Holocene extreme flood events in the middle reaches of the Lancang‒Mekong River basin recorded by a high-altitude lake in southwestern China

Abstract

The Lancang‒Mekong River (LMR) basin is a region particularly susceptible to floods induced by extreme precipitation. However, owing to limited historical flood records, it is difficult to understand the processes and mechanisms of extreme floods in the LMR basin. In the present study, sediments from a high-altitude lake (Lake Baima, 4700 m above sea level) located in the upper-middle reaches of the LMR are used to reconstruct climate and hydrology variability since the last deglaciation based on a range of climate proxies and methods, including loss-on-ignition, grain size, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray fluorescence. Through the investigation of modern and historical floods in the LMR basin, we combine the climate proxies with hydrological frequency curves to reconstruct the paleoflood sequence during the Holocene. Our results suggest that the temperature and precipitation in southwestern China increased during the Holocene compared to the last deglaciation, indicating a response to changes in Northern Hemisphere summer solar insolation. In addition, Holocene sediments of Lake Baima are primarily composed of brown background layers and numerous light yellow/gray event layers. These event layers are further identified as flood events based on sedimentary facies, redness, and main exogenous elements content and their rate of change. The results show that extreme flood events in the LMR basin occurred more frequently during the early and late Holocene, with seven once-in-1000-year floods during the two intervals; while there were low-frequency flood periods during the mid-Holocene. The occurrence of Holocene floods may be related to external forcing, such as the abrupt changes in total solar irradiance (TSI) and volcanic activity, as well as the internal variability of the wider climate system including the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño‒Southern Oscillation (ENSO). When the TSI was low, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in the Northern Hemisphere shifted northward, and the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) moved eastward, accompanied with a negative phase of the PDO and La Niña-like phase of the ENSO. The air-sea interactions increased sea surface temperatures, leading to high precipitation and increasing flood risk in the LMR basin.