High-Resolution Hydroclimate Reconstruction of the North American Monsoon over the Common Era
Abstract
The North American Monsoon (NAM) system, one of the least understood monsoon systems, is responsible for more than half of the precipitation that reaches the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Both the human population and surrounding ecosystems depend on this system for their existence, however the seasonal timing of NAMs future behavior in a warming climate is still uncertain due to difficulties in accurately simulating the monsoon and in discerning summer and winter precipitation in some paleoclimate archives in the region. Hydrogen isotope records derived from leaf wax fatty acids (Dwax) have been shown to record the relative contributions of summertime precipitation to winter storm track precipitation in this region. To better understand the interannual to sub-decadal NAM hydroclimate variability over the Common Era, we use Dwax to reconstruct NAM behavior from laminated marine sediments in the Guaymas Basin of the Gulf of California over the late Holocene. The high frequency variability captured in these laminated sediments provides a unique opportunity to understand monsoon variability at decadal to multicentennial timescales and compare our hydroclimate reconstructions directly with the latewood tree-ring chronology network across the NAM region.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2021
- Bibcode:
- 2021AGUFMPP55C0673H