Collaborative Research: Documenting Holocene Paleohydrology Using Multiproxy Lake Core Studies in the Yukon Territory, Canada

Investigator: Mark Abbott mabbott1@pitt.edu  (Principal Investigator current)

Abstract

This collaborative award examines the regional precipitation-evaporation balance and its effect on ecosystems in the climatically sensitive Yukon Territory. Arctic ecosystems are bellwethers for global climate change and examining their responses to natural climate variability is critical to understanding fundamental earth system processes as well as the potential response of such systems to human-induced changes in climate.

By using a combination of biotic (i.e., pollen, charcoal) and abiotic (i.e., elemental and isotopic analyses, magnetic susceptibility, sedimentary analyses) proxies, the investigators will produce high-resolution climate records from the past 1,500 years that examine regional variability in moisture. These results will then be compared with findings from ongoing research across the interior of Alaska.

Some of the questions that will be answered by this research are; "Have past changes in precipitation-evaporation balance occurred in the upper Yukon and have they occurred on time scales relevant to humans? Did these changes occur synchronously and in the same direction across the Yukon?  Were they synchronous with changes in other regions? Did vegetation respond to climate change?"