LITTLE ICE-AGE ARIDITY IN THE NORTH-AMERICAN GREAT-PLAINS - A HIGH-RESOLUTION RECONSTRUCTION OF SALINITY FLUCTUATIONS FROM DEVILS LAKE, NORTH-DAKOTA, USA - COMMENT
Gj. Wiche et al., LITTLE ICE-AGE ARIDITY IN THE NORTH-AMERICAN GREAT-PLAINS - A HIGH-RESOLUTION RECONSTRUCTION OF SALINITY FLUCTUATIONS FROM DEVILS LAKE, NORTH-DAKOTA, USA - COMMENT, Holocene, 6(4), 1996, pp. 489-490
On the basis of three sediment-based chronologies, Fritz et al. (1994)
concluded that during the 'Little Ice Age' (about AD 1500 to 1850), t
he Devils Lake Basin generally had less effective moisture (precipitat
ion minus evaporation) and warmer temperatures than at present. In thi
s comment we argue that historic data indicate that runoff and effecti
ve moisture were greater than at present. The largest nineteenth-centu
ry hoods (AD 1826, 1852 and 1861) were significantly greater than the
twentieth-century floods, and flooding in the Red River of the North B
asin occurred more frequently from AD 1800 to 1870 than since 1870. Be
tween AD 1776 and 1870, the ratio of wet to dry years was about 2 to 1
. Mean temperatures in all seasons were cooler for 1850-70 than for 19
31-60. Lake levels of Devils Lake during the first half of the ninetee
nth century were higher than they are today, and, even when Devils Lak
e was almost dry, the salinity was less than the 'diatom-inferred' sal
inity values that Fritz et al. (1994) estimated for 1800 through about
1850. We acknowledge the importance of high-resolution palaeoclimatic
records, but interpretation of these records must be consistent with
historic information.