Differential hydro-climatic evolution of East Javanese ecosystems over the past 22,000 years

Yanming Ruan*, Mahyar Mohtadi, Sander van der Kaars, Lydie M. Dupont, Dierk Hebbeln, Enno Schefuß

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The Maritime Continent, home to widespread tropical rainforest and millions of people, is the primary region of deep atmospheric convection on the Earth. However, debate exists whether the isotopologues of water reflect rainfall amount during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), resulting in different interpretations of the LGM climate of the Maritime Continent. Here we present paired leaf wax δ13C and δD records together with pollen data from a sediment core retrieved off East Java dating back to 22,000 years before present. We use three n-alkane homologues (n-C29, n-C31 and n-C33) in order to reconstruct past changes in vegetation types and seasonal rainfall. Our results suggest that in East Java, evergreen rainforest remained the dominant vegetation type in montane regions since the seasonality there remained relatively unaltered over the entire period. In contrast, the East Javanese lowlands were characterised by C4 grass expansion and an extended dry season but a wetter rainy season, thus stronger seasonality, during the LGM.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)49-60
Number of pages12
JournalQuaternary Science Reviews
Volume218
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Aug 2019

Funding

We acknowledge MARUM – Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen. This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Research Centre/Cluster of Excellence 'The Ocean in the Earth System'. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. SvdK, funded by the DFG grant BE2116/10-1 , carried out initial pollen counting of core GeoB10053-7 at the Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics of the University of Göttingen. YR is funded by CSC – the China Scholarship Council and supported by GLOMAR – Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences . Samples were provided by the GeoB Core Repository at MARUM. We thank Ralph Kreutz for laboratory support, Lydia Gerullis for dataset preparation and Dr. Jennifer Wurtzel for helpful advice. The CMAP Precipitation data and the NCEP Reanalysis derived wind vector data are provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA ( https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/ ). The Global Historical Climatology Network data are retrieved from the KNMI Climate Explorer ( https://climexp.knmi.nl ). Datasets related to this study can be found at doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.896146. Appendix A

FundersFunder number
GLOMAR – Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences
Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftBE2116/10-1
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
China Scholarship Council

    Keywords

    • Ecosystem
    • Last glacial maximum
    • Leaf wax homologues
    • Leaf wax isotopes
    • Maritime continent
    • Paleoclimatology

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