Identification of palaeo-drought episodes in eastern Australia: High resolution dust flux records, as an indicator of teleconnections and associated drought in the Australian region

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Identification of palaeo-drought episodes in eastern Australia: High resolution dust flux records, as an indicator of teleconnections and associated drought in the Australian region

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Title: Identification of palaeo-drought episodes in eastern Australia: High resolution dust flux records, as an indicator of teleconnections and associated drought in the Australian region
Author/Creator: Marx, S K | Kamber, B S | McGowan, H
Description: Australia loses more sediment with wind than with water. Severity of dust emissions are strongly related to rainfall and therefore make excellent proxies for drought. Periods of prolonged drought are a feature of much of the Australian landscape [1] and these have significant economic, social and environmental implications. Contemporary drought episodes can occur over multi-year to multi-decadal time scales and have been linked to teleconnections such as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) that operates on a 3 to 7 year cycle and/or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) that changes phase every ∼20-50 years [2]. The operation of these cycles may in turn be superimposed on millennial scale variability in climate. In this study we construct dust deposition chronologies from alpine peat deposits both within New Zealand and Australia to serve as a proxy for climate variability and drought in eastern Australia. This is possible because the provenance of dust was able to be established by matching the chemical fingerprints of dust samples with those from potential source sediments using trace elements [3] The results show variability in dust deposition through time, indicating that the climate of eastern Australia has experienced marked changes in aridity over the last 7000 years. In general, conditions became more arid and variable during the last 3000 years, especially between 3000 and 1000 years B.P. There is also evidence of cyclic wet-dry phases occurring at a frequency of 30-60 years for at least the last 3000 years. This pattern, which is possibly attributable to the PDO, has significant implications for water resource management in eastern Australia, particularly as the effects of these natural drought episodes may be amplified by the predicted impacts of climate change due to global warming.
Relation: 2008 Goldschmidt Conference, Vancouver, Canada 13-18 July 2008
Relation: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta / Vol. 72, No. 12, Supp. 1, p.A599
Relation: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2008.05.016
Year: 2008
Publisher: Pergamon
Subject: FoR 0402 (Geochemistry) | palaeo-drought episodes | dust flux deposition | teleconnections

Resource Type: Conference Abstract
Identifier: ISSN: 0016-7037
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