Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:03:41.218Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Large California Flood and Correlative Global Climatic Events 400 Years Ago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Arndt Schimmelmann ,
Meixun Zhao ,
Colin C. Harvey  and
Carina B. Lange
Arndt Schimmelmann*
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405-1403
Meixun Zhao*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 03755-3571
Colin C. Harvey*
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 47405-1403
Carina B. Lange*
Affiliation:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, MLRG and GRD, La Jolla, California, 92093-0215
*
1 E-mail: [email protected].
2 E-mail: [email protected].
3 E-mail: [email protected].
4 E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A gray silt layer 1–2 cm thick in the central Santa Barbara Basin, dated by varve counts to A.D. 1605 ± 5 yr, implies an intensity of precipitation, flooding of regional rivers, and transport of terrigenous detritus unmatched in the last 1000 yr. The inferred flood may correlate with the reported rare occurrence of a perennial lake (14C dated to 390 ± 90 B.P.) in California's Mojave Desert, 300 km east of the area draining into the Santa Barbara Basin. The dating of the A.D. 1605 ± 5 yr flood event is consistent with tree-ring evidence for a wet and cold paleoclimate elsewhere in the region. Regional and global climate evidence indicates that much of the world also experienced rapid, intense cooling around A.D. 1605. This cooling was probably accompanied by an equatorward shift of prevailing wind patterns and associated storm tracks.

Keywords

floodsedimentSanta Barbara Basinclimatic teleconnectionpaleoclimateLittle Ice Age
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 51 - 61
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

American Petroleum Institute, 1985, Standard procedure for field testing drilling fluids, American Petroleum Institute RP 13B, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Biondi, F., Lange, C. B., Hughes, M. K., Berger, W. H, 1997, The near-AD 1600 multi-proxy puzzle, In, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual Pacific Climate (PACLIM) Workshop. April 14–17, 1996, 169, 191, California Department of Water Resources, Sacramento. Google Scholar
Boninsegna, J.A., 1992. South American dendroclimatological records. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. Routledge, London, 446–462.Google Scholar
Borisenkov, Ye.P., 1992. Documentary evidence from the U.S.S.R. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. 171–183.Google Scholar
Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., 1992. Records of explosive volcanic eruptions over the last 500 years. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. Routledge, London, 606–622.Google Scholar
Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., 1993. ‘Little Ice Age’ summer temperature variations: Their nature and relevance to recent global warming tends. The Holocene. 3 367–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briffa, K.R., Schweingruber, F.H., 1992. Recent dendroclimatic evidence of northern and central European summer temperatures. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. Routledge, London, 366–392.Google Scholar
Briffa, K.R., Bartholin, T.S., Eckstein, D., Jones, P.D., Karlén, W., Schweingruber, F.H., Zetterberg, P., 1990. A 1,400-year tree-ring record of summer temperatures in Fennoscandia. Nature. 346 434–439.Google Scholar
Brownlie, W. R., Taylor, B. D, 1981, Sediment Management for Southern California Mountains, Coastal Plains and Shoreline, Part C. Coastal Sediment Delivery by Major Rivers in Southern California, 314, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.Google Scholar
Camuffo, D., Enzi, S., 1992. Reconstructing the climate of northern Italy from archive sources. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. Routledge, London, 143–154.Google Scholar
Cayan, D.R., Webb, R.H., 1992. El Niño/Southern Oscillation and streamflow in the western United States. Diaz, H.F., Markgraf, V., El Niño. Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 29–68.Google Scholar
Cohen, A.L., Tyson, P.D., 1995. Sea-surface temperature fluctuations during the Holocene off the south coast of Africa: Implications for terrestrial climate and rainfall. The Holocene. 5 304–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, E., Bird, T., Peterson, M., Barbetti, M., Buckley, B., D'Arrigo, R., Francey, R., 1992. Climatic change over the last millennium in Tasmania reconstructed from tree-rings. The Holocene. 2 205–217.Google Scholar
