An ice core derived 1013-year catchment-scale annual rainfall reconstruction in subtropical eastern Australia
Paleoclimate research indicates that the Australian instrumental climate record (∼ 100 years) does not cover the full range of hydroclimatic variability that is possible. To better understand the implications of this on catchment-scale water resources management, a 1013-year (1000–2012 common era (C...
Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2016-05-01
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Series: | Hydrology and Earth System Sciences |
Online Access: | http://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/20/1703/2016/hess-20-1703-2016.pdf |
Summary: | Paleoclimate research indicates that the Australian instrumental climate
record (∼ 100 years) does not cover the full range of hydroclimatic
variability that is possible. To better understand the implications of this
on catchment-scale water resources management, a 1013-year
(1000–2012 common era (CE)) annual rainfall reconstruction was produced for
the Williams River catchment in coastal eastern Australia. No high-resolution
paleoclimate proxies are located in the region and so a teleconnection
between summer sea salt deposition recorded in ice cores from East Antarctica
and rainfall variability in eastern Australia was exploited to reconstruct
the catchment-scale rainfall record. The reconstruction shows that
significantly longer and more frequent wet and dry periods were experienced
in the preinstrumental compared to the instrumental period. This suggests
that existing drought and flood risk assessments underestimate the true risks
due to the reliance on data and statistics obtained from only the
instrumental record. This raises questions about the robustness of existing
water security and flood protection measures and has serious implications for
water resources management, infrastructure design and catchment planning. The
method used in this proof of concept study is transferable and enables
similar insights into the true risk of flood/drought to be gained for other
paleoclimate proxy poor regions for which suitable remote teleconnected
proxies exist. This will lead to improved understanding and ability to deal
with the impacts of multi-decadal to centennial hydroclimatic variability. |
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ISSN: | 1027-5606 1607-7938 |