Reconstructing the history of flowing waters from freshwater mussel shells in 
the context of interdecadal climate variability

Türk, Guilhem; Gey, Christoph; Schöne, Bernd; Pfister, Laurent; Thielen, Frankie; Hissler, Christophe; Barnich, François; Léonard, Loic

doi:10.57757/IUGG23-4470

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Reconstructing the history of flowing waters from freshwater mussel shells in the context of interdecadal climate variability

Authors

Türk, Guilhem
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Gey, Christoph
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Schöne, Bernd
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Pfister, Laurent
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Thielen, Frankie
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Hissler, Christophe
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Barnich, François
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

Léonard, Loic
IUGG 2023, General Assemblies, 1 General, International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), External Organizations;

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Citation

Türk, G., Gey, C., Schöne, B., Pfister, L., Thielen, F., Hissler, C., Barnich, F., Léonard, L. (2023): Reconstructing the history of flowing waters from freshwater mussel shells in the context of interdecadal climate variability, XXVIII General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) (Berlin 2023).
https://doi.org/10.57757/IUGG23-4470

Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/item_5021899

Abstract

Facing the ongoing intensification of the hydrological cycle, stable isotopes of O and H in streams and precipitation are cardinal tools to identify and assess the factors controlling catchment resilience to climate change. However, progress is stymied by the uncertainty related to the spatial and temporal variability of these tracers, mostly due to the limited availability of long-term historical observations. Here, we propose two complementary innovative approaches for reconstructing pre-instrumental δ¹⁸O series in precipitation and stream water.First, we conjecture that oxygen isotopes inside the mineral structures of freshwater bivalve shells hold promising potential to extend limited stream water isotope records. Certain species can live up to 200 years (e.g., Margaritifera Margaritifera), and nearly 1200 species inhabit a large variety of river systems and lakes around the globe. Proof-of-concept work has already shown that shell-extracted δ¹⁸O values closely mirror the variance of the measured stream water δ¹⁸O – both showing a strong damping of the precipitation signal. Building on this, shell δ¹⁸O chronologies were generated from three recently collected individuals collected from the Our River (L) extending back to the 1960s, comprising over 3000 samples. Our second conjecture, which we focus on here, states that precipitation δ¹⁸O series may be reconstructed from historical atmospheric circulation data. Based on a 6 year-worth sub-daily resolution isotope dataset collected at the meteorological station in Belvaux (L) from 2017 to 2022, we built a multiple linear regression model explaining almost 50 percent of the sub-daily variance, and closely matching the monthly δ¹⁸O signal.