Reconstruction of the Hydrological Cycle in the Nam Co Area Utilizing Sediment Records and Cllimate Models

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The hydrological cycle in the Nam Co area, Central Tibet is spatio-temporally assessed in order to quantitatively reconstruct the past Asian Monsoon variability and its influence on lake sediment dynamics. The already conducted sub bottom profiling and pilot coring provide a first insight into the sedimentary history of the lake. Furthermore, seismic and sediment stratigraphy (sedimentary petrology, inorganic/organic chemistry) allows identifying changes in the sedimentary regime. Additionally experimental and modelling work is carried out to reconstruct the isotopic content of the lake. Therefore, in a bottom-up multi proxy approach including isotope ratios of specific terrestrial and aquatic biomarkers the isotopic content of the lake water and precipitation is reconstructed directly and independently from environmental conditions. A complementing top-down approach focussing on regional palaeoclimate simulations to reconstruct the isotopic content of the lake water is initialised. Tight integration of all these methods allows a quantitative understanding and reconstruction of precipitation and evaporation flux changes as well as their interaction with the sedimentary system of the Nam Co catchment. A synthesis with supporting proxy data from the partners of this joint research initiative as well as C dating will serve to interpret the results with regard to local and global aspects of Late Quaternary climate change.