Seasonal Variations in Triple Oxygen Isotope Ratios of Precipitation in the Western and Central United States.

ABSTRACT: Triple oxygen isotope ratios Δ'17O offer new opportunities to improve reconstructions of past climate by quantifying evaporation, relative humidity, and diagenesis in geologic archives. However, the utility of Δ'17O in paleoclimate applications is hampered by a limited understanding of how precipitation Δ'7O values vary across time and space. To improve applications of Δ'17O, we present δ18O, d-excess, and Δ'17O data from 26 precipitation sites in the western and central United States and three streams from the Willamette River Basin in western Oregon. In this data set, we find that precipitation Δ'17O tracks evaporation but appears insensitive to many controls that govern variation in δ18O, including Rayleigh distillation, elevation, latitude, longitude, and local precipitation amo

SUBMITTER: Aron PG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10659079 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature