Collaborative Research: Holocene Hydrologic Variability across the Western Pacific Warm Pool

University Of Texas At Austin, Austin TX

Investigators

Abstract

This project explores any spatial and temporal changes in precipitation over the Holocene (last 10,000 years) across the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) from hydrologic records generated from speleothems from Guam, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the Philippines. The overall goal of the research is to determine if the tropical Pacific played an active or passive role in driving the changes in the global hydrological cycle over the Holocene. The research questions being pursued include: Did insolation forcing directly cause meridional changes associated with the monsoon and InterTropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in the WPWP over the Holocene? Did external insolation forcing induce internal changes in the tropical Pacific via zonal changes, or ENSO, to cause precipitation changes in the WPWP over the Holocene? Specific objectives of the project include: 1) measuring Uranium-series ages and oxygen isotopic composition of speleothem samples from Guam, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and the Philippines for the last 10,000 years at decadal-scale resolution; 2) determining the spatial and temporal hydrologic variability across the WPWP for the last 10,000 years by comparing paleoclimate records from sites that experience different climate dynamics to separate the influence of ENSO dynamics and monsoon dynamics on WPWP; and 3) returning to the sites in the WPWP to collect additional speleothems, cave dripwaters, bedrock and soils to ensure that we accurately interpret the speleothem records The broader impacts involve linking paleoclimate reconstructions with hydrologic studies. This provides potential benefits for regional and local water resources management. The project would also support a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and a M.S. student at the University of Guam.