Impact of Source Region on the δ18O Signal in Snow: A Case Study from Mount Wrangell, Alaska

The stable isotopic composition of water in ice cores is an important source of information on past climate variability. At its simplest level, the underlying assumption is that there is an empirical relationship between the normalized difference in the concentration for these stable isotopes and a specified local temperature at the ice core site. There are, however, nonlocal processes, such as a change in source region or a change in the atmospheric pathway, which can impact the stable isotope signal, thereby complicating its use as a proxy for temperature. In this paper, the importance of these nonlocal processes are investigated through the analysis of the synoptic-scale circulation during a snowfall event at the summit of Mount Wrangell (62°N, 144°W; 4300 m MSL) in south-central Alaska. During this event there was, over a 1-day period in which the local temperature was approximately constant, a change in δ18O that exceeded half that normally seen to occur in the region between summer and winter. As shall be shown, this arose from a change in the source region, from the subtropical eastern Pacific to northeastern Asia, for the snow that fell on Mount Wrangell during the event.