Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Environmental Sciences: A Students Companion

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
The Holocene
This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (4)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Li, Y.-X.
Right arrow Articles by Kodama, K. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Sensitive moisture response to Holocene millennial-scale climate variations in the Mid-Atlantic region, USA

Yong-Xiang Li

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA 18015, USA, yul5{at}psu.edu

Zicheng Yu

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA 18015, USA

Kenneth P. Kodama

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA 18015, USA

Millennial-scale climate variability has been increasingly recognized as one of the most prominent features of the Holocene. However, regional responses, especially in terms of moisture conditions, are poorly documented and understood. Here we present lithologic and magnetic evidence from White Lake in northern New Jersey, USA, to show that low lake levels occurred at about 1.3, 3.0, 4.4 and 6.1 ka (1 ka = 1000 cal. yr BP). The low lake levels are indicated by heterogeneous coarse calcareous sediment layers showing strong magnetic intensities. These detrital layers were likely formed during low stands when shallow-water marls were exposed, oxidized, transported and redeposited. This model is supported by laboratory experiments showing that oxidation of marls can enhance magnetic intensities. The dry periods inferred from the low lake levels of White Lake appear to occur concurrently with the cold periods recorded in the North Atlantic sediments. The correlation between millennial-scale dry/wet cycles inferred from lake-level fluctuations of White Lake and cold/warm cycles in North Atlantic sediments suggests sensitive moisture responses to Holocene millennial-scale climate variability. The dry-cold (or wet-warm) association is supported by instrumental records of the last century showing that the Mid-Atlantic region was dominated by wet conditions, while most parts of the conterminous USA experienced droughts, when the North Atlantic Ocean was warm. The consistent moisture responses of the Mid-Atlantic region to temperature changes of the North Atlantic Ocean may have persisted for the past 6000 years.

Key Words: Lake-level fluctuations • millennial scale • climate cycles • northeastern USA • Holocene • environmental magnetism

