Testing rock magnetic- and colorimetric- based climofunctions at the Middle Pleistocene Köndringen loess-palaeosol-sequence, SW Germany

Global climate oscillations may strongly modify continental precipitation patterns. Understanding the history of these is thus, relevant for comprehending effects of past and ongoing climate change. For this purpose, precipitation estimates in a high spatio-temporal resolution are extremely useful and may be derived from geophysical properties of former land-surfaces such as fossil soils and sediments, if reliable climofunctions are available. Recently, promising transfer functions have been provided by linear regression analyses between geophysical topsoil properties (magnetic and colorimetric) across the Bačka Loess Plateau (Serbia) along a narrow precipitation gradient (MAP: 525±1 mm/a to 584±1 mm/a) and available meteorological data. Whilst these climofunctions need to be expanded regarding the calibrated precipitation range and tested considering different sediment and soil types, they testify to a pronounced sensitivity of geophysical properties to precipitation, exceeding these of MAP- δ¹³C derived climofunctions. We aim to test multiple climofunctions for geophysical properties using an extended precipitation-calibration range (up to ~1200 mm/a) at the Köndringen loess-palaeosol-sequence (LPS). This site mostly consists of polygenetic palaeosols and pedosediments of varying development that are in parts intersected. This testifies to a complex local geomorphological evolution and consequently, provides a difficult and thus, promising testing environment for the climofunctions at test. A thorough evaluation of these is pivotal as different climatic settings, soil/sediment properties, geomorphological positions and provenance effects may influence the climate-sensitive iron-(hydr-)oxide composition and eventually constrains the applicability of climofunctions. We also directly compare our findings to climate-model output data to assess derived MAP calculations through an independent measure. We contribute a critical assessment to test the potential of climofunctions for geophysical properties for moister western Central European settings that show magnetic enhancement and/or distinct color hues indicative for the presence of goethite and/or hematite.