EGU2020-7411
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7411
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Late Holocene climate variability in the Western Carpathians (East-Central Europe) reconstructed from ice cores records

Carmen-Andreea Bădăluță1,2 and Aurel Perșoiu1,3,4
Carmen-Andreea Bădăluță and Aurel Perșoiu
  • 1Stable Isotope Laboratory, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania (carmen.badaluta@usm.ro)
  • 2Department of Geography, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Romania
  • 3Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology, Cluj Napoca, Romania (aurel.persoiu@gmail.com)
  • 4Romanian Institute of Science and Technology, Cluj Napoca, Romania

Ice cores are key archives in the quest to reconstruct and understand past climate variability. They are generally found in polar and high latitude regions, but caves in the Carpathian Mountains (East-central Europe) host several glaciers thousands of years old. Here, we present a reconstruction of summer and winter air temperatures during the last millennium based on the d18O and d2H values measured in ice cores drilled in the glaciers hosted by Focul Viu (FV) and Scărișoara Ice Caves (SIC), both in the Western Carpathians (East-Central Europe, Romania). In order to understand the climatic signal locked in the two cores, we analyzed the stable isotope composition of the rainfall water, which was subsequently compared with that of the cave ice. Accordingly, d18O in ice in SIC is a proxy for late-autumn through early winter air temperature, while that in FV for summer air temperatures. The analysis of d18O values indicate that on centennial scales, air temperature variability during the last 1000 years was controlled by changes during the winter season, summer temperatures being relatively constant (on these time scales). Contrary, short-term variability (decadal to multi-decadal) was well expressed in both seasons. In summer, the main controlling factors seem to be changes in solar radiation and possibly in the strength of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, while in winter, the strength of the Siberian High could have acted as the main forcing factor.

How to cite: Bădăluță, C.-A. and Perșoiu, A.: Late Holocene climate variability in the Western Carpathians (East-Central Europe) reconstructed from ice cores records, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-7411, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7411, 2020

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