Tree-Ring Proxies of Hydroclimate Variability in the Great Lakes Region during Cold Excursions Back to 15ka

Abstract:

A decade-long investigation of subfossil wood buried in glacio-fluvial, fluvial and lacustrine deposits from the U.S. Great Lakes region has resulted in a Great Lakes tree-ring network (GLTRN) comprising 47 sites dated from ca. 15 ka to 3ka. The GLTRN provides high-resolution proxies for exploration of local and regional responses to hydroclimate change at inter-annual scales during the transition from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene. Classification of radiometric ages of GLTRN wood with relative cumulative-probability function delineates intervals and importance of hydrological changes in time and space. The overwhelming majority of wood burial events correlate with generally cold climate excursions. Forest-stand deterioration and tree mortality events at the studied sites are demonstrated to result from flooding, via river aggradation (identifying occurrence of extreme hydrologic events), rise of water table, or lake inundation. To better evaluate the special patterns of hydrological change back to 15ka, we developed four floating d¹³C chronologies from spruce tree rings. The length of these tree-ring proxy series that capture high-frequency moisture variability of the Great Lakes area ranges from 120 to 250 years. Our data indicate progressive wet intervals during the cold excursions precisely dated with ¹⁴C tree-ring wiggles at 13.7ka, 12.1ka, and 11.3ka that fall in the Bølling–Allerød and Pre-Boreal Interstadials, and Younger Dryas Stadial. The inter-annual and decadal variability of tree-ring moisture proxies are similar across the studied locations and time intervals. Such coherence of respective proxies may result from both local ecological stability of spruce communities or regional response to a common source of moisture at the studied time intervals and locations. This study demonstrates a potential of GLTRN proxies for modeling hydroclimatic changes at the North American continent back 15 ka.