LATE HOLOCENE CLIMATE VARIABILITY RECORDED IN LAKE SEDIMENTS FROM NICARAGUA

Lake sediments from the Pacific region of Nicaragua were used to record changes in the regional moisture balance during the late Holocene (~1600 cal yr BP to the present). Oxygen isotope values of calcium carbonate down-core identify periods of higher and lower lake water levels that resulted from changes in precipitation and evaporation rates. The lowest lake levels and driest regional conditions recorded in the isotope data are coincident with the onset of Little Ice Age cooling. This abrupt transition to more arid atmospheric conditions at 700 cal yr BP is consistent with other records from the northern tropics and subtropics that suggest hydrologic changes in the tropics were connected to high latitude climate variability during the late Holocene.