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Monsoonal forcing of Holocene paleoenvironmental change on the central Tibetan Plateau inferred using a sediment record from Lake Nam Co (Xizang, China)

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Abstract

This study focuses on Holocene monsoon dynamics on the central Tibetan Plateau (TP) inferred using a sediment record from Lake Nam Co. A high-resolution (decadal) multi-proxy approach, using geochemical, micropaleontological, and sedimentological methods was applied. Fifteen AMS-14C ages were used to establish the chronology, assuming a reservoir effect of 1,420 years. Our results point to a first strong monsoonal pulse at Lake Nam Co ~11.3 cal ka BP, followed by colder and drier conditions until ~10.8 cal ka BP. A warm and humid climate from ~10.8 to ~9.5 cal ka BP is related to a strong summer monsoon on the central TP, triggering a lake-level highstand at ~9.5 cal ka BP. Declining minerogenic input after ~9.5 cal ka BP indicates less moisture availability until ~7.7 cal ka BP. Following stable conditions between ~7.7 and ~6.6 cal ka BP, a warm and wet climate is inferred for the time span from ~6.6 to ~4.8 cal ka BP. A change towards drier conditions after ~4.8 cal ka BP points to a weakening of the Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon on the central TP, further diminished after ~2.0 cal ka BP. A short-term wet spell occurred from ~1.5 to ~1.3 cal ka BP. By comparing the results derived from Lake Nam Co with several lacustrine records from the central, northern, and eastern TP, a similar but not synchronous pattern of monsoon-driven paleoenvironmental change is observed. Although the general trend of lake and catchment evolution on the TP during the Holocene is also reproduced in this record, pronounced spatial and temporal offsets with respect to distinct climate events were detected, suggesting periods of non-uniform moisture and temperature evolution.

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Acknowledgments

This work is a contribution to the DFG priority program 1372 “Tibetan Plateau: Formation—Climate—Ecosystems (TiP)” grant no. MA1308/23-1. Additional funding was provided by the NSFC project (grant no. 41130529). We thank Brunhilde Dressler, Carmen Kirchner, Kati Hartwig, Rita Hempel, Frank Raphael, Stephanie Meschner, and Jifeng Zhang for geochemical, sedimentological, and micropaleontological analyses. Volker Wennrich and Armine Shahnazarian are acknowledged for supporting XRF analyses at the University of Cologne, Germany. Thanks to Marieke Ahlborn, Steffen Mischke, Mark Brenner and two anonymous reviewers for critical comments and discussions. We thank Richard Niederreiter (Uwitec, Austria) and our Chinese colleagues for their assistance during the field campaign in 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geography, Physical Geography, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Löbdergraben 32, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Stefan Doberschütz, Torsten Haberzettl, Thomas Kasper, Gerhard Daut & Roland Mäusbacher

  2. Institute of Earth Sciences, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Peter Frenzel

  3. Key Laboratory of Tibetan Environment Changes and Land Surface Processes (TEL), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Junbo Wang & Liping Zhu

  4. Institute of Geosystems and Bioindication, Technical University Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany

    Antje Schwalb

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  1. Stefan Doberschütz
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Correspondence to Stefan Doberschütz.

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Doberschütz, S., Frenzel, P., Haberzettl, T. et al. Monsoonal forcing of Holocene paleoenvironmental change on the central Tibetan Plateau inferred using a sediment record from Lake Nam Co (Xizang, China). J Paleolimnol 51, 253–266 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-013-9702-1

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