Isotopic Proxy to Identify Climate Change During the Anthropocene

Abstract

Stable isotopes are widely used in past climate reconstruction studies. They find a wide range of applications in climatology, and isotopic values in tree rings, ice cores, and marine sediments enable us to decipher past climatic conditions at the global scale. Since the onset of the industrial revolution in the eighteenth century, the burning of fossil fuels had accentuated the rate of CO2 rise and exacerbated global warming. The CO2 uptake by plants is reflected in 13C variations in the atmosphere and helps us in understanding how plants responded to past climatic conditions. However, climatic reconstruction using tree rings is an invasive sampling technique, and hence this chapter attempts to check whether paper samples obtained from trees may also preserve the climate record or not. Therefore, using paper samples from 1832 to 1880, an attempt has been made to reconstruct the climate record using 13C variations in that period. Our results show that paper samples may act as a significant archive for climatic reconstruction especially in Anthropocene due to the prolific growth of the printing industry in that period. Our results further show that there is a net positive trend in 13C values from 1832 to 1880. The paper sample is a more cost-effective method and does not require field-intensive sampling for taking samples of tree rings. Therefore, it may act as an important substitute for tree rings for climatic reconstruction in Anthropocene.