CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Anderson, L.; Abbott, M.B.; Finney, B.P.; and Burns, S.J.
Date : 2004.
Title : Regional atmospheric circulation change in the North Pacific during the Holocene inferred from lacustrine carbonate oxygen isotopes, Yukon Territory, Canada.
Publication : American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. December 13-17, 2004. San Francisco, California.
Issue :
Page(s) :
Abstract
Analyses of sediment cores from Jellybean Lake, a small, hydrologically-open groundwater-fed lake, provide a record of changes in North Pacific atmospheric circulation for the last 7500 years at twenty to thirty-year resolution. A regional isotope hydrology study in the southern Yukon indicates that the oxygen isotope composition of water from Jellybean Lake reflects the oxygen isotope composition of mean annual precipitation. Thus, the oxygen isotope history of Jellybean Lake inferred from sedimentary carbonate oxygen isotope ratios suggests multi-decadal shifts in the oxygen isotope composition of mean annual precipitation superimposed on century and millennial trends. Recent fluctuations of Jellybean oxygen isotopes correlate well with changes in the North Pacific Index, a measure of the intensity and position of the Aleutian Low. We propose that oxygen isotope variability of precipitation in the interior of the Yukon is related to the degree of fractionation during moisture transport from the Gulf of Alaska across the St Elias Mountains that is ultimately controlled by the position and strength of the Aleutian Low. Following this model, Aleutian Low intensity during the early to middle Holocene was relatively reduced and increasing intensity coincided with the initial onset of Neoglacial advances. Rapid shifts during the last two millennia corresponds with glacial activity, changes in North Pacific salmon abundance, and shifts in atmospheric circulation over the Beaufort Sea.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology