Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T08:33:59.343Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Synchronous climatic change inferred from diatom records in four western Montana lakes in the U.S. Rocky Mountains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Brandi Bracht-Flyr  and
Sherilyn C. Fritz
Brandi Bracht-Flyr
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588–0340, USA
Sherilyn C. Fritz*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588–0340, USA School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588–0340, USA
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588–0340, USA. E-mail address:brachtflyr@huskers.unl.edu (B. Bracht-Flyr), sfritz2@unl.edu (S.C. Fritz).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Late-Holocene environmental and climatic conditions were reconstructed from diatom assemblages in sediment cores from four western Montana lakes: Crevice Lake, Foy Lake, Morrison Lake, and Reservoir Lake. The lakes show synchroneity in timing of shifts in diatom community structure, but the nature of these changes differs among the lakes. Two of the sites provide highly resolved records of hydrologic balance, while the other two stratigraphic sequences primarily record temperature impact on lake thermal structure. All four lakes show significant change in five discrete intervals: 2200–2100, 1700–1600, 1350–1200, 800–600, and 250 cal yr BP. The similarities in the timing of change suggest overlying regional climatic influences on lake dynamics. The 800–600 cal yr BP shift is evident in other paleorecords throughout the Great Plains and western US, associated with the transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age. Large-scale climatic mechanisms that influence these lake environments may result from atmospheric circulation patterns that are driven by interactions between Pacific and Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, which are then locally modified by topography.

Keywords

DiatomLake-levelPaleoclimateHolocenewestern North AmericaLittle Ice AgeMedieval Climate Anomaly
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 77 , Issue 3 , May 2012 , pp. 456 - 467
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barry, R., (1990). Changes in mountain climate and glacio-hydrological responses. Mountain Research and Development. 10, 161–170.Google Scholar
Barry, R., (1992). Mountain climatology and past and potential future climatic changes in mountain regions: a review. Mountain Research and Development. 12, 71–86.Google Scholar
Battarbee, R., Kneen, M., (1982). The use of electronically counted microspheres in absolute diatom analysis. Limnology and Oceanography. 27, 184–188.Google Scholar
Bennett, K., (1996). Determination of the number of zones in a biostratigraphical sequence. New Phytologist. 132, 155–170.Google Scholar
Booth, R.K., Kutzbach, J.E., Hotchkiss, S.C., Bryson, R.A., (2006a). A reanalysis of the relationship between strong westerlies and precipitation in the Great Plains and Midwest regions of North America. Climatic Change. 76, 427–441.Google Scholar
Booth, R.K., Notaro, M., Jackson, S., Kutzbach, J., (2006b). Widespread drought episodes in the western Great Lakes region during the past 2000 years: geographic extent and potential mechanisms. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 242, 415–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bracht, B., Stone, J.R., Fritz, S.C., (2008). A diatom record of late Holocene climate variation in the northern range of Yellowstone National Park, USA. Quaternary International. 188, 149–155.Google Scholar
Bradbury, J., (1988). A climatic-limnologic model of diatom sucession for paleolimnological interpretation of varved sediments at Elk Lake, Minnesota. Journal of Paleolimnology. 1, 115–131.Google Scholar
Briffa, K., Osborn, T., Schweingruber, F., Harris, I., Jones, P., Shiyatov, S., Vaganov, E., (2001). Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network. Journal of Geophysical Research. 106, 2929–2941.Google Scholar
Bryson, R., (1966). Air masses, streamlines, and the boreal forest. Geographical Bulletin. 8, 228–269.Google Scholar
Buntgen, U., Esper, J., Frank, D., Nicolussi, K., Schmidhalter, M., (2005). A 1052-year tree-ring proxy for alpine summer temperatures. Climate Dynamics. 25, 141–153.Google Scholar
Cook, E., Seager, R., Cane, M., Stahle, D., (2007). North American drought: reconstructions, causes, and consequences. Earth-Science Reviews. 81, 93–134.Google Scholar
