Articles | Volume 21, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-343-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-21-343-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
03 Feb 2025
Research article |
| 03 Feb 2025
| 03 Feb 2025
Towards quantitative reconstruction of past monsoon precipitation based on tetraether membrane lipids in Chinese loess
Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
current address: Organic Surface Geochemistry Lab, Section 4.6 Geomorphology, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
Martin Ziegler
Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
Louise Fuchs
Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
Youbin Sun
State key laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, 710061, China
Francien Peterse
Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Julie Lattaud, Frédérique Kirkels, Francien Peterse, Chantal V. Freymond, Timothy I. Eglinton, Jens Hefter, Gesine Mollenhauer, Sergio Balzano, Laura Villanueva, Marcel T. J. van der Meer, Ellen C. Hopmans, Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté, and Stefan Schouten
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Muhammed Ojoshogu Usman, Frédérique Marie Sophie Anne Kirkels, Huub Michel Zwart, Sayak Basu, Camilo Ponton, Thomas Michael Blattmann, Michael Ploetze, Negar Haghipour, Cameron McIntyre, Francien Peterse, Maarten Lupker, Liviu Giosan, and Timothy Ian Eglinton
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Timme H. Donders, Niels A. G. M. van Helmond, Roel Verreussel, Dirk Munsterman, Johan ten Veen, Robert P. Speijer, Johan W. H. Weijers, Francesca Sangiorgi, Francien Peterse, Gert-Jan Reichart, Jaap S. Sinninghe Damsté, Lucas Lourens, Gesa Kuhlmann, and Henk Brinkhuis
Clim. Past, 14, 397–411, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-397-2018, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-14-397-2018, 2018
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The buildup and melting of ice during the early glaciations in the Northern Hemisphere, around 2.5 million years ago, were far shorter in duration than during the last million years. Based on molecular compounds and microfossils from sediments dating back to the early glaciations we show that the temperature on land and in the sea changed simultaneously and was a major factor in the ice buildup in the Northern Hemisphere. These data provide key insights into the dynamics of early glaciations.
Y. Li, N. Su, L. Liang, L. Ma, Y. Yan, and Y. Sun
Clim. Past, 11, 1067–1075, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1067-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1067-2015, 2015
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Multiscale signals were decomposed from Chinese loess and speleothem records over the last 260 kyr. We found great glacial and orbital impacts on the loess grain size changes and dominant precession forcing in the speleothem δ18O variability. The millennial components are evident in the loess and speleothem proxies with variances of 13 and 17%. Close matches of millennial monsoon events between these two proxies indicate similar driving force linked to high-latitude Northern Hemisphere climate.
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Climate history of the Southern Hemisphere Westerlies belt during the last glacial–interglacial transition revealed from lake water oxygen isotope reconstruction of Laguna Potrok Aike (52° S, Argentina)
New online method for water isotope analysis of speleothem fluid inclusions using laser absorption spectroscopy (WS-CRDS)
Inorganic geochemistry data from Lake El'gygytgyn sediments: marine isotope stages 6–11
A 350 ka record of climate change from Lake El'gygytgyn, Far East Russian Arctic: refining the pattern of climate modes by means of cluster analysis
Dynamic diatom response to changing climate 0–1.2 Ma at Lake El'gygytgyn, Far East Russian Arctic
Amplified bioproductivity during Transition IV (332 000–342 000 yr ago): evidence from the geochemical record of Lake El'gygytgyn
Potential and limits of OSL, TT-OSL, IRSL and pIRIR290 dating methods applied on a Middle Pleistocene sediment record of Lake El'gygytgyn, Russia
Rock magnetic properties, magnetic susceptibility, and organic geochemistry comparison in core LZ1029-7 Lake El'gygytgyn, Russia Far East
High-temperature thermomagnetic properties of vivianite nodules, Lake El'gygytgyn, Northeast Russia
Reconstruction of drip-water δ18O based on calcite oxygen and clumped isotopes of speleothems from Bunker Cave (Germany)
A biomarker record of Lake El'gygytgyn, Far East Russian Arctic: investigating sources of organic matter and carbon cycling during marine isotope stages 1–3
Climate warming and vegetation response after Heinrich event 1 (16 700–16 000 cal yr BP) in Europe south of the Alps
A 250 ka oxygen isotope record from diatoms at Lake El'gygytgyn, far east Russian Arctic
The oxygen isotopic composition of phytolith assemblages from tropical rainforest soil tops (Queensland, Australia): validation of a new paleoenvironmental tool
Terrestrial mollusc records from Xifeng and Luochuan L9 loess strata and their implications for paleoclimatic evolution in the Chinese Loess Plateau during marine Oxygen Isotope Stages 24-22
Annika V. Herbert, Simon G. Haberle, Suzette G. A. Flantua, Ondrej Mottl, Jessica L. Blois, John W. Williams, Adrian George, and Geoff S. Hope
Clim. Past, 20, 2473–2485, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2473-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2473-2024, 2024
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The Indo-Pacific Pollen Database is a large collection of pollen samples from across the Indo-Pacific region, with most samples coming from Australia. This is a valuable collection that can be used to analyse vegetation dynamics going back thousands of years. It is now being fully shared via Neotoma for the first time, opening up many exciting new avenues of research. This paper presents key aspects of this database, including geographical distribution, age control and deposition times.
