Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T10:14:50.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Long-term river discharge and multidecadal climate variability inferred from varved sediments, southwest Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Claire A. Kaufman ,
Scott F. Lamoureux  and
Darrell S. Kaufman
Claire A. Kaufman
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada
Scott F. Lamoureux*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada
Darrell S. Kaufman
Affiliation:
School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA 86011–4099
*
⁎Corresponding author. Fax: + 1 613 533 6122. E-mail address:[email protected] (S.F. Lamoureux).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sedimentological analyses of 289 years (AD 1718–2006) of varved sediment from Shadow Bay, southwest Alaska, were used to investigate hydroclimate variability during and prior to the instrumental period. Varve thicknesses relate most strongly to total annual discharge (r2 = 0.75, n = 43, p < 0.0001). Maximum annual grain size depends most strongly on maximum spring daily discharge (r2 = 0.63, n = 43, p < 0.0001) and maximum annual daily discharge (r2 = 0.61, n = 43, p < 0.0001), while varve thickness is poorly correlated with maximum annual grain size (r2 = 0.004, n = 287, p = 0.33). Relations between varve thickness and annual climate variables (temperature, precipitation, North Pacific (NP) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) indices) are insignificant. On multidecadal timescales, however, regime shifts in varve thickness and total annual discharge coincide with shifts in NP and PDO indices. Periods with increased varve thickness and total annual discharge were associated with warm PDO phases and a strengthened Aleutian Low. The varve-inferred record of PDO suggests that any periodicity in the PDO varied over time, and that the early 19th century marked a transition to a more frequent or detectable shifts.

Keywords

VarvesSouthwest AlaskaDischargeClimate variabilityPacific Decadal OscillationNorth Pacific IndexAleutian Low
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , July 2011 , pp. 1 - 9
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Biondi, F., Gershunov, A., and Cayan, D.R. North Pacific decadal climate variability since 1661. Journal of Climate 14, (2001). 5–10.Google Scholar
Bitz, C.M., and Battisti, D.S. Interannual to decadal variability in climate and the glacier mass balance in Washington, western Canada, and Alaska. Journal of Climate 12, (1999). 2181–3196.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chutko, K.J., and Lamoureux, S.F. Identification of coherent links between interannual sedimentary structures and daily meteorological observations in Arctic proglacial lacustrine varves: potentials and limitations. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 45, (2008). 1–13.Google Scholar
Cockburn, J.M.H., and Lamoureux, S.F. Timing and climatic controls over Neoglacial expansion in the northern Coast Mountains, British Columbia, Canada. The Holocene 15, (2005). 619–624.Google Scholar
Cockburn, J.M.H., and Lamoureux, S.F. Century-scale variability in late-summer rainfall events recorded over seven centuries in subannually-laminated lacustrine sediments, White Pass, British Columbia. Quaternary Research 67, (2007). 193–203.Google Scholar
D'Arrigo, R., and Wilson, R. On the Asian expression of the PDO. International Journal of Climatology 26, (2006). 1607–1617.Google Scholar
Desloges, J.R., (1994). Varve deposition and the sediment yield record at three small lakes of the southern Canadian Cordillera. Arctic and Alpine Research 26, 130–140.Google Scholar
Francus, P., Bradley, R.S., Abbott, M.B., Patridge, W., and Keimig, F. Paleoclimate studies of minerogenic sediments using annually resolved textural parameters. Geophysical Research Letters 29, (2002). 1998–2001.Google Scholar
Gilbert, R. Sedimentation in Lillooet Lake, British Columbia. Canadian Journal Earth Sciences 12, (1975). 1697–1711.Google Scholar
Gilbert, R. Lacustrine sedimentation. Middleton, G.E. Encyclopedia of Sedimentology and Sedimentary Rocks. (2003). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. 404–408.Google Scholar
Gilbert, R., Crookshanks, S., Hodder, K.R., Spagnol, J., and Stull, R.B. The record of an extreme flood in the sediments of montane Lillooet Lake, British Columbia: implications for paleoenvironmental assessment. Journal of Paleolimnology 35, (2006). 737–745.Google Scholar
Hodder, K.R., Gilbert, R., and Desloges, J.R. Glaciolacustrine varved sediment as an alpine hydroclimatic proxy. Journal of Paleolimnology 38, (2007). 365–394.Google Scholar
Hughen, K.A., Overpeck, J.T., and Anderson, R.F. Recent warming in a 500-year palaeotemperature record from varved sediments, Upper Soper Lake, Baffin Island, Canada. The Holocene 10, (2000). 9–19.Google Scholar
Kaufman, C.A., (2008). Recent hydroclimate dynamics in southwest Alaska: understanding multidecadal climate variability through sedimentary process studies and varve sedimentology. MSc. thesis, Queen's University, Kingston.Google Scholar
Ketterer, M.E., Hafera, K.M., Jones, V.J., and Appleby, P.G. Rapid dating of recent sediments in Loch Ness: inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometric measurements of global fallout plutonium. The Science of the Total Environment 322, (2004). 221–229.Google Scholar
Lamoureux, S.F. Five centuries of interannual sediment yield and rainfall-induced erosion in the Canadian High Arctic recorded in lacustrine varves. Water Resources Research 36, (2000). 309–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamoureux, S.F. Varve chronology techniques. Last, W.M., and Smol, J.P. Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments. Basin Analysis, Coring, and Chronological Techniques 1, (2001). Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht. 247–260.Google Scholar
