Abstract
Abstract. Characterizing the temporal uncertainty in palaeoclimate records is crucial for analysing past climate change, correlating climate events between records, assessing climate periodicities, identifying potential triggers and evaluating climate model simulations. The first global compilation of speleothem isotope records by the SISAL (Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and Analysis) working group showed that age model uncertainties are not systematically reported in the published literature, and these are only available for a limited number of records (ca. 15 %, n=107/691). To improve the usefulness of the SISAL database, we have (i) improved the database's spatio-temporal coverage and (ii) created new chronologies using seven different approaches for age–depth modelling. We have applied these alternative chronologies to the records from the first version of the SISAL database (SISALv1) and to new records compiled since the release of SISALv1. This paper documents the necessary changes in the structure of the SISAL database to accommodate the inclusion of the new age models and their uncertainties as well as the expansion of the database to include new records and the quality-control measures applied. This paper also documents the age–depth model approaches used to calculate the new chronologies. The updated version of the SISAL database (SISALv2) contains isotopic data from 691 speleothem records from 294 cave sites and new age–depth models, including age–depth temporal uncertainties for 512 speleothems. SISALv2 is available at https://doi.org/10.17864/1947.256 (Comas-Bru et al., 2020a).
Highlights
Speleothems are a rich terrestrial palaeoclimate archive that forms from infiltrating rainwater after it percolates through the soil, epikarst and carbonate bedrock
The Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and Analyses (SISAL) working group is an international effort under the auspices of Past Global Changes (PAGES) to compile speleothem isotopic records globally for the analysis of past climates (Comas-Bru and Harrison, 2019)
We have developed additional age–depth models for the SISALv2 records (Fig. 2) in order to provide robust chronologies with temporal uncertainties
Summary
Speleothems are a rich terrestrial palaeoclimate archive that forms from infiltrating rainwater after it percolates through the soil, epikarst and carbonate bedrock. Many of the regional studies using SISAL pointed to the limited statistical power of analyses of speleothem records because of the lack of temporal uncertainties These missing uncertainties prevented the extraction of underlying climate modes during the last 2000 years in Europe (Lechleitner et al, 2018). We have used seven alternative methods: linear interpolation, linear regression, Bchron (Haslett and Parnell, 2008), Bacon (Blaauw and Christen, 2011; Blaauw et al, 2019), OxCal (Bronk Ramsey, 2008, 2009; Bronk Ramsey and Lee, 2013), COPRA (Breitenbach et al, 2012) and StalAge (Scholz and Hoffmann, 2011) Comparison of these different approaches provides a robust measure of the age uncertainty associated with any specific speleothem record
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