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Arctic nearshore environments proximal to large rivers, like Simpson Lagoon, Alaska, potentially contain high-resolution sediment archives that can be utilized to reconstruct paleoclimate variability over the late Holocene. The ongoing, rapid environmental changes recently observed in the Arctic highlight the need for high-resolution records of pre-industrial climate change in this climatically sensitive region; such records are fundamental for understanding recent anthropogenic changes in the context of natural variability. This dissertation utilizes a suite of geochemical and sedimentological proxies in combination with age-constrained, shallow acoustic reflection data to demonstrate that these underutilized coastal sediment archives are capable of generating high-resolution paleoclimate records on par with other terrestrial climate archives (i.e. lake sediments, ice cores, tree rings) and provides the first ~1650-year long record of climate variability from the inner shelf of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea. An analysis of sedimentation patterns within Simpson Lagoon using CHIRP seismic data and radioisotope geochronology reveals that sediment infilling in Simpson Lagoon began ~3500 y BP, creating a primary depocenter with mm y−1 sediment accumulation in western Simpson Lagoon. The interbedded sediments suggest that major sediment reworking from ice processes, a common occurrence in Arctic shelf environments, does not disrupt the sediment archive contained within the lagoon. Quantitative reconstructions of surface air temperature are obtained using the brGDGT-derived MBT'/CBT paleothermometer. A comprehensive study of lagoon and river sediments and catchment soils demonstrate that brGDGTs are primarily soil-derived, and yield reconstructed temperatures consistent with instrumental summer temperature observations from Alaska's North Slope. Temperature reconstructions from Simpson Lagoon also show similarities with regional and pan-Arctic climate records over the last few millennia, with evidence of temperature departures correlative with noted climate events (i.e., Little Ice Age, Medieval Climate Anomaly). In addition, temporal variability in sediment sourcing to the lagoon, determined using a multi-proxy approach (i.e., granulometry, elemental analysis, clay mineralogy), broadly corresponds with temperature fluctuations, indicating relative increases in fluvial sediment discharge during colder intervals and decreased river discharge/increased coastal erosion during warmer periods. This paleoclimate variability may be driven by variations in solar output and/or shifts in the regional ocean-atmosphere circulation patterns (e.g., the Aleutian Low).
This work was partially supported by the Sandia National Laboratories, 'Laboratory Directed Research and Development' (LDRD) fellowship program in conjunction with Texas A & M University (TAMU). The research described herein is the work of Kathryn M. Schreiner ('Katie') and her advisor, Thomas S. Bianchi and represents a concise description of Katie's dissertation that was submitted to the TAMU Office of Graduate Studies in May 2013 in partial fulfillment of her doctorate of philosophy degree. High Arctic permafrost soils contain a massive amount of organic carbon, accounting for twice as much carbon as what is currently stored as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However, with current warming trends this sink is in danger of thawing and potentially releasing large amounts of carbon as both carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. It is difficult to make predictions about the future of this sink without knowing how it has reacted to past temperature and climate changes. This project investigated long term, fine scale particulate organic carbon (POC) delivery by the high-Arctic Colville River into Simpson's Lagoon in the near-shore Beaufort Sea. Modern POC was determined to be a mixture of three sources (riverine soils, coastal erosion, and marine). Downcore POC measurements were performed in a core close to the Colville River output and a core close to intense coastal erosion. Inputs of the three major sources were found to vary throughout the last two millennia, and in the Colville River core covary significantly with Alaskan temperature reconstructions.
