A 60,000-year record of hydrologic variability in the Central Andes from the hydrogen isotopic composition of leaf waxes in Lake Titicaca sediments

•Lake Titicaca leaf wax δD shows South American monsoon variability over past 60 kyr.•Leaf wax δD well correlated with nearby 19-kyr ice core δD record.•Central Andes wetter during last glacial period compared to Holocene.•Andean hydrologic changes linked to North Atlantic events during last deglaciation.•Precessional forcing only apparent during Holocene, not last glacial period.

A record of the hydrogen isotopic composition of terrestrial leaf waxes (δDwax) in sediment cores from Lake Titicaca provides new insight into the precipitation history of the Central Andes and controls of South American Summer Monsoon (SASM) variability since the last glacial period. Comparison of the δDwax record with a 19-kyr δD record from the nearby Illimani ice core supports the interpretation that precipitation δD is the primary control on δDwax with a lesser but significant role for local evapotranspiration and other secondary influences on δDwax. The Titicaca δDwax record confirms overall wetter conditions in the Central Andes during the last glacial period relative to a drier Holocene. During the last deglaciation, abrupt δDwax shifts correspond to millennial-scale events observed in the high-latitude North Atlantic, with dry conditions corresponding to the Bølling-Allerød and early Holocene periods and wetter conditions during late glacial and Younger Dryas intervals. We observe a trend of increasing monsoonal precipitation from the early to the late Holocene, consistent with summer insolation forcing of the SASM, but similar hydrologic variability on precessional timescales is not apparent during the last glacial period. Overall, this study demonstrates the relative importance of high-latitude versus tropical forcing as a dominant control on glacial SASM precipitation variability.