References

  • Alley, R. B., Marotzke, J., Nordhaus, W. D., Overpeck, J. T., Peteet, D. M., Pierke, R. A., Jr, Pierrehumbert, R. T., Rhines, P. B., Stocker, T. F., Taley, L. D. and Wallace, J. M. 2003: Abrupt climate change. Science 299, 2005-2010.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Baldwin, M. P. and Dunkerton, T. J. 1999: Propagation of the Arctic Oscillation from the stratosphere to the troposphere. Journal of Geophysical Research 104, 30 937-30 946.[CrossRef]
  • Bianchi, G. G. and McCave, I. N. 1999: Holocene periodicity in North Atlantic climate and deep-ocean flow south of Iceland. Science 397, 515-517.[CrossRef]
  • Bond, G. C., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M. N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I. and Bonani G. 2001: Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science 294, 2130-2136.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Bond, G. C., Showers, W., Cheseby, M., Lotti, R., Almasi, P., deMenocal, P., Priore, P., Cullen, H., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G. 1997: A pervasive millennial-scale cycle in North Atlantic Holocene and glacial climates. Science 278, 1257-1266.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Booth, R. K., Jackson, S. T. and Gray, C. E. D. 2004: Paleoecology and high-resolution paleohydrology of a kettle peatland in Upper Michigan. Quaternary Research 61, 1-13.[CrossRef]
  • Booth, R. K., Jackson, S. T., Forman, S. L., Kutzbach, J. E., Bettis, E. A., III, Kreig, J. and Wright, D. K. 2005: A severe centennial-scale drought in mid-continental North America 4200 years ago and apparent global linkages. The Holocene 15, 321-328.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Broecker, W. S. 1994: Massive iceberg discharge as triggers for global climate change. Nature 372, 421-424.[CrossRef]
  • Chapman, M. R. and Shackleton, N. J. 2000: Evidence of 550-year and 1000-year cyclicities in North Atlantic circulation patterns during the Holocene. The Holocene 10, 287-291.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Delworth, T. L. and Mann, M. E. 2000: Observed and simulated multidecadal variability in the Northern Hemisphere. Climate Dynamics 16, 661-676.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • deMenocal, P., Ortiz, J., Guilderson, T. and Sarnthein, M. 2000: Coherent high- and low-latitude climate variability during the Holocene warm period. Science 288, 2198-2202.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Drysdale, R., Zanchetta, G., Hellstrom, J., Mass, R., Fallick, A., Pickett, M., Cartwright, I. and Piccini, L. 2006: Late Holocene drought responsible for the collapse of Old World civilizations is recorded in an Italian cave flowstone. Geology 34, 101-104.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Dwyer, T. R., Mullins, H. T. and Good, S. C. 1996: Paleoclimatic implications of Holocene lake-level fluctuations, Owasco Lake, New York. Geology 24, 519-522.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Enfield, D. B., Mestas-Nuñez, A. M. and Trimble, P. J. 2001: The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and its relation to rainfall and river flows in the continental U.S. Geophysical Research Letters 28, 2077-2080.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Gupta, A. K., Anderson, D. M. and Overpeck, J. T. 2003: Abrupt changes in the Asian southwest monsoon during the Holocene and their links to the North Atlantic Ocean. Nature 421, 354-357.[CrossRef]
  • Harrison, S. P. 1989: Lake levels and climate change in eastern North America. Climate Dynamics 3, 157-167.[CrossRef]
  • Hong, Y. T., Hong, B., Lin, Q. H., Zhu, Y. X., Shibata, Y., Hirota, M., Uchida, M., Leng, X. T., Jiang, H. B., Xu, H., Wang, H. and Yi, L. 2003: Correlation between Indian Ocean summer monsoon and North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 211, 371-380.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Hu, F. S., Kaufman, D., Yoneji, S., Nelson, D., Shemesh, A., Huang, Y. S., Tian, J., Bond, G., Clegg, B. and Brown, T. 2003: Cyclic variation and solar forcing of Holocene climate in the Alaskan subarctic. Science 301, 1890-1893.[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
  • Hurrell, J. W. 2003: Climate variability: North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillation. In Holton, J., Pyle, J. and Curry, J., editors, Encyclopedia of atmospheric sciences. Academic Press, 439-445.
  • Hurrell, J. W., Kushnir, Y. and Visbeck, M. 2001: The North Atlantic Oscillation. Science 291, 603-605.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Kerr, R. A. 2000: A North Atlantic climate pacemaker for the centuries. Science 288, 1984-1985.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • King, J. W. and Channell, J. E. T. 1991: Sedimentary magnetism, environmental magnetism, and magnetostratigraphy. Reviews of Geophysics 29, suppl. (IUGG report-Contributions in Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism), 358-370.[Web of Science]
  • Lavoie, M. and Richard, P. J. H. 2000: Postglacial water-level changes of a small lake in southern Québec, Canada. The Holocene 10, 621-634.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Li, Y.X. 2005: Paleomagnetism of the Valle Group, Baja California, Mexico and environmental magnetism of White Lake, New Jersey, USA. PhD Dissertation, Lehigh University.
  • Li, Y. X., Yu, Z. C., Kodama, K. P. and Moeller, R. E. 2006: A 14,000-year environmental change history revealed by mineral-magnetic data from White Lake, northwestern New Jersey, USA. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 246, 27-40.
  • McCabe, G. J., Palecki, M. A. and Betancourt, J. L. 2004: Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecadal drought frequency in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101, 4136-4141.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Muller, S. D., Richard, P. J. H., Guiot, J., de Beaulieu, J. L. and Fortin, D. 2003: Postglacial climate in the St. Lawrence lowlands, southern Québec: pollen and lake-level evidence. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 193, 51-72.[CrossRef]