Due to cryosphere-albedo feedbacks mechanisms, climate change is amplified in the Arctic, making it sensitive to changes in temperature. Alpine glaciers grow and retreat depending on climate, and are excellent recorders of past climate fluctuations. By analyzing the landforms and sediment deposited by glaciers, high-resolution climate chronologies can be constructed and past glacier fluctuations can be inferred. 10Be ages and physical properties of lake sediment are used here to reconstruct Late Pleistocene and Holocene glacier activity from Alapah River valley and Shainin Lake in the north-central Brooks Range. 10Be ages from moraine boulders in Alapah River valley in the north-central Brooks Range were used to reconstruct the maximum glacier extent during the LGM. After eliminating outliers, the 10Be ages from a terminal moraine deposit in the Alapah River valley indicate that the local LGM culminated at 21. 0 ℗ł 0. 8 ka. This new 10Be chronology is the first to firmly constrain the timing of the local LGM in the Brooks Range, and is in agreement with LGM moraine records from other sites in Alaska and the globe. Two 10Be ages from boulders located on bedrock 14 km upvalley from the Itkillik II terminal moraine give an age of deglaciation in Alapah River valley of 18. 2 ℗ł 0. 8 ka. This indicates rapid retreat after the LGM and shows that deglaciation is synchronous with sites in Alaska but was initiated earlier than the age of 17 ka previously proposed for onset of LGM deglaciation in the western US. Physical and geochemical properties of lake sediment from a proglacial lake in Alapah River valley, Shainin Lake, were analyzed to investigate any glacial signals recorded in the lake sediment. Age-depth models for each core were established using 14C ages and analytical methods included magnetic susceptibility, wet bulk density (WBD), scanning X-Ray fluorescence (ITRAX) and visible scanning reflectance spectroscopy. The WBD record from Shainin Lake may serve as a proxy for glacial history of Alapah and Kayak Creek valleys. If interpreted correctly, glacial activity increased from 12,700 to ~10,000 cal yr, decreased from ~10,000 to ~5700 cal yr BP, then increased from ~5700 cal yr BP to the present. This indicates that there is evidence for early Holocene glacial activity, the retreating or stagnating glaciers in the middle Holocene until ~5700 cal yr BP, followed by expanding ice.
The Arctic is among the most sensitive locations to climate change, where feedback mechanisms involving the cryosphere result in climate amplification. Because of their sensitivity to summer temperature and winter precipitation, glaciers can be used as proxies for climate change and reconstructions of past glacier fluctuations provide details about paleoclimate. Here, a chronology of late Pleistocene deglaciation and Neoglacial growth is constructed for two valleys in the north-central Brooks Range, Arctic Alaska. Cosmogenic 10Be exposure dating was used on ice-sculpted valley-bottom bedrock outcrops and boulders from Holocene moraine crests. Both valleys show evidence of retreat from the range front ~16-15 ka, and retreat into individual cirques by ~14 ka. There is no evidence for a standstill or re-advance during Late Glacial (14-11 ka) time. Neoglaciation was underway during the middle Holocene, constrained by a moraine dated to 4. 6±0. 5 ka.^Using this moraine age, and another moraine dated at 2. 7±0. 2 ka, this project confirms the accuracy of the previously established lichen growth curve to estimate moraine ages. This project also confirms that glaciers during early Neoglaciation had equal or larger extents than during the Little Ice Age (1200-1900 AD). Sediments collected from a proglacial lake downvalley of modern cirque glaciers reveal episodic sediment deposition from which it is difficult to isolate a signal of glacier advance. Comparing the lake sediment data to the moraine chronology suggests that Upper Kurupa Lake, based on the measured proxies, does not record glacial advances. Several conditions within the lake's catchment likely obscures any glacial signal. Further, more detailed measurements on the lake sediment might reveal additional clues on glacier activity.^Despite the apparent lack of recording changes in glacial length, sediment characteristics suggest a period of stable deposition since 1300 AD, possibly attributed to cooling during the Little Ice Age.
