NALPS19: sub-orbital-scale climate variability recorded in northern Alpine speleothems during the last glacial period

• Published in: Climate of the Past
• Main Authors: G. E. Moseley, C. Spötl, S. Brandstätter, T. Erhardt, M. Luetscher, R. L. Edwards
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2020
• Subjects: Environmental pollution; TD172-193.5; Environmental protection; TD169-171.8; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Antarctic; Greenland; Antarc*; Greenland ice core; Greenland ice cores; ice core
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-29-2020; https://doaj.org/article/7cf0a0850ddd4e5b8a2f1a3986d2eb59

Sub-orbital-scale climate variability of the last glacial period provides important insights into the rates at which the climate can change state, the mechanisms that drive such changes, and the leads, lags, and synchronicity occurring across different climate zones. Such short-term climate variability has previously been investigated using δ 18 O from speleothems ( δ 18 O calc ) that grew along the northern rim of the Alps (NALPS), enabling direct chronological comparisons with δ 18 O records from Greenland ice cores ( δ 18 O ice ). In this study, we present NALPS19, which includes a revision of the last glacial NALPS δ 18 O calc chronology over the interval 118.3 to 63.7 ka using 11, newly available, clean, precisely dated stalagmites from five caves. Using only the most reliable and precisely dated records, this period is now 90 % complete and is comprised of 16 stalagmites from seven caves. Where speleothems grew synchronously, the timing of major transitional events in δ 18 O calc between stadials and interstadials (and vice versa) are all in agreement on multi-decadal timescales. Ramp-fitting analysis further reveals that, except for one abrupt change, the timing of δ 18 O transitions occurred synchronously within centennial-scale dating uncertainties between the NALPS19 δ 18 O calc record and the Asian monsoon composite speleothem δ 18 O calc record. Due to the millennial-scale uncertainties in the ice core chronologies, a comprehensive comparison with the NALPS19 chronology is difficult. Generally, however, we find that the absolute timing of transitions in the Greenland Ice Core Chronology (GICC) 05 modelext and Antarctic Ice Core Chronology (AICC) 2012 are in agreement on centennial scales. The exception to this is during the interval of 100 to 115 ka, where transitions in the AICC2012 chronology occurred up to 3000 years later than in NALPS19. In such instances, the transitions in the revised AICC2012 chronology of Extier et al. (2018) are in agreement with NALPS19 on centennial scales, supporting the ...