Peng Sun, Philip B. Holden, and H. John B. Birks
Clim. Past, 20, 2373–2398, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2373-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2373-2024, 2024
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We develop the Multi Ensemble Machine Learning Model (MEMLM) for reconstructing palaeoenvironments from microfossil assemblages. The machine-learning approaches, which include random tree and natural language processing techniques, substantially outperform classical approaches under cross-validation, but they can fail when applied to reconstruct past environments. Statistical significance testing is found sufficient to identify these unreliable reconstructions.
Heather M. Stoll, Chris Day, Franziska Lechleitner, Oliver Kost, Laura Endres, Jakub Sliwinski, Carlos Pérez-Mejías, Hai Cheng, and Denis Scholz
Clim. Past, 19, 2423–2444, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2423-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-2423-2023, 2023
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Stalagmites formed in caves provide valuable information about past changes in climate and vegetation conditions. In this contribution, we present a new method to better estimate past changes in soil and vegetation productivity using carbon isotopes and trace elements measured in stalagmites. Applying this method to other stalagmites should provide a better indication of past vegetation feedbacks to climate change.
Jenny Maccali, Anna Nele Meckler, Stein-Erik Lauritzen, Torill Brekken, Helen Aase Rokkan, Alvaro Fernandez, Yves Krüger, Jane Adigun, Stéphane Affolter, and Markus Leuenberger
Clim. Past, 19, 1847–1862, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1847-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-19-1847-2023, 2023
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The southern coast of South Africa hosts some key archeological sites for the study of early human evolution. Here we present a short but high-resolution record of past changes in the hydroclimate and temperature on the southern coast of South Africa based on the study of a speleothem collected from Bloukrantz Cave. Overall, the paleoclimate indicators suggest stable temperature from 48.3 to 45.2 ka, whereas precipitation was variable, with marked short drier episodes.
Kurt R. Lindberg, William C. Daniels, Isla S. Castañeda, and Julie Brigham-Grette
Clim. Past, 18, 559–577, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-559-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-18-559-2022, 2022
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Earth experiences regular ice ages resulting in shifts between cooler and warmer climates. Around 1 million years ago, the ice age cycles grew longer and stronger. We used bacterial and plant lipids preserved in an Arctic lake to reconstruct temperature and vegetation during this climate transition. We find that Arctic land temperatures did not cool much compared to ocean records from this period, and that vegetation shifts correspond with a long-term drying previously reported in the region.
Yoav Ben Dor, Francesco Marra, Moshe Armon, Yehouda Enzel, Achim Brauer, Markus Julius Schwab, and Efrat Morin
Clim. Past, 17, 2653–2677, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2653-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2653-2021, 2021
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Laminated sediments from the deepest part of the Dead Sea unravel the hydrological response of the eastern Mediterranean to past climate changes. This study demonstrates the importance of geological archives in complementing modern hydrological measurements that do not fully capture natural hydroclimatic variability, which is crucial to configure for understanding the impact of climate change on the hydrological cycle in subtropical regions.