The delivery of sediment to the Alaskan continental shelf is largely associated with sea-ice drift and wind driven Arctic Ocean circulation patterns that have varied during the Holocene. This study presents a comparison of two high-resolution proxy records from the western Arctic over the past 2,000 years. To provide variations of sedimentation patterns in the Arctic Ocean (e.g., sea-ice transport, density flows, ocean currents), the grain size distributions were measured in a piston core (HLY02-04 JPC16) from the eastern Chukchi Sea at a higher resolution than previously reported. A revised JPC16 age-depth model was used in this analysis (Darby et al., 2012). The sediment core, collected on the east flank of Barrow Canyon (72.1555°N, 153.50817°W, ~1300 mwd), preserves a record of local variations in sedimentation mechanisms in the Chukchi-Beaufort Seas. A Varimax-rotated Principle Component Analysis (VPCA) was conducted on the grain-size data from JPC16. We inferred three principal components (PCs) of sediment deposition at the core site related to anchor ice, nepheloid flows, and suspension freezing based on variations in grain-size distributions from a Malvern Mastersizer sediment analysis. This interpretation is consistent with previous downcore analysis by Darby et al. (2009) on multiple western Arctic Ocean cores. A fourth, much less significant mode, is related to resuspension and deposition connected to intermittent suspension and ocean currents. While all VPCA modes showed increased variability since 200 yr BP, components related to sea-ice showed the highest positive loadings between 2000-1300 cal yr BP. The most likely cause of positive anomalies observed in these two components is associated with increased ice melt and settling of sediment, or a greater influx of sea-ice into Alaskan waters. It can therefore be argued that oscillations in these modes are closely related to changes in atmospheric temperature or oscillations in the atmosphere-ocean circulation patterns, primarily the Arctic Oscillation. The high-resolution record of sediment deposition in the Arctic Ocean allowed for direct correlation with an atmospheric climate proxy as recorded by varve thickness measurements retrieved from a glacial lake located in the Brooks Range (Bird et al., 2009). The time interval investigated here shows a significant relationship between marine sea-ice sedimentation and atmospheric temperature (r = 0.7). This analysis suggests that warmer atmospheric intervals are likely related to greater sea-ice melt and sedimentation of entrained sediments.
Lake sediment cores spanning the last 2000 years from four sites across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (CAA) document the responses of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems to regional climate variability. Biogenic silica (BSi) records in cores from Banks Island, NWT (Lake B503; 72.3245, -123.4036, 84 masl), Bathurst Island, Nunavut (PR01; 75.6497, -99.1144, 30 masl), Prince of Wales Island, Nunavut (SW08; 72.3177, -97.2678, 104 masl), and Ellesmere Island, Nunavut (CV03; 79.9211, -82.9348, 363 masl) were used to examine the relationship between diatom production and climate. A pollen record from Prince of Wales Island provided the first high-resolution July temperature reconstruction for the last 1000 years for the central CAA. Dissolution was evident in three out of the four lakes; core SW08 contained no BSi above detection and cores CV03 and PR01 only contained values above detection in the uppermost sediments, suggesting that the preservation of biogenic silica (BSi) in the sediment is likely influenced by sedimentary carbonates. A BSi sequence from core B503 showed that diatom production was affected by climate changes such as the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age. The vegetation on southern Prince of Wales Island underwent marked transitions during the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly, which was mainly observed in the proportion of Cyperaceae and Poaceae. The mean July temperature reconstruction showed a long-term cooling from 1080-1915 CE with a sustained cold period from 1800-1915 CE prior to 20th-century warming. A synthesis of paleoclimate records from across the Arctic demonstrated that pollen-based reconstructions record both high and low frequency climate variability, when sampling resolution is sufficient, and can improve regional climate reconstructions.
