Climatic and environmental controls on speleothem oxygen-isotope values

Variations in speleothem oxygen-isotope values (δ¹⁸O) result from a complicated interplay of environmental controls and processes in the ocean, atmosphere, soil zone, epikarst, and cave system. As such, the controls on speleothem δ¹⁸O values are extremely complex. An understanding of the processes that control equilibrium and kinetic fractionation of oxygen isotopes in water and carbonate species is essential for the proper interpretation of speleothem δ¹⁸O as paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental proxies, and is best complemented by study of site-specific cave processes such as infiltration, flow routing, drip seasonality and saturation state, and cave microclimate, among others. This review is a process-based summary of the multiple controls on δ¹⁸O in the atmosphere, soil, epikarst, and speleothem calcite, illustrated with case studies. Primary controls of δ¹⁸O in the atmosphere include temperature and relative humidity through their role in the multiple isotope “effects”. Variability and modifications of water δ¹⁸O values in the soil and epikarst zones are dominated by evaporation, mixing, and infiltration of source waters. The isotopically effective recharge into a cave system consists of those waters that participate in precipitation of CaCO₃, resulting in calcite deposition rates which may be biased to time periods with optimal dripwater saturation state. Recent modeling, experimental, and observational data yield insight into the significance of kinetic fractionation between dissolved carbonate phases and solid CaCO₃, and have implications for the ‘Hendy’ test. To assist interpretation of speleothem δ¹⁸O time series, quantitative and semi-quantitative δ¹⁸O-climate calibrations are discussed with an emphasis on some of the difficulties inherent in using modern spatial and temporal isotope gradients to interpret speleothems as paleoclimate proxy records. Finally, several case studies of globally significant speleothem paleoclimate records are discussed that show the utility of δ¹⁸O to reconstruct past climate changes in regions that have been typically poorly represented in paleoclimate records, such as tropical and subtropical terrestrial locations. The new approach to speleothem paleoclimatology emphasizes climate teleconnections between regions and attribution of forcing mechanisms. Such investigations allow paleoclimatologists to infer regional to global-scale climate dynamics.