Feng, S., Oglesby, R., Rowe, C., Loope, D., Hu, Q., (2008). Atlantic and Pacific SST influences on Medieval drought in North America simulated by the Community Atmospheric Model. Journal of Geophysical Research. 113, D11101.Google Scholar
Fritz, S.C., Juggins, S., Battarbee, R., (1993). Diatom assemblages and ionic characterization of lakes of the northern Great Plains, North America: a tool for reconstructing past salinity and climate fluctuations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 50, 1844–1856.Google Scholar
Gage, J., (2008). Forest disturbance history in the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho and the Beaverhead range of western Montana. Master's thesis. Montana State University.Google Scholar
Ghil, M., Allen, M., Dettinger, M., Ide, K., Kondrashov, D., Mann, M., Robertson, A., Saunders, A., Tian, Y., Varadi, F., (2002). Advanced spectral methods for climatic time series. Reviews of Geophysics. 40, 3.1–3.41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, S., Graumlich, L., Betancourt, J., Pederson, , (2004). A tree-ring based reconstruction of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation since 1567 AD. Geophysical Research Letters. 31, L12205.Google Scholar
Gray, S., Graumlich, L., Betancourt, J., (2007). Annual precipitation in the Yellowstone National Park region since AD 1173. Quaternary Research. 68, 18–27.Google Scholar
Grimm, E., (1987). Coniss: a fortran 77 program for stratigraphically constrained cluster analysis by the method of incremental sum of squares. Computers and Geosciences. 13, 13–35.Google Scholar
Higuera, P., Peters, M., Brubaker, L., Gavin, D., (2007). Understanding the origin and analysis of sediment-charcoal records with a simulation model. Quaternary Science Reviews. 26, 1790–1809.Google Scholar
Interlandi, S.J., Kilham, S., Theriot, E., (1999). Responses of phytoplankton to varied resource availability in large lakes of the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem. Limnology and Oceanography. 44, 668–682.Google Scholar
Interlandi, S., Kilham, S., Theriot, E., (2003). Diatom-chemistry relationships in Yellowstone Lake (Wyoming) sediments: implications for climatic and aquatic processes research. Limnology and Oceanography. 48, 79–92.Google Scholar
Kilham, S., Theriot, E., Fritz, S.C., (1996). Linking planktonic diatoms and climate change in the large lakes of the Yellowstone ecosystem using resource theory. Limnology and Oceanography. 41, 1052–1062.Google Scholar
Knight, J., Folland, C., Scaife, A., (2006). Climate impacts of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Geophysical Research Letters. 33, L17706.Google Scholar
Laird, K., Cumming, B., Wunsam, S., Rusak, J., Oglesby, R., Fritz, S.C., Leavitt, P., (2003). Lake sediments record large-scale shifts in moisture regimes across the northern prairies of North America during the past two millennia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 100, 2483–2488.Google Scholar
Mantua, N., Hare, S., (2002). The Pacific decadal oscillation. Journal of Oceanography. 58, 35–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mantua, N., Hare, S., Zhang, Y., Wallace, J., Francis, R., (1997). A Pacific interdecadal climate oscillation with impacts on salmon production. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 78, 1069–1070.Google Scholar
McCabe, G.J., Palecki, M., Betancourt, J., (2004). Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecadal drought frequency in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101, 4136–4141.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McCabe, G.J., Betancourt, J., Gray, S., Palecki, M., Hidalgo, H., (2008). Associations of multi-decadal sea-surface temperature variability with US drought. Quaternary International. 188, 31–40.Google Scholar
Mock, C., (1996). Climatic controls and spatial variations of precipitation in the western United States. Journal of Climate. 9, 1111–1125.Google Scholar
Morabito, G., Ruggiu, D., Panzani, P., (2001). Trends of phytoplankton characteristics and their communities in pre-and post-liming time in Lake Orta (1984–1998). Journal of Limnology. 60, 91–100.Google Scholar
Oglesby, R., Erickson III, D., (1989). Soil moisture and the persistence of North American drought. Journal of Climate. 2, 1362–1380.Google Scholar