Mengna Liao, Kai Li, Weiwei Sun, and Jian Ni
Clim. Past, 17, 2291–2303, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2291-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-2291-2021, 2021
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The long-term trajectories of precipitation, hydrological balance and soil moisture are not completely consistent in southwest China. Hydrological balance was more sensitive to temperature change on a millennial scale. For soil moisture, plant processes also played a big role in addition to precipitation and temperature. Under future climate warming, surface water shortage in southwest China can be even more serious and efforts at reforestation may bring some relief to the soil moisture deficit.
Clément Outrequin, Anne Alexandre, Christine Vallet-Coulomb, Clément Piel, Sébastien Devidal, Amaelle Landais, Martine Couapel, Jean-Charles Mazur, Christophe Peugeot, Monique Pierre, Frédéric Prié, Jacques Roy, Corinne Sonzogni, and Claudia Voigt
Clim. Past, 17, 1881–1902, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1881-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1881-2021, 2021
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Continental atmospheric humidity is a key climate parameter poorly captured by global climate models. Model–data comparison approaches that are applicable beyond the instrumental period are essential to progress on this issue but face a lack of quantitative relative humidity proxies. Here, we calibrate the triple oxygen isotope composition of phytoliths as a new quantitative proxy of continental relative humidity suitable for past climate reconstructions.
Jacek Pawlak
Clim. Past, 17, 1051–1064, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1051-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-17-1051-2021, 2021
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Presently, central Europe is under the influence of two types of climate, transitional and continental. The 60 ka long multiproxy speleothem dataset from Slovakia records the climate of the Last Interglacial cycle and its transition to the Last Glacial. The interpretation of stable isotopic composition and trace element content proxies helps to distinguish which factor had the strongest influence on the δ18O record shape: the local temperature, the humidity or the source effect.
Sean F. Cleator, Sandy P. Harrison, Nancy K. Nichols, I. Colin Prentice, and Ian Roulstone
Clim. Past, 16, 699–712, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-699-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-16-699-2020, 2020
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We present geographically explicit reconstructions of seasonal temperature and annual moisture variables at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), 21 000 years ago. The reconstructions use existing site-based estimates of climate, interpolated in space and time in a physically consistent way using climate model simulations. The reconstructions give a much better picture of the LGM climate and will provide a robust evaluation of how well state-of-the-art climate models simulate large climate changes.
Shaun R. Eaves, Andrew N. Mackintosh, Brian M. Anderson, Alice M. Doughty, Dougal B. Townsend, Chris E. Conway, Gisela Winckler, Joerg M. Schaefer, Graham S. Leonard, and Andrew T. Calvert
Clim. Past, 12, 943–960, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-943-2016, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-12-943-2016, 2016
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Geological evidence for past changes in glacier length provides a useful source of information about pre-historic climate change. We have used glacier modelling to show that air temperature reductions of −5 to −7 °C, relative to present, are required to simulate the glacial extent in the North Island, New Zealand, during the last ice age (approx. 20000 years ago). Our results provide data to assess climate model simulations, with the aim of determining the drivers of past natural climate change.
S. Jasechko, A. Lechler, F. S. R. Pausata, P. J. Fawcett, T. Gleeson, D. I. Cendón, J. Galewsky, A. N. LeGrande, C. Risi, Z. D. Sharp, J. M. Welker, M. Werner, and K. Yoshimura
Clim. Past, 11, 1375–1393, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1375-2015, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-11-1375-2015, 2015
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In this study we compile global isotope proxy records of climate changes from the last ice age to the late-Holocene preserved in cave calcite, glacial ice and groundwater aquifers. We show that global patterns of late-Pleistocene to late-Holocene precipitation isotope shifts are consistent with stronger-than-modern isotopic distillation of air masses during the last ice age, likely impacted by larger global temperature differences between the tropics and the poles.
J. Zhu, A. Lücke, H. Wissel, C. Mayr, D. Enters, K. Ja Kim, C. Ohlendorf, F. Schäbitz, and B. Zolitschka
Clim. Past, 10, 2153–2169, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-2153-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-2153-2014, 2014
S. Affolter, D. Fleitmann, and M. Leuenberger
Clim. Past, 10, 1291–1304, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1291-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-1291-2014, 2014
P. S. Minyuk, V. Y. Borkhodoev, and V. Wennrich
Clim. Past, 10, 467–485, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-467-2014, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-10-467-2014, 2014
U. Frank, N. R. Nowaczyk, P. Minyuk, H. Vogel, P. Rosén, and M. Melles
Clim. Past, 9, 1559–1569, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-1559-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-1559-2013, 2013
J. A. Snyder, M. V. Cherepanova, and A. Bryan
Clim. Past, 9, 1309–1319, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-1309-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-1309-2013, 2013
L. Cunningham, H. Vogel, V. Wennrich, O. Juschus, N. Nowaczyk, and P. Rosén
Clim. Past, 9, 679–686, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-679-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-679-2013, 2013
A. Zander and A. Hilgers
Clim. Past, 9, 719–733, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-719-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-719-2013, 2013
K. J. Murdock, K. Wilkie, and L. L. Brown
Clim. Past, 9, 467–479, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-467-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-467-2013, 2013
P. S. Minyuk, T. V. Subbotnikova, L. L. Brown, and K. J. Murdock
Clim. Past, 9, 433–446, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-433-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-433-2013, 2013
T. Kluge, H. P. Affek, T. Marx, W. Aeschbach-Hertig, D. F. C. Riechelmann, D. Scholz, S. Riechelmann, A. Immenhauser, D. K. Richter, J. Fohlmeister, A. Wackerbarth, A. Mangini, and C. Spötl
Clim. Past, 9, 377–391, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-377-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-377-2013, 2013
A. R. Holland, S. T. Petsch, I. S. Castañeda, K. M. Wilkie, S. J. Burns, and J. Brigham-Grette
Clim. Past, 9, 243–260, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-243-2013, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-9-243-2013, 2013
S. Samartin, O. Heiri, A. F. Lotter, and W. Tinner
Clim. Past, 8, 1913–1927, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1913-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1913-2012, 2012
B. Chapligin, H. Meyer, G. E. A. Swann, C. Meyer-Jacob, and H.-W. Hubberten
Clim. Past, 8, 1621–1636, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1621-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-1621-2012, 2012
A. Alexandre, J. Crespin, F. Sylvestre, C. Sonzogni, and D. W. Hilbert
Clim. Past, 8, 307–324, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-307-2012, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-8-307-2012, 2012
B. Wu and N. Q. Wu
Clim. Past, 7, 349–359, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-7-349-2011, https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-7-349-2011, 2011
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Hopmans, E. C., Weijers, J. W. H., Schefuß, E., Herfort, L., Sinninghe Damsté, J. S., and Schouten, S.: A novel proxy for terrestrial organic matter in sediments based on branched and isoprenoid tetraether lipids, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 224, 107–116, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2004.05.012, 2004.
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Huguet, C., Hopmans, E. C., Febo-Ayala, W., Thompson, D. H., Sinninghe Damsté, J. S., and Schouten, S.: An improved method to determine the absolute abundance of glycerol dibiphytanyl glycerol tetraether lipids, Org. Geochem., 37, 1036–1041, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2006.05.008, 2006.
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De Jonge, C., Hopmans, E. C., Stadnitskaia, A., Rijpstra, W. I. C., Hofland, R., Tegelaar, E., and Sinninghe Damsté, J. S.: Identification of novel penta- and hexamethylated branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers in peat using HPLC–MS2, GC–MS and GC–SMB-MS, Org. Geochem., 54, 78–82, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2012.10.004, 2013.
De Jonge, C., Stadnitskaia, A., Hopmans, E. C., Cherkashov, G., Fedotov, A., and Sinninghe Damsté, J. S.: In situ produced branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers in suspended particulate matter from the Yenisei River, Eastern Siberia, Geochim. Cosmochim. Ac., 125, 476–491, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2013.10.031, 2014a.
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Short summary
In this study, we use the distribution of soil bacterial membrane lipids stored on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) to quantitatively reconstruct variations in precipitation amount over the past 130 kyr. The precipitation record shows orbital- and millennial-scale variations and varies at precession and obliquity scale. The application of this precipitation proxy across the CLP indicates a more pronounced spatial gradient during glacials, when the western CLP experiences more arid conditions.
In this study, we use the distribution of soil bacterial membrane lipids stored on the Chinese...
