Many Holocene hydroclimate records show rainfall changes that vary with local orbital insolation. However, some tropical regions display rainfall evolution that differs from gradual precessional pacing, suggesting that direct rainfall forcing effects were predominantly driven by sea-surface temperature thresholds or inter-ocean temperature gradients. Here we present a 12,000 yr continuous U/Th-dated precipitation record from a Guatemalan speleothem showing that Central American rainfall increased within a 2000 yr period from a persistently dry state to an active convective regime at 9000 yr BP and has remained strong thereafter. Our data suggest that the Holocene evolution of Central American rainfall was driven by exceeding a temperature threshold in the nearby tropical oceans. The sensitivity of this region to slow changes in radiative forcing is thus strongly mediated by internal dynamics acting on much faster time scales.

Abstract. The city of Venice and the surrounding lagoonal ecosystem are highly vulnerable to variations in relative sea level. In the past ∼150 years, this was characterized by an average rate of relative sea-level rise of about 2.5 mm/year resulting from the combined contributions of vertical land movement and sea-level rise. This literature review reassesses and synthesizes the progress achieved in quantification, understanding and prediction of the individual contributions to local relative sea level, with a focus on the most recent studies. Subsidence contributed to about half of the historical relative sea-level rise in Venice. The current best estimate of the average rate of sea-level rise during the observational period from 1872 to 2019 based on tide-gauge data after removal of subsidence effects is 1.23 ± 0.13 mm/year. A higher – but more uncertain – rate of sea-level rise is observed for more recent years. Between 1993 and 2019, an average change of about +2.76 ± 1.75 mm/year is estimated from tide-gauge data after removal of subsidence. Unfortunately, satellite altimetry does not provide reliable sea-level data within the Venice Lagoon. Local sea-level changes in Venice closely depend on sea-level variations in the Adriatic Sea, which in turn are linked to sea-level variations in the Mediterranean Sea. Water mass exchange through the Strait of Gibraltar and its drivers currently constitute a source of substantial uncertainty for estimating future deviations of the Mediterranean mean sea-level trend from the global-mean value. Regional atmospheric and oceanic processes will likely contribute significant interannual and interdecadal future variability in Venetian sea level with a magnitude comparable to that observed in the past. On the basis of regional projections of sea-level rise and an understanding of the local and regional processes affecting relative sea-level trends in Venice, the likely range of atmospherically corrected relative sea-level rise in Venice by 2100 ranges between 32 and 62 cm for the RCP2.6 scenario and between 58 and 110 cm for the RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. A plausible but unlikely high-end scenario linked to strong ice-sheet melting yields about 180 cm of relative sea-level rise in Venice by 2100. Projections of human-induced vertical land motions are currently not available, but historical evidence demonstrates that they have the potential to produce a significant contribution to the relative sea-level rise in Venice, exacerbating the hazard posed by climatically induced sea-level changes.

Many sunspot number series exist suggesting different levels of solar activity during the past centuries. Their reliability can be assessed only by comparing them with alternative indirect proxies. We test different sunspot number series against the updated record of cosmogenic radionuclide 44 Ti measured in meteorites. Two bounding scenarios of solar activity changes have been considered: the HH-scenario (based on the series by Svalgaard and Schatten), in particular, predicting moderate activity during the Maunder minimum, and the LL-scenario (based on the R G series by Lockwood et al.) predicting moderate activity for the 18th-19th centuries and the very low activity level for the Maunder minimum. For each scenario, the magnetic open solar flux, the heliospheric modulation potential and the expected production of 44 Ti were computed. The calculated production rates were compared with the corresponding measurements of 44 Ti activity in stony meteorites fallen since 1766. The analysis reveals that the LL-scenario is fully consistent with the measured 44 Ti data, in particular, recovering the observed secular trend between the 17th century and the Modern grand maximum. On the contrary, the HH-scenario appears significantly inconsistent with the data, mostly due to the moderate level of activity during the Maunder minimum. It is concluded that the HHscenario sunspot number reconstruction significantly overestimates solar activity prior to the mid-18th century, especially during the Maunder minimum. The exact level of solar activity after 1750 cannot be distinguished with this method, since both H-and L-scenarios appear statistically consistent with the data.