2003/03/24 by N. Marwan, M. H. Trauth, M. Vuille +1 · 3 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Geology and Paleoclimatology Research #Landslides and related hazards #earthquake and tectonic studies #nlin.CD #physics.ao-ph #physics.data-an #physics.geo-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s00382-003-0335-3
published as Climate Dynamics, 21(3-4), 2003, 317-326 · 11 pages, 9 figures
arxiv created 2003/03/24 · openalex publication_date 2003/09/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Higher variability in rainfall and river discharge could be of major importance in landslide generation in the north-western Argentine Andes. Annual layered (varved) deposits of a landslide dammed lake in the Santa Maria Basin (26 deg S, 66 deg W) with an age of 30,000 14C years provide an archive of precipitation variability during this time. The comparison of these data with present-day rainfall observations tests the hypothesis that increased rainfall variability played a major role in landslide generation. A potential cause of such variability is the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The causal link between ENSO and local rainfall is quantified by using a new method of nonlinear data analysis, the quantitative analysis of cross recurrence plots (CRP). This method seeks similarities in the dynamics of two different processes, such as an ocean-atmosphere oscillation and local rainfall. Our analysis reveals significant similarities in the statistics of both modern and palaeo-precipitation data. The similarities in the data suggest that an ENSO-like influence on local rainfall was present at around 30,000 14C years ago. Increased rainfall, which was inferred from a lake balance modeling in a previous study, together with ENSO-like cyclicities could help to explain the clustering of landslides at around 30,000 14C years ago.