Latif, M., and Barnett, T.P. Causes of decadal variability in the North Pacific and North America. Science 266, (1993). 634–637.Google Scholar
Leemann, A., Niessen, F., (1994). Holocene glacial activity and climatic variations in the Swiss Alps: reconstructing a continuous record from proglacial lake sediments. The Holocene 4, 259–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leonard, E.M. The relationship between glacial activity and sediment production: evidence from a 4450-year varve record of Neoglacial sedimentation near Hector Lake, Alberta, Canada. Journal of Paleolimnology 17, (1997). 319–330.Google Scholar
Levy, L.B., (2002). Late Holocene glacier fluctuations, northeastern Ahklun Mountains, southwestern Alaska. MSc. thesis, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff.Google Scholar
Levy, L.B., Kaufman, D.S., and Werner, A. Holocene glacier fluctuations, Waskey Lake, northeastern Ahklun Mountains, southwestern Alaska. The Holocene 14, (2004). 185–193.Google Scholar
MacDonald, G.M., and Case, R.A. Variations in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation over the past millennium. Geophysical Research Letters 32, (2005). L08703 Google Scholar
Mantua, N.J., and Hare, S.R. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Journal of Oceanography 58, (2002). 35–44.Google Scholar
Mantua, N.J., Hare, R.S., Zhang, Y., Wallace, J.M., and Francis, R.C. A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon productions. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78, (1997). 1069–1079.Google Scholar
Menounos, B. Anomalous early 20th century sedimentation in proglacial Green Lake, British Columbia, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 43, (2006). 671–678.Google Scholar
Menounos, B., and Clague, J.J. Reconstructing hydro-climatic events and glacier fluctuations over the past millennium from annually laminated sediments of Cheakamus Lake, southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia, Canada. Quaternary Science Reviews 27, (2008). 701–713.Google Scholar
Menounos, B., Clague, J.J., Gilbert, R., and Slaymaker, O. Environmental reconstruction from a varve network in the southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia, Canada. The Holocene 15, (2005). 1163–1171.Google Scholar
Minobe, S. Spatio-temporal structure of the pentadecadal variability over the north Pacific. Progress in Oceanography 47, (2000). 281–408.Google Scholar
Mudelsee, M. CLIM-X-DETECT: A Fortran 90 program for robust detection of extremes against a time-dependent background in climate records. Computers & Geosciences 32, (2006). 141–144.Google Scholar
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climatography of the United States. Monthly normals of temperature, precipitation, and heating and cooling degree days by state. (1980). 1951–1980.Google Scholar
Neal, E.G., Walter, M.T., and Coffeen, C. Linking the Pacific Decadal Oscillation to seasonal stream discharge patterns in southeast Alaska. Journal of Hydrology 263, (2002). 188–197.Google Scholar
Østrem, G., and Olsen, H.C. Sedimentation in a glacier lake. Geografiska Annaler 69A, (1987). 123–128.Google Scholar
Rodionov, S.N. A sequential algorithm for testing climate regime shifts. Geophysical Research Letters 31, (2004). L09204 Google Scholar
Rodionov, S.N., Overland, J.E., and Bond, N.A. The Aleutian Low and winter climatic conditions in the Bering Sea. Part I: Classification. Journal of Climate 18, (2005). 160–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodionov, S.N., Bond, N.A., and Overland, J.E. The Aleutian Low, storm tracks, and winter climate variability in the Bering Sea. Deep Sea Research II 54, (2007). 2560–2577.Google Scholar
Sander, M., Bengtsson, L., Holmquist, B., Wohlfarth, B., and Cato, I. The relationship between annual varve thickness and maximum annual discharge (1909–1971). Journal of Hydrology 263, (2002). 23–35.Google Scholar
Schiefer, E., Menounos, B., and Slaymaker, O. Extreme sediment delivery events recorded in the contemporary sediment record of a montane lake, southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 43, (2006). 1777–1790.Google Scholar
Tiljander, M., Ojala, A., Saarinen, T., and Snowball, I. Documentation of the physical properties of annually-laminated (varved) sediments at a sub-annual to decadal resolution for environmental interpretation. Quaternary International 88, (2002). 5–12.Google Scholar
Trenberth, K.E., and Hurrell, J.W. Decadal atmosphere-ocean variations in the Pacific. Climate Dynamics 9, (1994). 303–319.Google Scholar
United States Geological Survey (USGS) Nuyakuk River (15302000) mean discharge measurements. Available from http://waterdata.usgs.gov/ak/nwis/ (2008). Google Scholar
Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) Dillingham FAA Airport, Alaska: Monthly Climate Summary. Available from http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/ (2008). Google Scholar
Wilson, R., Wiles, G., D'Arrigo, R., and Zweck, C. Cycles and shifts: 1,300 years of multi-decadal temperature variability in the Gulf of Alaska. Climate Dynamics 28, (2007). 425–440.Google Scholar
Wohlfarth, B., Holmquist, B., Cato, I., Linderson, H., (1998). The climatic significance of clastic varves in the Angermanalven Estuary, northern Sweden, AD 1860. The Holocene 8, 521–534.Google Scholar
Zhang, Y., Wallace, J.M., and Battisti, D.S. ENSO-like interdecadal variability: 1900–93. Journal of Climate 10, (1997). 1004–1019.Google Scholar