Reconstructing Holocene changes in the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds: Integrating modern processes and paleoclimate data from New Zealand's southern fjords

The Southern Hemisphere westerly winds are an important component of the global carbon cycle due to their influence on Southern Ocean CO2 flux. In addition, the winds influence mid-latitude storm tracks, thereby controlling moisture balance over much of New Zealand's South Island and other Southern Hemisphere regions. Fiordland, New Zealand is an ideal locale to investigate Holocene changes in westerly wind behavior: It sits at the northern margin of the wind field maximum, is sensitive to latitudinal and strength fluctuations of the winds, and is the location of numerous fjord sub-basins with high sedimentation rates (up to 3 mm/yr). Due to the strong positive relationship between wind speed and regional rainfall, reconstructions of past precipitation and fjord circulation can inform us of past westerly wind behavior. These processes can be observed through changes in the rate of organic carbon delivery from land: When precipitation is high, more terrestrial organic carbon is delivered to the fjords, while low precipitation shifts the balance toward accumulation of marine organic carbon. An important first step towards reconstructing past westerly wind variability is to characterize the distribution and cycling of carbon throughout different depositional settings in the fjords to determine the optimal location for the development of paleoclimate records. Here, we present a geochemical characterization of surface sediments and the water column throughout the region and apply this understanding to sediment cores. During three field seasons in 2012 and 2013, we collected surface sediments, particulate organic matter, and piston cores from 10 different fjords spanning 44-46° S. Our results suggest that organic carbon in the fjord basins largely follows a two-end-member mixing model, drawing from marine and terrestrial end-member sources. We see consistent down-fjord trends in carbon and nitrogen concentrations and isotopes measured from surface sediments and particulate organic matter. Terrestrial organic carbon dominates toward the head of each fjord and marine organic content increases moving toward the mouth, and the consistency of this relationship allows us to compare downcore results from different basins. We will apply our modern-process framework to several cores that span the last 4,000 years and discuss the implications for late Holocene westerly wind variability in this understudied but important region.