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Hydrological regime of Australian lakes over the Late-Quaternary and Holocene

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posted on 2023-04-20, 03:31 authored by Liam ClerkeLiam Clerke

By comparing numerous historical records of lake level change across a vast geographic area, we are able to produce continental-scale records of change in the hydroclimate. Early efforts in reconstructing past lake level variability in Australia utilised a step-based approach at 1000-year time intervals. Since then, there has been a significant improvement to the overall spatial and temporal coverage of data across Australia, in addition to the development of new analytical techniques capable of producing higher-resolution records. This study presents an updated lake level reconstruction for Australia on a regional- and continental-scale, through the application of uncertainty-based statistical modelling techniques. The results suggest that lake-status was variable between sites across Australia over the last 30,000 years, with amplifier lakes across arid and semi-arid Australia exhibiting opposing lake-status trends to rain gauge lakes across humid Australia. Consistency in these results across experiments utilising different site inclusion parameters suggest a robustness against chronological and lake-status uncertainties, proving the potential of these models in supporting future research into how Australia’s hydroclimate could change into the future under an uncertain climate.

History

Table of Contents

1. Introduction -- 2. Methods -- 3. Results -- 4. Discussion – Model evaluation -- 5. Discussion – Patterns of lake-status change -- 6. Discussion – Climatically induced lake-status change -- 7. Conclusions -- 8. References -- 9. Appendix

Awarding Institution

Macquarie University

Degree Type

Thesis MRes

Department, Centre or School

School of Natural Sciences

Year of Award

2022

Principal Supervisor

Paul Hesse

Rights

Copyright: The Author Copyright disclaimer: https://www.mq.edu.au/copyright-disclaimer

Language

English

Jurisdiction

Australia

Extent

78 pages

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