Paillard, D., Labeyrie, L., Yiou, P., (1996). Macintosh program performs time-series analysis. Eos. 77, 379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, M., Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P., Stevens, L., (2006). Fire and vegetation history during the last 3800 years in northwestern Montana. Geomorphology. 75, 420–436.Google Scholar
Ruhland, K., Priesnitz, A., Smol, J., (2003). Paleolimnological evidence from diatoms for recent environmental changes in 50 lakes across Canadian Arctic treeline. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research. 35, 110–123.Google Scholar
Salzer, M.W., Kipfmueller, K.F., (2005). Reconstructed temperature and precipitation on a millennial timescale from tree-rings in the southern Colorado Plateau, USA. Climatic Change. 70, 465–487.Google Scholar
Saros, J., Fritz, S., (2000). Changes in the growth rates of saline-lake diatoms in response to variation in salinity, brine type and nitrogen form. Journal of Plankton Research. 22, 1071–1083.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saros, J., Michel, T., Interlandi, S., Wolfe, A., (2005). Resource requirements of Asterionella formosa and Fragilaria crotonensis in oligotrophic alpine lakes: implications for recent phytoplankton community reorganizations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 62, 1681–1689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, R., Psenner, R., Muller, J., Indinger, P., (2002). Impact of late glacial climate variations on stratification and trophic state of the meromictic Lake Langsee (Austria): validation of a conceptual model by multi proxy studies. Journal of Limnology. 61, 49–60.Google Scholar
Sridhar, V., Loope, D., Swinehart, J., Oglesby, J.M.R., Rowe, C., (2006). Large wind shift on the Great Plains during the Medieval Warm Period. Science. 313, 345–347.Google Scholar
Stevens, L., Stone, J.R., Campbell, J., Fritz, S.C., (2006). A 2200-yr record of hydrologic variability from Foy Lake, Montana, USA, inferred from diatom and geochemical data. Quaternary Research. 65, 264–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, J.R., Fritz, S.C., (2004). Three-dimensional modeling of lacustrine diatom habitat areas: improving paleolimnologic interpretation of planktic:benthic ratios. Limnology and Oceanography. 49, 1540–1548.Google Scholar
Stone, J.R., Fritz, S.C., (2006). Multidecadal drought and Holocene climate instability in the Rocky Mountains. Geology. 34, 409–412.Google Scholar
Stuvier, M., Reimer, P., Bard, E., (1993). Intcal98 radiocarbon age calibration 24,000–0 cal BP. Radiocarbon. 40, 1041–1083.Google Scholar
Sutton, R., Hodson, D., (2005). Atlantic Ocean forcing of North American and European summer climate. Science. 309, 115–117.Google Scholar
ter Braak, C., Smilauer, P., (2002). CANOCO Reference Manual and CanoDraw for Windows Users's Guide: Software for Canonical Community Ordination (version 4.5). Microcomputer Power. Ithaca, NY, USA.Google Scholar
Theriot, E., Fritz, S., Gresswell, R., (1997). Long-term limnological data from the larger lakes of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, U.S.A.. Arctic and Alpine Research. 29, 304–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tian, J., Nelson, D., Hu, F., (2006). Possible linkages of late-Holocene drought in the North American midcontinent to Pacific Decadal Oscillation and solar activity. Geophysical Research Letters. 33, L23702.Google Scholar
Tilman, D., Kilham, S., Kilham, P., (1982). Phytoplankton community ecology: the role of limiting nutrients. Annual Reviews in Ecology and Systematics. 13, 349–372.Google Scholar
Whitlock, C., Bartlein, P., (1993). Spatial variations of Holocene climatic change in the Yellowstone region. Quaternary Research. 39, 231–238.Google Scholar
Whitlock, C., Dean, W.R.J., Stevens, L., Fritz, S., Bracht, B., Power, M., (2008). A 2650-year-long record of environmental change from northern Yellowstone National Park based on a comparison of multiple proxy data. Quaternary International. 188, 126–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, M., Losleben, M., Caine, N., Greenland, D., (1996). Changes in climate and hydrochemical responses in a high-elevation catchment in the Rocky Mountains, USA. Limnology and Oceanography. 41, 939–946.Google Scholar
Wolfe, A.P., Gorp, A.V., Baron, J., (2003). Recent ecological and biogeochemical changes in alpine lakes of Rocky Mountain National Park (Colorado, USA): a response to anthropogenic nitrogen deposition. Geobiology. 1, 153–168.Google Scholar