Crowley, T.J., Kim, K.-Y., 1993. Towards development of a strategy for determining the origin of decadal–centennial scale climate variability. Quaternary Science Reviews. 12 375–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowley, T.J., Kim, K.-Y., 1996. Comparison of proxy records of climate change and solar forcing. Geophysical Research Letters. 23 359–362.Google Scholar
D'Arrigo, R., Jacoby, G.C., 1991. A 1000-year record of winter precipitation from northwestern New Mexico, USA: A reconstruction from tree-rings and its relation to El Niño and the Southern Oscillation. The Holocene. 1 95–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Arrigo, R.D., Buckley, B.M., Cook, E.R., Wagner, W.S., 1995. Temperature-sensitive tree-ring width chronologies of pink pine ( Halocarpus biformis . Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 119 293–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz, H.F., Pulwarty, R.S., 1992. A comparison of Southern Oscillation and El Niño signals in the tropics. Diaz, H.F., Markgraf, V., El Niño. Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 175–192.Google Scholar
Drake, D.E., Fleischer, P., Kolpack, R.L., 1971. Transport and deposition of flood sediment, Santa Barbara Channel, California. Kolpack, R.L., Survey of the Santa Barbara Channel Oil Spill 1969–1970. University of Southern CaliforniaAllan Hancock Foundation, Los Angeles, 95–113.Google Scholar
Drake, D.E., Kolpack, R.L., Fischer, P.J., 1972. Sediment transport on the Santa Barbara–Oxnard Shelf, Santa Barbara Channel, California. Swift, D.J.P., Duane, D.B., Pilkey, O.H., Shelf Sediment Transport: Process and Pattern. Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, Stroudsburg, 307–331.Google Scholar
Dunbar, R.B., Wellington, G.M., Colgan, M.W., Glynn, P.W., 1994. Eastern Pacific sea surface temperature since 1600 A.D.: The δ18 . Paleoceanography. 9 291–315.Google Scholar
Eagleman, J.R., Severe and Unusual Weather. 1983 Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Earle, C. J., Fritts, H. C, 1986, Reconstructing river flow in the Sacramento Basin since 1560, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Google Scholar
Ely, L.L., Enzel, Y., Cayan, D.R., 1994. Anomalous North Pacific atmospheric circulation and large winter floods in the Southwestern United States. Journal of Climate. 7 977–987.Google Scholar
Enfield, D.B., 1992. Historical and prehistorical overview of El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Diaz, H.F., Markgraf, V., El Niño. Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 95–118.Google Scholar
Engstrom, W.N., 1996. The California storm of January 1862. Quaternary Research. 46 141–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enzel, Y., 1992. Flood frequency of the Mojave River and the formation of late Holocene playa lakes, southern California, USA. The Holocene. 2 11–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enzel, Y., Cayan, D.R., Anderson, R.Y., Wells, S.G., 1989. Atmospheric circulation during Holocene lake stands in the Mojave Desert: Evidence of regional climate change. Nature. 341 44–48.Google Scholar
Enzel, Y., Brown, W.J., Anderson, R.Y., McFadden, L.D., Wells, S.G., 1992. Short-duration Holocene lakes in the Mojave River drainage basin, Southern California. Quaternary Research. 38 60–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R.J., 1967. The geochemistry of the Amazon River system: Part I. The factors that control the salinity and the composition and concentration of the suspended solids. Geological Society of America Bulletin. 78 1203–1232.Google Scholar
Graham, N.E., Barnett, T.P., Wilde, R., 1994. On the roles of tropical and midlatitude SST's in forcing interannual to interdecadal variability in the winter Northern Hemisphere circulation. Journal of Climate. 7 1416–1441.Google Scholar
Graumlich, L.J., 1993. A 1000-year-record of temperature and precipitation in the Sierra Nevada. Quaternary Research. 39 249–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammer, C.U., Clausen, H.B., Dansgaard, W., 1980. Greenland ice sheet evidence of post-glacial volcanism and its climatic impact. Nature. 288 230–235.Google Scholar
Haston, L., Michaelsen, J., 1994. Long-term central coastal California precipitation variability and relationships to El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Journal of Climate. 7 1373–1387.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurrell, J.W., 1995. Decadal trends in the North Atlantic oscillation: Regional temperatures and precipitation. Science. 269 676–679.Google Scholar
