High-resolution saline lake sediments as enhanced tools for relating proxy paleolake records to recent climatic data series

Abstract

Abstract Lake level in an endorheic saline lake in Southern Europe has been inferred for the last 105 years (1889–1994) at an annual level of resolution using two independent methods. First, ordination analyses (factor analysis (FA), correspondence analysis (CA) and detrended correspondence analysis (DCA)) have been used to point out the mineral successions of the sedimentary record. These successions are evidenced by the arch disposition of both samples and mineral phases in the plane defined by the first two eigenvectors calculated by these analyses. These temporal evolutions are the same as those obtained during the drying and refilling phases of saline lakes. Relay indices (RI) were obtained from distances to the first two eigenvectors, which accurately reconstructed the lake-level evolution during this period. Second, an inferred lake-level series was obtained using a multivariate time series model from the average maximum temperatures and total rainfall. Six main drought periods were found, which coincided with known droughts in the area. A high level of agreement was found between the two reconstructions, which offered the possibility of directly extending the instrumental record back into the past. Therefore, climatic changes could be reconstructed from saline lakes provided that an accurate chronological control of sedimentary processes is available.