Summer paleohydrology during the Late Glacial and Early Holocene based on δ2H and δ18O from Bichlersee, Bavaria

Maximilian Prochnow; Paul Strobel; Marcel Bliedtner; Julian Struck; Lucas Bittner; Sönke Szidat; Gary Salazar; Heike Schneider; Sudip Acharya; Michael Zech; Roland Zech

doi:10.1038/s41598-023-45754-4

Summer paleohydrology during the Late Glacial and Early Holocene based on δ²H and δ¹⁸O from Bichlersee, Bavaria

Sci Rep. 2023 Oct 28;13(1):18487. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-45754-4.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Chair of Physical Geography, Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany. maximilian.prochnow@uni-jena.de.
² Chair of Physical Geography, Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany.
³ Heisenberg Chair of Physical Geography with Focus on Paleoenvironmental Research, Institute of Geography, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.

Abstract

Isotope-based records provide valuable information on past climate changes. However, it is not always trivial to disentangle past changes in the isotopic composition of precipitation from possible changes in evaporative enrichment, and seasonality may need to be considered. Here, we analyzed δ²H on n-alkanes and δ¹⁸O on hemicellulose sugars in sediments from Bichlersee, Bavaria, covering the Late Glacial and Early Holocene. Our δ²H_n-C31 record documents past changes in the isotopic composition of summer precipitation and roughly shows the isotope pattern known from Greenland. Both records show lower values during the Younger Dryas, but at Bichlersee the signal is less pronounced, corroborating earlier suggestions that the Younger Dryas was mainly a winter phenomenon and less extreme during summer. δ¹⁸O_fucose records the isotopic composition of the lake water during summer and is sensitive to evaporative enrichment. Coupling δ²H_n-C31 and δ¹⁸O_fucose allows calculating lake water deuterium-excess and thus disentangling changes in the isotopic composition of precipitation and evaporative enrichment. Our deuterium-excess record reveals that the warm Bølling-Allerød and Early Holocene were characterized by more evaporative enrichment compared to the colder Younger Dryas. Site-specific hydrological conditions, seasonality, and coupling δ²H and δ¹⁸O are thus important when interpreting isotope records.