The Potential of Speleothems from Western Europe as Recorders of Regional Climate: A Critical Assessment of the SISAL Database

Quaternary

Labuhn, Inga¹  Comas-Bru, Laia²  Columbu, Andrea³  Lechleitner, FranziskaA.⁴  Rehfeld, Kira⁵  Pérez-Mejías, Carlos⁷  Amirnezhad-Mozhdehi, Sahar⁸ 

[1] Environmental Sciences, Reading University, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AH, UK;Centre for Past Climate Change and School of Archaeology, Geography &Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna, Via Zamboni 67, 40126 Bologna, Italy;Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3AN, UK;Department of Geoenvironmental Processes and Global Change, Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE–CSIC), Avda. Montañana 1005, 50059 Zaragoza, Spain;Institute of Environmental Physics, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 229, 69210 Heidelberg, Germany;Institute of Geography, University of Bremen, Celsiusstrasse 2, 28359 Bremen, Germany;UCD School of Earth Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

关键词: SISAL database;    speleothem;    cave;    oxygen isotopes;    Western Europe;    palaeoclimate;   

DOI  :  10.3390/quat1030030

学科分类：地质学

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Western Europe is the region with the highest density of published speleothem δ18O (δ18Ospel) records worldwide. Here, we review these records in light of the recent publication of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and AnaLysis (SISAL) database. We investigate how representative the spatial and temporal distribution of the available records is for climate in Western Europe and review potential sites and strategies for future studies. We show that spatial trends in precipitation δ18O are mirrored in the speleothems, providing means to better constrain the factors influencing δ18Ospel at a specific location. Coherent regional δ18Ospel trends are found over stadial-interstadial transitions of the last glacial, especially in high altitude Alpine records, where this has been attributed to a strong temperature control of δ18Ospel. During the Holocene, regional trends are less clearly expressed, due to lower signal-to-noise ratios in δ18Ospel, but can potentially be extracted with the use of statistical methods. This first assessment highlights the potential of the European region for speleothem palaeoclimate reconstruction, while underpinning the importance of knowing local factors for a correct interpretation of δ18Ospel.

【 授权许可】

CC BY