Reconstruction of climatic change quantitatively with dissolved noble gases in groundwaters

One kind of climatic proxies only can describes the comparative change of temperature or rainfall, but dissolved noble gases in groundwater can be used to date groundwater, calculate temperature and rainfall, and this method can give the exact change value of three parameters in one time. Dissolved noble gases in groundwater has four sources, radioactivity-formed noble gases which are from radioactive decay of some radioactive elements in the aquifers, balance-dissolved noble gases from dissolved air in balance condition in the course of supplying, excess noble gases from excess air for groundwater-air mixing and water table changing during infiltrating, and outer-interfused noble gases from outer interfusing air in open conditions during runoff. Because the contents of radioagenic noble gases in groundwater are correlated to flowing time, such as He, the age of groundwater can be dated with 4He based on the solubility of He and the radioactive intensity of aquifers. The solubility of noble gases is the function of temperature. We can compare the contents of balance-dissolved noble gases in groundwater with the temperature-solubility experimental curves of noble gases, and calculate the forming temperature of groundwater. The contents of excess noble gases are related to the water column of infiltration which can reveal the volume of rainfall in a given period of time in general, and it may increase along with the pressure of aquifers when groundwater table rises greatly. So we can calculate the value of rainfall by comparing the contents of excess noble gases in groundwater samples with those in modem groundwater. Reconstruction of climatic change on a quantitative basis with the method of dissolved noble gases in Hebei plain （China） shows that the temperature changed from 3.8 to 19.7℃ in the past forty thousand years, it decreased to 3.8℃ in 16000 a B.P. but higher than 19.7℃ in 5060 a B.P. The rainfall was about 600mm during 40000 to 15000 a B.P., then decreased gradually to 410mm in 11000 a B.P., but subsequently increased to 950mm in 4400 a B.P. The change of noble gas temperature is consistent with 180 shift, and 6D varied with the change of other climatic proxy, such as rainfall.

Reconstruction of climatic change quantitatively with dissolved noble gases in groundwaters