A mid-Holocene stalagmite multiproxy record from southern Siberia (Krasnoyarsk, Russia) linked to the Siberian High patterns

Abstract

A multiproxy record from a stalagmite collected from Torgashinskaya Cave (Southern Siberia, Russia) and growing between ca. 6 and 3.8 ka shows evidence for regional climatic changes occurring at ca. 5 ka. Interpretation of stable isotope ratios (δ18O and δ13C) and fluorescence data (intensity and wavelength of the emitted fluorescence) suggests that the interval between ca. 5 and 4.2 ka was generally warmer and drier than the interval between ca. 6 and 5 ka. The observed bipartitioning of the climate, attributable to the so-called ‘middle-late Holocene transition’, has a striking similarity to changes in K+ and Na+ concentration of Greenland ice cores (taken as indicators of the strength of the Siberian High and Icelandic Low, respectively), in the abundance of hematite-stained grains in subpolar North Atlantic sediments and, to lesser extent, in the summer Asian monsoon intensity deduced by δ18O from Chinese speleothems. In particular, the δ18O record at Torgashinskaya Cave can be interpreted as mostly driven by temperature changes. Besides several episodes of drift towards higher temperatures, it also strongly suggests the presence of short cooling events centered at 4.1+0.08/-0.07, 4.85+0.05/-0.06, 5.1+0.09/-0.09, 5.3+0.08/-0.07 and 5.8+0.12/-0.13 ka. Notably, the last three such events are in very good correspondence with spikes in the K+ and Na+ concentration of Greenland ice cores. Instead, the cooling around 4.1 ka could be the local response to the 4.2 event, a cold/dry episode identified in several records in the Northern Hemisphere. This suggests that δ18O of speleothem calcite from this area could be a useful proxy for defining the evolution of the Siberian High and its effect on the wider regional climate.