Due to the effect of Arctic Amplification the Arctic is currently warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Seasonal sea-ice extent has been alarmingly declining in the past decade. Glaciers and ice caps along the Greenland coast and in the Canadian Arctic have been losing mass on an accelerated rate during the past century. As the global climate system is a complex system connecting different regions via atmospheric transport, changes in Arctic climate patterns are affecting the climate and weather conditions in the lower latitudes. The Greenland Ice Sheet as well as glaciers and ice caps in the Canadian Arctic are the largest freshwater storages on the northern hemisphere and expected to be among the highest contributors to global sea level rise. Freshwater input through meltwater discharge is not only affecting sea level rise but further influencing deep water formation in the Labrador Sea and the subpolar North Atlantic and hence global ocean circulation and climate patterns. To be able to sufficiently predict future developments of the Greenland Ice Sheet with respect to mass loss and resulting impacts on the global climate, data from past climate and Greenland Ice Sheet extents are crucially important. The Holocene spanning the last period of the deglaciation after the Last Glacial Maximum culminating in the Holocene Thermal Maximum when atmospheric temperatures were warmer and glacier and ice-sheet extent smaller than today represents the closest analogue to current atmospheric warming and Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss. The wide west Greenland shelf of Baffin Bay and Labrador Sea hosts thick marine sediments archiving around ten thousand years of this past climate and ice-sheet history. Siliciclastic detrital material discharged into Baffin Bay and the Labrador Sea via meltwater and erosion can be separated from those sedimentary archives and traced back to its source region. Radiogenic isotopes (Sr, Nd, Pb) label the source regions of those sediments by fingerprinting the isotopic composition of the prevailing bedrock. Hence, they can be used as reliable provenance tracers. Retreating land-ice masses expose bedrock that before was not subject to erosion, influencing the isotopic signatures delivered into the surrounding ocean. Based on this theory, radiogenic isotopes can record changes in siliciclastic detrital sediment provenance and hence, indirectly trace ice-sheet dynamics. The overall aim of this thesis work is to reconstruct changes in detrital sediment provenance along the west Greenland shelf to gain new insights into Holocene Greenland Ice Sheet dynamics and ocean current-induced sediment transport. Sedimentary archives from three main research areas (eastern Labrador Sea, northeastern Baffin Bay, and Kane Basin, central Nares Strait) record obvious shifts in sediment provenance throughout the Holocene. Those shifts coincide with major regional climatic changes in the research area. Generally, all records reveal the local bedrock as the main source region of detrital material and distal-sourced material transported along the coast via the West Greenland Current as a secondary source. Although the proportion of distal sourced material appears to be small, changes in West Greenland Current strength have been recorded in the isotopic composition. In southwestern Greenland and the Labrador Sea radiogenic isotope records reveal a shift towards a higher proportion of the local Archean Block in the late Holocene caused by Neoglacial ice advance and a reduction in West Greenland Current speed delivering less material from southern most Greenland. Farther north in the Upernavik region, midwest Greenland coast, the isotopic composition marks a change with the transition from early to mid Holocene caused by increased West Greenland Current strength and the opening of Vaigat Strait which enabled erosion and transport of freshly exposed basalts from the Disko Bay area due to ice-sheet retreat. This basalt input is, however, not transported all the way to northernmost Melville Bay (northern Baffin Bay) where the detrital sediment composition is clearly dominated by contribution of the local Committee-Melville Belt without any significant provenance changes throughout the Holocene. Farthest north, the sedimentary record from Kane Basin records provenance shifts that confirm the opening of Nares Strait around 8.3 ka BP. This event is followed by an increased delivery of carbonate-rich detrital sediments from northern Ellesmere Island due to the newly established gateway of Arctic Ocean water transporting sediments from further north to the core location. Additionally determined mineralogical composition of the sedimentary records along the west Greenland coast supports the interpretation drawn from the radiogenic isotopic composition. Furthermore, it points out the additional value of radiogenic isotopes through variations only visible in isotopic composition but not in the mineralogical composition. Further comparison to other studies from the region based on different tracers confirms the reliability and sufficient application of radiogenic isotopes in provenance studies as well as the advantage of multi-proxy approaches in paleoclimatological studies. Overall, this study highlights the advantages and reliability of radiogenic isotopes in provenance studies with regards to reconstructions of ice-sheet dynamics. The combination of the three isotopic systems (Sr, Nd, Pb) enables source region determination with a higher probability compensating for overlapping signatures within individual isotopic systems. The transect of sedimentary records along the west Greenland coast identifies clearly distinguishable isotopic ranges for the different Greenland bedrock terrains, qualifying this approach for further high-resolution investigation in past Greenland Ice Sheet development.
