How stable are 20th century calibration models? A high-resolution summer temperature reconstruction for the eastern Swiss Alps back to A.D. 1580 derived from proglacial varved sediments

Blass, Alexander; Grosjean, Martin; Troxler, Andrea; Sturm, Michael (2007). How stable are 20th century calibration models? A high-resolution summer temperature reconstruction for the eastern Swiss Alps back to A.D. 1580 derived from proglacial varved sediments. Holocene, 17(1), pp. 51-63. Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage 10.1177/0959683607073278

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We found a significant positive correlation between local summer air temperature (May-September) and the annual sediment mass accumulation rate (MAR) in Lake Silvaplana (46°N, 9°E, 1800 m a.s.l.) during the twentieth century (r = 0.69, p < 0.001 for decadal smoothed series). Sediment trap data (2001-2005) confirm this relation with exceptionally high particle yields during the hottest summer of the last 140 years in 2003. On this base we developed a decadal-scale summer temperature reconstruction back to AD 1580. Surprisingly, the comparison of our reconstruction with two other independent regional summer temperature reconstructions (based on tree-rings and documentary data) revealed a significant negative correlation for the pre-1900 data (ie, late ‘Little Ice Age’). This demonstrates that the correlation between MAR and summer temperature is not stable in time and the actualistic principle does not apply in this case. We suggest that different climatic regimes (modern/‘Little Ice Age’) lead to changing state conditions in the catchment and thus to considerably different sediment transport mechanisms. Therefore, we calibrated our MAR data with gridded early instrumental temperature series from AD 1760-1880 (r = -0.48, p < 0.01 for decadal smoothed series) to properly reconstruct the late LIA climatic conditions. We found exceptionally low temperatures between AD 1580 and 1610 (0.75°C below twentieth-century mean) and during the late Maunder Minimum from AD 1680 to 1710 (0.5°C below twentieth-century mean). In general, summer temperatures did not experience major negative departures from the twentieth-century mean during the late ‘Little Ice Age’. This compares well with the two existing independent regional reconstructions suggesting that the LIA in the Alps was mainly a phenomenon of the cold season.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography > Physical Geography > Unit Paleolimnology
10 Strategic Research Centers > Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR)
08 Faculty of Science > Institute of Geography

UniBE Contributor:

Blass, Alexander, Grosjean, Martin

Subjects:

500 Science > 550 Earth sciences & geology

ISSN:

0959-6836

Publisher:

Sage

Submitter:

Factscience Import

Date Deposited:

04 Oct 2013 14:59

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:18

Publisher DOI:

10.1177/0959683607073278

Web of Science ID:

000244644300005

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.25557

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/25557 (FactScience: 59126)

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