  • Mullins, H. T., Burnet, A. W., Hilfinger, M. F., IV and Kirby, M. E. 2003: Millennial-scale Holocene lake level fluctuations at Green Lakes State Park, New York: implications for atmospheric circulation over the northeastern United States. Northeastern Geology & Environmental Sciences 25, 197-205.
  • Nederbragt, A. J. and Thurow, J. 2005: Geographic coherence of millennial-scale climate cycles during the Holocene. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 221, 313-324.[CrossRef]
  • Newby, P. E., Killoran, P., Waldorf, M. R., Shuman, B. N., Webb, R. S. and Webb, T., III 2000: 14,000 years of sediment, vegetation, and water-level changes at the Makepeace Cedar Swamp, southeastern Massachusetts. Quaternary Research 53, 352-368.[CrossRef]
  • Niggemann, S., Mangini, A., Mudelsee, M., Richter, D. K. and Wurth, G. 2003: Sub-Milankovitch climatic cycles in Holocene stalagmites from Sauerland, Germany, Earth and Planetary Science Letters 216, 539-547.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Noren, A. J., Bierman, P. R., Steig, E. J., Lini, A. and Southon, J. 2002: Millennial-scale storminess variability in the northeastern United States during the Holocene epoch. Nature 419, 821-824.[CrossRef]
  • O’Brien, S. R., Mayewski, P. A., Meeker, L. D., Meese, D. A., Twickler, M. S. and Whitlow, S. I. 1995: Complexity of Holocene climate as reconstructed from a Greenland ice core. Science 270, 1962-1964.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Russell, J. M. and Johnson, T. C. 2005: Late Holocene climate change in the North Atlantic and equatorial Africa: millennial-scale ITCZ migration. Geophysical Research Letters 32, L17705-L17705, doi:10.1029/2005GL023295.[CrossRef]
  • Schulz, M. and Paul, A. 2002: Holocene climate variability on centennial-to-millennial time scales: 1. climate records from the North-Atlantic realm. In Wefer, G., Berger, W., Behre, K-E. and Jansen, E., editors, Climate development and history of the North Atlantic realm. Springer, 41-54.
  • Shindell, D. T., Schmidt, G. A., Mann, M. E., Rind, D. and Waple, A. 2001: Solar forcing of regional climate change during the Maunder Minimum. Science 294, 2149-2152.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Shuman, B., Bartlein, P. J. and Webb, T., III 2005: The magnitudes of millennial- and orbital-scale climate change in eastern North America during the Late Quaternary. Quaternary Science Reviews 24, 2194-2206.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Shuman, B., Bravo, J., Kaye, J., Lynch, J. A., Newby, P. and Webb, T., III 2001: Late Quaternary water-level variations and vegetation history at Crooked Pond, southeastern Massachusetts. Quaternary Research 56, 401-410.[CrossRef]
  • Thompson, D. W. J. and Wallace, J. M. 1998: The Arctic Oscillation signature in the winter geopotential height and temperature fields. Geophysical Research Letters 25, 1297-1300.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Thompson, D. W. J. and Wallace, J. M. 2001: Regional climate impacts of the northern hemisphere annular mode. Science 293, 85-89.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Viau, A. E., Gajewski, K., Fines, P., Atkinson, D. E. and Sawada, M. C. 2002: Widespread evidence of 1500 yr climate variability in North America during the past 14000 yr. Geology 30, 455-458.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Wang, Y. J., Cheng, H., Edwards, R. L., He, Y. Q., Kong, X. G., An, Z. S., Wu, J. Y., Kelly, M. J., Dykoski, C. A. and Li, X. D. 2005: The Holocene Asian monsoon: links to solar changes and North Atlantic climate. Science 308, 854-857.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Webb, R. S., Anderson, K. H. and Webb, T., III 1993: Pollen response-surface estimates of late-Quaternary changes in the moisture balance of the northeastern United States. Quaternary Research 40, 213-227.[CrossRef]
  • Willard, D. A., Bernhardt, C. E., Korejwo, D. A. and Meyers, S. R. 2005: Impact of millennial-scale Holocene climate variability on eastern North American terrestrial ecosystem: pollen-based climatic reconstruction. Global and Planetary Change 47, 17-35.[CrossRef][Web of Science]
  • Witte, R. W. 2001: Late Wisconsinan deglaciation and postglacial history of Minisink Valley: Delaware Water Gap to Port Jervis, New York. In Inners, J. and Fleeger, G. H., editors, Guidebook for the 66th field conference of Pennsylvania geologists, 2001: a Delaware River Odyssey Field Conference of Pennsylvania Geologist Inc., 99-118.
  • Yu, Z. C., McAndrews, J. H. and Eicher, U. 1997: Middle Holocene dry climate caused by change in atmospheric circulation patterns: evidence from lake levels and stable isotopes. Geology 25, 251-254.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
  • Yu, Z. C., Campbell, I. D., Campbell, C., Vitt, D. H., Bond, G. C. and Apps, M. J. 2003: Carbon sequestration in western Canadian peat highly sensitive to Holocene wet-dry climate cycles at millennial timescales. The Holocene 13, 801-808.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

The Holocene, Vol. 17, No. 1, 3-8 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0959683606069386
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 The HoloceneHome page
M. Magny, D. Galop, P. Bellintani, M. Desmet, J. Didier, J. N. Haas, N. Martinelli, A. Pedrotti, R. Scandolari, A. Stock, et al.
Late-Holocene climatic variability south of the Alps as recorded by lake-level fluctuations at Lake Ledro, Trentino, Italy
The Holocene, June 1, 2009; 19(4): 575 - 589.
[Abstract] [PDF]

This Article
Right arrow Abstract Freely available
Right arrow Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (4)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Li, Y.-X.
Right arrow Articles by Kodama, K. P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?