The climate is now changing rapidly at high-latitudes, and observing how the Arctic and sub-Arctic environment responded to prehistoric climate changes can hold valuable lessons as we adapt in the future. This dissertation presents four studies that use biogeochemical proxies to reconstruct environmental changes in northern Alaska over the last 40,000 years (40 ka). These records are used to infer how the environment responded to climate changes at different locations and over varying spatial and temporal scales. The first study presents a time series of stable oxygen isotopes contained in radiocarbon-dated (14C) willow wood to quantify the nature and rates of climate change on the North Slope of Alaska over the last 40 ka. The second study examines how past temperature fluctuations affected permafrost thaw and the release of ancient carbon over the last 14.5 ka by compiling 14C-age offsets in the sediment of a small lake in the Brooks Range foothills. In the third study, I document human-caused changes to boreal wildfire frequency near the city of Fairbanks to test whether the primeval forest type and permafrost in the surrounding watershed will be vulnerable to more frequent fires in the future. The fourth study examines how ice age (40-9 ka) climate changes impacted the activity of sand dunes, vegetation productivity, and the dynamics of permafrost recorded in a unique sedimentary exposure located near the Arctic Coastal Plain on Alaska’s North Slope. Overall, I present several new and interesting approaches and findings stemming from this work. Ancient willow isotopes show that between 17 and 8 ka, during the time when ice sheets were in retreat worldwide, temperatures fluctuated widely on the North Slope mostly in concert with those in Greenland. Most notably, rapid changes in temperature and moisture occurred during the initial deglacial warming (ca. 16 ka), and during the Younger Dryas cold period (12.9-11.7 ka). These climate trends were amplified on the North Slope by changes in sea-ice extent in adjacent seas, which also controlled the availability of local precipitation evaporated from these seas. However, these warming and cooling trends were occasionally dampened by the advent of more maritime climate accompanying sea-level rise during the early Holocene, and by the breakdown of the atmospheric circulation patterns created by continental ice sheets in North America during the last glacial maximum. Over the last 7 ka, a gradual, insolation-driven cooling trend ended in ca. AD 1850 when the exceptional rates of recent warming began that continue to today. I found that the vegetation, permafrost and sand dunes in Arctic Alaska were sensitive to external climate forcing, but their responses were moderated by strong, internal feedbacks, including the temperature-buffering effects that thick peat layers have on the underlying permafrost. Prior to peat buildup in the early Holocene, the timing of sedimentary transitions indicate permafrost and aeolian processes were highly responsive to the volatile climate during the last ice age, which included Greenland interstadials. This incessant ice age climate change, coupled with the complex biophysical landscape responses that are particular to the unglaciated Arctic, helped maintain the ecological mosaic of the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem. Prehistoric warming events triggered permafrost thaw and the release of ancient carbon during the Bølling-Allerød (14.5-12.9 ka) and early Holocene warm period (11.7-8.0 ka), and this release is likely to occur again given enough warming. In the boreal forest watershed near Fairbanks, Alaska, the current ecological regime has remained intact despite a three-fold increase in pre-settlement wildfires during the Fairbanks gold rush (1902-1940). Once continued warming surpasses the buffering effects of the current internal feedbacks of the North Slope and boreal forest and the threshold for change is reached, more dynamic aeolian and permafrost processes may again dominate as they did on the more unstable and diverse ice age landscape. Overall, the results of this work will be useful for understanding how climate and landscape change in northern Alaska will respond to global climate forcing in the future.
"The retreat of large tidewater- and lake-calving glaciers, as well as nearby land-based glaciers, in southeastern Alaska during the middle to late Holocene was primarily triggered by increases in summer temperature. Shakes, LeConte, Patterson, and Baird glaciers, located along the southwestern margin of the Stikine Icefield in southeastern Alaska, experienced two or three major periods of advance and retreat during this period. Historical, stratigraphic, and dendrochronological evidence suggests that these periods of advance culminated approximately 3,500-3,300, 2,700-2,200, 1,100-900, and 220-110 years ago in the study area. Comparison with previously published regional records from glaciers located along the coast of northwestern North America suggests a general synchrony in the timing of ice advance across the region. Regional intervals of ice maxima date approximately 3,000-1,900,1,500-900, and 250-100 years ago, and encompass three of the main periods of advance represented in the study area. To determine a regional cause of glacier synchrony, glacier chronologies were compared to local and regional climate and climate proxies. Summer temperature fluctuations in the study area for the past four centuries were derived from tree-ring-width time-series from Crystal Mountain near Petersburg. Previously published precipitation and summer temperature values, inferred from palynological studies, provide a record of climate change for the last 10,000 Years. Throughout southeastern Alaska, periods of glacier retreat for both calving glaciers and land-based glaciers tend to correlate with periods of warming summer temperature. The collective data imply that the geologic record left by calving glaciers, like that left by 1and-based glaciers. has the potential to serve as an important climate-proxy record in a region where few such records have been studied. Furthermore, such a relationship helps further to quantify calving glacier dynamics and improve prediction of calving-glacier response to human-induced global warming"--Abstract.