Paleoenvironmental reconstructions from Chilean lake, fjord, and marine sediments and paleoclimate modelling with special emphasis on variations of the westerly wind belt during the Holocene (HoloParc)

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The climate of southern Chile is strongly influenced by the southern westerly wind belt. It therefore represents a key region to investigate Holocene changes in the intensity and latitudinal position of this important wind system, especially considering a possible role of the westerly winds in the global atmospheric CO2 budget as recently suggested. The main objective of this project is to use a multi-proxy approach based on sedimentological and novel organic proxies to reconstruct multidecadal-to-millennial-scale changes in temperature, vegetation, and humidity in southern Chile during the Holocene. These proxy results will be combined with transient Holocene climate model simulations in order to elucidate potential forcing mechanisms. Lake, fjord, and open ocean archives encompassing the center of the westerly winds will be investigated, with the advantage of not only establishing a link between these different environments, but also of covering a wide latitudinal range of high-resolution paleoenvironmental archives (33°S-53°S) in a region of strong climate gradients. Model experiments will be carried out with the comprehensive global Community Climate System Model (CCSM), version 3.0.