Frequency of Synoptic‐Scale Precipitation Events Recorded by Daily Resolved δ<sup>18</sup>O of Land Snail Shells
Abstract Land snails exhibit the potential for capturing synoptic‐scale precipitation events through the δ 18 O records of their shells (δ 18 O shell ), but the application is hindered by the absence of a practical methodology for tracking these events. Here, we developed a statistical methodology to track the synoptic‐scale precipitation events from daily resolved snail body fluid δ 18 O (δ 18 O BF ) record. We further tested and verified our approach using daily resolved δ 18 O shell records of modern Cathaica fasciola from the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP). The reconstructed 3‐day‐timescale precipitation events frequencies using first derivations of δ 18 O BF and δ 18 O shell shows strong agreement with instrumental data (>85% detection accuracy). The strong correlation between precipitation days in snail‐growing‐season and annual precipitation amounts across the CLP also permits the reconstruction of synoptical precipitation frequency for investigating the interannual variability of precipitation. Our study paves the avenue in paleoweather study, enabling quantitative reconstructions of past synoptic‐scale precipitation events.
Authors
- Ya‐na Jia
- Hong Yan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1230-096X)
- Miaohong He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6985-6339)
- Tao Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-4406-1727)
- Xiulan Zong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7640-1044)
- John Dodson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0124-5910)
- Gang Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1778-3243)
- Qian Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3032-9088)
- Chengcheng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6995-6439)
- Yang Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1972-7472)
- Sheng He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0540-0551)
- Guozhen Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9048-0286)
- J. Dong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9627-8853)
- Fan Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2804-9178)
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry (CN)
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology (CN)
- Institute of Earth Environment (CN)
- Environmental Earth Sciences (AU)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Xi'an Jiaotong University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Published
- 2025-01-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2024gl112536
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Isotope Analysis in Ecology
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.72
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology