Reconstructing climate processes driving variability in precipitation sources from mid to late Holocene speleothem δ18O records from the Southwest US

Abstract:

Independent co-variation of speleothem δ¹⁸O values and other moisture-sensitive speleothem proxies (e.g., growth rate, trace element concentrations) in recently published Holocene stalagmite records from Texas and New Mexico suggest a decoupling between precipitation amounts and precipitation sources over the southwest US. There is, however, limited understanding of the relation between precipitation sources and precipitation amounts and the climate processes governing variability in the region’s precipitation sources. To address this, we use source water tags to track precipitation derived from Pacific and Atlantic Oceans during a simulation of modern (1975-2013) climate. We find distinct patterns in the spatial distribution of the fraction of Pacific-derived winter precipitation are associated with unique atmospheric states. High pressure ridging reflected by 500 hPa geopotential heights result in weaker zonal winds and stronger northerly winds over the western US. Under these conditions, Pacific-derived moisture propagates further to the east, and Atlantic-derived moisture is suppressed over southern US. Conversely, 500 hPa geopotential heights that are latitudinally streamline result in strong zonal winds across the entire US. Under these conditions, the fraction of West Pacific-derived precipitation is limited to higher latitudes, and the fraction of far East Pacific- and Atlantic-derived precipitation is enhanced across the Southwest and Southern US, respectively. Further analysis of this data set will assess the teleconnections that link the distinct atmospheric conditions over the US with the state of the ocean and atmosphere over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The results will be applied to reconstructing variability in the climate dynamics governing moisture transport to the southwest US during the mid to late Holocene as reflected by speleothem δ¹⁸O records in the region.