Reconstruction of the Southeast Asian hydro-climate using biomarkers and their hydrogen isotopic composition

Abstract: Southeast Asia is characterized by a monsoonal climate, with distinct wet and dry seasons. This has great impact on societies, agriculture and infrastructures. Despite the critical importance to understand the mechanisms that influence the variability of the Asian Monsoon, there is scarcity of both historical and paleoclimate proxy data from Southeast Asia. For this reason, two lakes from Thailand, Lake Pa Kho (LPK) and Lake Nong Thale Pron (NTP), which are located in the northeastern and southern part of Thailand, respectively, were cored. The region also offers the opportunity to study the potential influence of climate on the Angkor civilization. Overall, this project seeks to improve our understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to Asian monsoon variability and how the variability influenced Angkor Civilization. Here I present results on a 2000-years sediment record from LPK. The most important part of the work presented here consists of compound-specific hydrogen isotope ratios (δD), which are used to infer past changes in the hydrological cycle of Southeast Asia. This approach is based on the premise that δD of lipid biomarkers from plants, algae and microorganisms deposited in sediments reflects the δD of their source water, which in turn is influenced by local hydrology. A rapid increase in precipitation is inferred from ca. 700 to ca. 850 AD, after a long dry phase. The inferred shift to wet conditions likely contributed to the rise of the Angkor Civilization, by boosting agriculture. However, gradual drying occurred at around 900 AD until the 19th century. This long-term decline in precipitation, favoring ever more frequent occurrences of severe droughts, likely also contributed to the demise and fall of the Angkor, around 1400 AD. Comparison with other hydroclimate proxy records revealed that wet conditions in tropical SE Asia corresponded to a dry Western Pacific, wet conditions in the East Pacific, and vice versa - a pattern that can be explained by opposing centers of convection and subsidence. Moreover, our tropical record also appears to be anti-correlated with the subtropical East Asian Monsoon, possibly caused by rainout effects along moisture trajectories. These long-term rainfall shifts closely match patterns observed during periods of strong El Niño, and suggests a central role for Pacific Walker circulation as a driver of centennial-scale hydroclimatic change. Besides these results from LPK oriented towards reconstructing hydroclimate, I also present some initial results concerning the evolution of the plant community of LPK, based on compound specific 13C analysis, as well as first biomarker results from NTP.