Reconstruction of warm season temperatures in central Europe during the past 60,000 years from lacustrine GDGTs ...

• Main Authors: Zander, Paul D., Böhl, Daniel, Sirocko, Frank, Auderset, Alexandra, Haug, Gerald, Martínez-García, Alfredo
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: ETH Zurich 2023
• Subjects: ice core
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000644021; http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/644021

Millennial-scale climate variations during the last glacial period, such as Dansgaard–Oeschger (D/O) cycles and Heinrich events, have been extensively studied using ice core and marine proxy records. However, there is a limited understanding of the magnitude of these temperature fluctuations in continental regions, and questions remain about the seasonal signal of these climate events. This study presents a 60,000-year long temperature reconstruction based on branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) extracted from lake sediments from the Eifel volcanic field, Germany. brGDGTs are bacterial membrane lipids that are known to have strong relationship with temperature, making them suitable for temperature reconstructions. We test several temperature calibration models on modern samples taken from soils and multiple maar lakes. We find a bias associated with water depth and anoxic conditions that can be corrected for by accounting for a brGDGT isomer that is only produced in anoxic conditions. The ... : EGUsphere ...