Holocene chemical weathering and climatic oscillations in north China: evidence from lacustrine sediments

Abstract

Holocene lacustrine sediments from two isolated lakes in north China are investigated. Based on palaeoclimatic significance of independent proxies in lake sediments, Holocene chemical weathering, and hence climate change, has been reconstructed for dated sediment cores from Daihai Lake and Aibi Lake. During early to mid‐Holocene, higher weathering intensity occurred in the Daihai catchment under warm and humid climate conditions, and this reached a maximum at ˜5 kyr BP. However, synchronous proxy shifts from the two widely separated, isolated lake sediments indicate that there was a cool climate event during the early to mid‐Holocene transition. This is characterized by reduced weathering in each catchment, low δ13 C and δ18O of authigenic carbonate, and by lake level fluctuations. These might correspond to a global cooling signal identified in lakes, oceans, mollusc sequences, and polar ice cores, typically centred between ˜8.0 and 8.5 kyr BP. Dry conditions were experienced in Greenland, the North Atlantic and surrounding regions, and in broad monsoonal regions including Daihai at this time. However, recent extensive evidences as well as our data from the Aibi Lake sediments show that cool but wet conditions occurred in the central Eurasian continent at this time. After ˜2.5 kyr BP, a significant shift of independent sediment proxies indicates the beginning of the Neoglaciation with a higher frequency of fluctuations, including both the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and the Little Ice Age (LIA). Our continental records provide new evidence of the Holocene climate variability with global significance and highlight the different spatial nature of the response to oscillations associated with different climate patterns.