Jinjun, Ji., Petit-Maire, N., 1993. The last 1000 years: Climatic change in arid Asia and Africa. Global and Planetary Change. 7 203–210.Google Scholar
Kennedy, V.C., 1964. Sediment transported by Georgia streams. U.S.G.S. Water Supply Paper. 1668 1–54.Google Scholar
Kennedy, J.A., Brassell, S.C., 1992. Molecular records of twentieth century El Niño events in laminated sediments from the Santa Barbara basin. Nature. 357 62–64.Google Scholar
Kennedy, N.T., Dale, B., 1969. California's trial by mud and water. National Geographic Magazine. 136 552–592.Google Scholar
Kennett, J. P., Baldauf, J. G., Lyle, M, 1995, Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, Vol. 146, Part 2, Site 893, Santa Barbara Basin, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX. Google Scholar
LaMarche, V.C., Hirschboeck, K.K., 1984. Frost rings in trees as records of major volcanic eruptions. Nature. 307 121–126.Google Scholar
Lamb, H.H., 1970. Volcanic dust in the atmosphere; with a chronology and assessment of its meteorological significance. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A. 266 425–533.Google Scholar
Lamb, H.H., 1982. Climate, History and the Modern World. Google Scholar
Tungsheng, Liu, Zhongli, Ding, Mingyang, Chen, Zhisheng, An, 1989. The global surface energy system and the geological role of wind stress. Quaternary International. 2 43–54.Google Scholar
Lough, J.M., 1992. An index of the Southern Oscillation reconstructed from western North American tree-ring chronologies. Diaz, H.F., Markgraf, V., El Niño. Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 215–226.Google Scholar
Maley, J., 1973. Mécanisme des changements climatiques aux basses latitudes. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 14 193–227.Google Scholar
Meko, D., Stockton, C.W., Boggess, W.R., 1995. The tree-ring record of severe sustained drought. Water Resources Bulletin. 31 789–801.Google Scholar
Nichols, W.D., 1989. Reconstructed drought history, north-central Great Basin: 1601–1982. Peterson, D.H., Aspects of Climate Variability in the Pacific and the Western Americas, Geophysical Monograph 55. American Geophysical Union, Washington, 61–67.Google Scholar
Nicholson, S.E., 1980. Saharan climates in historic times. Williams, M.A.J., Faure, H., The Sahara and the Nile. 173–200.Google Scholar
O'Hara, S.L., Metcalfe, S.E., 1995. Reconstructing the climate of Mexico from historical records. The Holocene. 5 485–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parry, A.T., 1992. Automation of the Uk 37 . University of BristolM.S. thesis, School of Chemistry.Google Scholar
Pavese, M.P., Banzon, V., Colacino, M., Gregori, G.P., Pasqua, M., 1992. Three historical data series on floods and anomalous climatic events in Italy. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. Routledge, London, 155–170.Google Scholar
Pfister, C., Yan, Z., Schüle, H., 1994. Climatic variations in western Europe and China, AD 1645–1715: A preliminary continental-scale comparison of documentary evidence. The Holocene. 4 206–211.Google Scholar
Portman, D.A., Gutzler, D.S., 1996. Explosive volcanic eruptions, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and U.S. climate variability. Journal of Climate. 9 17–33.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prahl, F.G., Muehlhausen, L.A., Zahnle, D.L., 1988. Further evaluation of long-chain alkenones as indicators of paleoceanographic conditions. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 52 2303–2310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, W.H., 1992. A study of southern oscillation-related climatic activity for A.D. 622–1900 incorporating Nile River flood data. Diaz, H.F., Markgraf, V., El Niño. Historical and Paleoclimatic Aspects of the Southern Oscillation. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 119–149.Google Scholar
Rind, D., Overpeck, J., 1993. Hypothesized causes of decade-to-century-scale climate variability: climate model results. Quaternary Science Reviews. 12 357–374.Google Scholar
Robock, A., Mao, J., 1995. The volcanic signal in surface temperature observations. Journal of Climate. 8 1086–1103.Google Scholar
Roden, G.I., 1989. Analysis and interpretation of long-term climatic variability along the west coast of North America. Peterson, D.H., Aspects of Climate Variability in the Pacific and the Western Americas, Geophysical Monograph 55. American Geophysical Union, Washington, 93–111.Google Scholar
Schimmelmann, A., Kastner, M., 1993. Evolutionary changes over the last 1000 years of reduced sulfur phases and organic carbon in varved sediments of the Santa Barbara Basin, California. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 57 67–78.Google Scholar
