LATE HOLOCENE PRECIPITATION RECONSTRUCTED FROM FAYETTEVILLE GREEN LAKE, NY, VARVED SEDIMENTS
The thickness of carbonate layers within the varved sediments taken from Fayetteville Green Lake is strongly correlated with annual precipitation in the region. The variability in precipitation reflects differing airmass source regions and allows a mean hemispheric flow to be established. Initial analyses of Fayetteville Green's core samples established a paleoclimate record extending ca. 425 years. Here, the varve record is extended to cover the last few millennia using additional, longer cores from Fayetteville Green Lake. Spectral analyses are used to investigate the periodic components of precipitation variability in central New York during the late Holocene. The cyclic components of the time series are presented in light of potential teleconnective climate patterns that have been active through the late Holocene. This work supports and advances ongoing paleoclimate reconstructions from varved sediments within the Great Lakes watershed that have been used to establish the presence of decadal and sub-decadal teleconnective patterns, such as the Pacific/North American (PNA) pattern. This work also correlates the annual precipitation with the Trough Intensity Index (TII) and Trough Axis Index (TAI) (Bradbury et al., 2002).