Auto-correlation analysis in search of short-term patterns in varve data from sediments of Lake Gościā, Poland

Authors: YOUNG, RAYMOND¹; WALANUS, ADAM²; GOSLAR, TOMASZ²

Source: Boreas, Volume 29, Number 3, September 2000 , pp. 251-260(10)

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Abstract:

The annually laminated, or varved, sediments of Lake Gościź, Poland, cover the last c. 12900 years, from Late Allerød up to the present. We have analysed the thickness of 1912 varves in this time-series by means of auto-correlation analysis, in the hope of obtaining information on patterns in past climate, for example patterns of 11 years, which might indicate a relation with solar activity. We analysed the total varve thickness and the thickness of the summer and the winter layer. Two single-bootstrap experiments confirmed the validity of the methods in general, but they indicated that the moving-window technique with overlapping windows hampered the assessment of statistical significance. Three global significance assessment procedures, taking into account the total number of auto-correlation coefficients (ACs) that is tested, showed significance of the ACs only at a lag of one year and only for the winter layer and the total varve. This auto-correlation with the preceding year may be explained by a factor internal to the lake, for instance some depositional mechanism. We found no indication of a relation between varve formation and the sun-spot cycle.

Document Type: Original article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/030094800424268

Affiliations: 1: Hugo de Vries Laboratory, University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 318, NL-1098 SM Amsterdam, The Netherlands (The Netherlands Centre for Geo-ecological Research, ICG), Email: dr_raymond_young@hotmail.com 2: Radiocarbon Laboratory, Institute of Physics, Silesian Technical University, Krzywoustego 2, PL-44-100 Gliwice, Poland

Publication date: 2000-09-01