Insolation driven biomagnetic response to the Holocene Warm Period in semi-arid East Asia

• DOI: 10.1038/srep08001
• Publication Date: 2015-01-23T10:04:39Z
• Authors: Suzhen Liu; Chenglong Deng; Jule Xiao; Jinhua Li; Greig A. Paterson; Liao Chang; Liang Yi; Huafeng Qin; Yongxin Pan; Rixiang Zhu
• Keywords: Asia; 550; Geography; 13. Climate action; Climate; Climate Change; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences; 333; Article; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

AbstractThe Holocene Warm Period (HWP) provides valuable insights into the climate system and biotic responses to environmental variability and thus serves as an excellent analogue for future global climate changes. Here we document, for the first time, that warm and wet HWP conditions were highly favourable for magnetofossil proliferation in the semi-arid Asian interior. The pronounced increase of magnetofossil concentrations at ~9.8 ka and decrease at ~5.9 ka in Dali Lake coincided respectively with the onset and termination of the HWP and are respectively linked to increased nutrient supply due to postglacial warming and poor nutrition due to drying at ~6 ka in the Asian interior. The two-stage transition at ~7.7 ka correlates well with increased organic carbon in middle HWP and suggests that improved climate conditions, leading to high quality nutrient influx, fostered magnetofossil proliferation. Our findings represent an excellent lake record in which magnetofossil abundance is, through nutrient availability, controlled by insolation driven climate changes.