America; OECD Countries; Pacific States of USA; palaeoclimatology; paleoclimatology; paleotemperature; quantitative analysis; Quaternary; Quaternary geology; reconstruction; records; sediment; sediments; silica; south-central Alaska; southern Alaska; Western States of USA
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics Q Science > QE Geology
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Faculty/Staff
Department/Unit:	College of Engineering, Forestry, and Natural Science > School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability
Date Deposited:	12 Oct 2015 22:24
URI:	http://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/725

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