Solar forcing and climate variability during the past millennium as recorded in a high altitude lake: Lake Salda (SW Anatolia)

Abstract

Climate variability is a well-known phenomenon and has been frequently, though complex, linked to solar forcing on different time scales. The importance of solar forcing related climate variability is crucial in our understanding of paleoclimate and future climate changes, as well as building climate models. Here in, we present the late Holocene (last ca 1400) climate records from Lake Salda in SWAnatolia using high-resolution micro X-ray Fluorescence (mu-XRF), magnetic susceptibility (MS), stable isotopes (delta C-13 and delta O-18) and TOC-TIC measurements. The age model is constructed by using radionuclide (Pb-210, Cs-137 and C-14) dating methods. The lake's high-resolution multiproxy results revealed lake water level fluctuations associated with humid and dry spells during the last 1400 years. Periods of higher lake levels are consistent with solar maxima in total solar irradiance and vice versa. Moreover, the Lake Salda records clearly show dry Dark Ages Cold Period (DACP), humid Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), dry Little Ice Age (LIA), and humid Modern Warm Period (MoWP). These records suggest that the solar forcing, through its influence on the atmospheric circulation, is the main mechanism of climate change during the DACP, MCA, LIA and MoWP in this region. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.