The suddenly occurring Mesoamerican megadrought during the Little Ice Age (1400 to 1600 AD)
- 1Earth and Environmental Systems, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN 47807 USA
- 2Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy
- 3Geoscience, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154 USA
- 4Self Employed, Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
- 5Physics of Environmental Archives, Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany
- 6School of Human Settlement and Civil Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China
- 7Geology, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez PR 00680 USA
The Little Ice Age (LIA), a multicentennial period of predominant anomalously cold conditions on Earth, is among the most important periods that characterized climate evolution during the pre-industrial part of the last millennium. However, LIA remains enigmatic in many aspects, including its magnitude, timing, duration, and spatial extent, especially concerning the response of tropical hydroclimates. Here we focus on Mesoamerica, where many proxy-based reconstructions show one or more Major Drying Events (MDEs) during the LIA. We present new results from speleothem GU-Xi-1, which was recovered in 2007 from Xibalba cave (approx. 16.5˚N, 89˚W, near the Belize - Guatemala border) and was active and dripping at the time of collection.
The most salient feature of GU-Xi-1 is a prolonged period of persistently heavy oxygen isotope values between around 1400 and 1600 CE. This positive isotope incursion was most likely a major drying event based on the well-known amount effect common in the tropics. In this contribution, we will illustrate the extensive drought described by our record during the LIA and propose a mechanism explaining its rapid initiation (within perhaps 20 years), possibly connected with natural forcing.
How to cite: Winter, A., Zanchettin, D., Lachniet, M., Burnett, A., Warken, S., Cheng, H., Rubino, A., and Miller, T.: The suddenly occurring Mesoamerican megadrought during the Little Ice Age (1400 to 1600 AD), EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-4389, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-4389, 2023.