Schimmelmann, A., Lange, C.B., 1996. Tales of 1001 varves: A review of Santa Barbara Basin sediment studies. Kemp, A.E.S., Palaeoclimatology and Palaeoceanography from Laminated Sediments. 121–141.Google Scholar
Schimmelmann, A., Tegner, M.J., 1991. Historical oceanographic events reflected in13 12 . Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 5 173–188.Google Scholar
Schimmelmann, A., Lange, C.B., Berger, W.H., 1990. Climatically controlled marker layers in Santa Barbara Basin sediments and fine-scale core-to-core correlation. Limnology and Oceanography. 35 165–173.Google Scholar
Schwalbach, J.R., Gorsline, D.S., 1985. Holocene sedimentation budgets for the basins of the California continental borderland. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. 55 829–842.Google Scholar
Scuderi, L.A., 1990. Tree-ring evidence for climatically effective volcanic eruptions. Quaternary Research. 34 67–85.Google Scholar
Serre-Bachet, F., Guiot, J., Tessier, L., 1992. Dendroclimatic evidence from southwestern Europe and northwestern Africa. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. Routledge, London, 349–365.Google Scholar
Serre-Bachet, F., 1994. Middle Ages temperature reconstructions in Europe, a focus on Northeastern Italy. Climatic Change. 26 213–224.Google Scholar
Smith, D.J., McCarthy, D.P., Colenutt, M.E., 1995. Little Ice Age glacial activity in Peter Lougheed and Elk Lakes provincial parks, Canadian Rocky Mountains. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 32 579–589.Google Scholar
Stahle, D.W., Cleaveland, M.K., 1994. Tree-ring reconstructed rainfall over the southeastern U.S.A. during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. Climatic Change. 26 199–212.Google Scholar
Stine, S., 1990. Late Holocene fluctuations of Mono Lake, eastern California. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 78 333–381.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Braziunas, T.F., 1993. Sun, ocean, climate and atmospheric14 2 . The Holocene. 3 289–305.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Grootes, P.M., Braziunas, T.F., 1995. The GISP δ18 . Quaternary Research. 44 341–354.Google Scholar
Thompson, L.G., 1992. Ice core evidence from Peru and China. Bradley, R.S., Jones, P.D., Climate Since A.D. 1500. 517–548.Google Scholar
Thompson, L.G., Mosley-Thompson, E., 1989. One-half millennia of tropical climate variability as recorded in the stratigraphy of the Quelccaya ice cap, Peru. Peterson, D.H., Aspects of Climate Variability in the Pacific and the Western Americas, Geophysical Monograph 55. American Geophysical Union, Washington, 15–31.Google Scholar
Thompson, W.C., 1994. Shoreline geomorphology of the Oxnard Plain from early U.S. Coast Survey maps. Shore and Beach. 62 39–50.Google Scholar
Trenberth, K.E., 1993. Northern Hemisphere climate change; physical processes and observed changes. Mooney, H.A., Fuentes, E.R., Kronberg, B.I., Earth System Responses to Global Change: Contrasts between North and South America. Academic Press, San Diego, 35–59.Google Scholar
Tyson, P.D., Lindesay, J.A., 1992. The climate of the last 2000 years in southern Africa. The Holocene. 2 271–278.Google Scholar
Villalba, R., 1994. Tree-ring and glacial evidence for the Medieval Warm Epoch and the Little Ice Age in southern South America. Climatic Change. 26 183–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, H.R., 1928. Spanish voyages to the Northwest coast in the sixteenth century. Chapter XI: Father Antonio de la Ascension's account of the voyage of Sebastian Vizcaino. California Historical Society Quarterly. 7 295–394.Google Scholar
Wagner, H.R., 1929. Spanish voyages to the Northwest coast in the sixteenth century. Appendix G: The Bolaños-Ascension derrotero. California Historical Society Quarterly. 8 55–68.Google Scholar
Weaver, C.E., 1967. Variability of a river clay suite. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology. 37 971–974.Google Scholar
Weaver, C.E., 1989. Clays, Muds, and Shales. Elsevier, Amsterdam. Google Scholar
Whetton, P., Allan, R., Rutherfurd, I., 1996. Historical ENSO teleconnections in the eastern hemisphere: Comparison with latest El Niño series of Quinn. Climatic Change. 32 103–109.Google Scholar
Zhang, Linyuan, Zhaoli, Jiang, Pengnan, Lu, 1995. Zur Genese des Trockenklimas in Nordwestchina. Naturwissenschaften. 82 370–374.Google Scholar
Zhaodong, Feng, Thompson, L.G., Mosley-Thompson, E., Yao, T., 1993. Temporal and spatial variations of climate in China during the last 10000 years. The Holocene. 3 174–180.Google Scholar