A 1500‐year El Niño/Southern Oscillation and rainfall history for the Isthmus of Panama from speleothem calcite

Lachniet, Matthew S.; Burns, Stephen J.; Piperno, Dolores R.; Asmerom, Yemane; Polyak, Victor J.; Moy, Christopher M.; Christenson, Keith

doi:10.1029/2004jd004694

Cited by 122 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…It is noteworthy that the epoch of severe droughts in Yucatan ended in the late tenth century, contemporaneous with the onset of medieval climate conditions in a number of other records (notably the North Iceland summer SST proxy, see Fig. 5 and related discussion; also Haug et al 2003), though arid conditions apparently continued in Panama through much of the MCA (Lachniet et al 2004; until the end of that record in 1310 AD), while the MCA was relatively wet in northern Venezuela (Haug et al 2001(Haug et al , 2003.…”

Section: Proxy Recordsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…The widespread summer aridity over Central America and the Caribbean Sea in the model results is difficult to interpret in the context of regional proxy records which portray a wide range of MCA-LIA precipitation trends. This is particularly so in view of the lack of simulated eastern tropical Pacific cooling in summer and the regional complexity of Caribbean-Central American climate (Hastenrath 1976;Enfield and Alfaro 1999) [for example, the record from coastal Venezuela indicates a relatively wet MCA (Haug et al 2001), that from Panama suggests an arid MCA (Lachniet et al 2004), while the Yucatan records indicate comparatively little difference between MCA and LIA precipitation (Hoddell et al 1995)]. …”

Section: Relation To Other Modeling Studies Using Warmer Indian Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Support for global climate reorganization during the “Medieval Climate Anomaly”

et al. 2010

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Widely distributed proxy records indicate that the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; *900-1350 AD) was characterized by coherent shifts in large-scale Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation patterns. Although cooler sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific can explain some aspects of medieval circulation changes, they are not sufficient to account for other notable features, including widespread aridity through the Eurasian sub-tropics, stronger winter westerlies across the North Atlantic and Western Europe, and shifts in monsoon rainfall patterns across Africa and South Asia. We present results from a full-physics coupled climate model showing that a slight warming of the tropical Indian and western Pacific Oceans relative to the other tropical ocean basins can induce a broad range of the medieval circulation and climate changes indicated by proxy data, including many of those not explained by a cooler tropical Pacific alone. Important aspects of the results resemble those from previous simulations examining the climatic response to the rapid Indian Ocean warming during the late twentieth century, and to results from climate warming simulations-especially in indicating an expansion of the Northern Hemisphere Hadley circulation. Notably, the pattern of tropical Indo-Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) change responsible for producing the proxy-model similarity in our results agrees well with MCA-LIA SST differences obtained in a recent proxy-based climate field reconstruction. Though much remains unclear, our results indicate that the MCA was characterized by an enhanced zonal Indo-Pacific SST gradient with resulting changes in Northern Hemisphere tropical and extra-tropical circulation patterns and hydroclimate regimes, linkages that may explain the coherent regional climate shifts indicated by proxy records from across the planet. The findings provide new perspectives on the nature and possible causes of the MCA-a remarkable, yet incompletely understood episode of Late Holocene climatic change.

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Section: Proxy Recordsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Relation To Other Modeling Studies Using Warmer Indian Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Support for global climate reorganization during the “Medieval Climate Anomaly”

et al. 2010

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“…1b). In Pacific Panamá, El Niño events are also associated with low cloud cover and decreased precipitation because the Central American monsoon is suppressed and the dry season is more protracted [36][37][38] . As a result of high sea temperatures and high insolation, Panamanian reefs can experience severe coral bleaching during El Niño years 39 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reefs in the TEP experience more frequent subaerial exposure during La Niña than at other times, which can result in high levels of coral mortality 41,42 . Additionally, enhanced rainfall during La Niña events in some parts of the TEP, including Pacific Panamá [36][37][38] , can lead to highly turbid conditions because of enhanced coastal runoff 41 , potentially resulting in limited light availability and reduced coral growth 43 . Finally, La Niña is associated with a strengthening of the northeast trade winds, which increases upwelling in some parts of the TEP 30,44 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climatic and biotic thresholds of coral-reef shutdown

et al. 2015

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Climate change is now the leading cause of coral-reef degradation and is altering the adaptive landscape of coral populations 1,2 . Increasing sea temperatures and declining carbonate saturation states are inhibiting short-term rates of coral calcification, carbonate precipitation and submarine cementation [3][4][5] . A critical challenge to coral-reef conservation is understanding the mechanisms by which environmental perturbations scale up to influence long-term rates of reef-framework construction and ecosystem function 6,7 . Here we reconstruct climatic and oceanographic variability using corals sampled from a 6,750-year core from Pacific Panamá. Simultaneous reconstructions of coral palaeophysiology and reef accretion allowed us to identify the climatic and biotic thresholds associated with a 2,500-year hiatus in vertical accretion beginning ∼4,100 years ago 8 . Stronger upwelling, cooler sea temperatures and greater precipitation-indicators of La Niña-like conditions-were closely associated with abrupt reef shutdown. The physiological condition of the corals deteriorated at the onset of the hiatus, corroborating theoretical predictions that the tipping points of radical ecosystem transitions should be manifested sublethally in the biotic constituents 9 . Future climate change could cause similar threshold behaviours, leading to another shutdown in reef development in the tropical eastern Pacific.Climatic and oceanographic variability have played a dominant role in the development of reefs throughout the Phanerozoic eon 10 , and the recent past is no exception. In Panamá and several other locations in the Pacific, coral reefs stopped accreting vertically for 2,500 years, beginning ∼4,100 cal yr BP (ref. 8; calibrated 14 C calendar years before 1950; Fig. 1a). Correlations with regional palaeoclimate proxies suggest that enhanced variability of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) was the ultimate cause of reef shutdown in the tropical eastern Pacific 8 (TEP). Climatic shifts at that time led to environmental and cultural impacts on a global scale 11,12 .In this study we investigated the long-term impacts of environmental variability on coral physiology and reef development in the TEP to ascertain the climatic, oceanographic and biotic controls on ecosystem state in the past. We quantified the range of environmental conditions that corals experienced during the past ∼6,750 years to determine whether significant changes in climate or oceanography were associated with changes in coral physiology or reef accretion. We then evaluated the environmental and physiological thresholds that characterized the catastrophic phase shift to the hiatus.In Pacific Panamá, El Niño-like periods are characterized by a warm, dry climate and a reduction in seasonal upwelling. Those conditions are reversed during La Niña-like periods (Supplementary Discussion and Supplementary Fig. 1). Contemporary environmental variability is high at Contadora Island, a site in Pacific Panamá that is exposed to intense seasonal upwelling and ...

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“…Speleothems are frequently used as climate archives (Wang et al, 2001;Lachniet et al, 2004, Winter et al, 2011. Cave monitoring has important implications for the robust interpretation of speleothem climate records.…”

Section: Diurnal Variations In Temperature Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seasonal temperature variations controlling cave ventilation processes in Cueva Larga, Puerto Rico

Vieten¹,

Winter²,

Warken³

et al. 2016

IJS

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Abstract:Two years of cave monitoring investigate ventilation processes in Cueva Larga, a tropical cave in Puerto Rico. The cave is 1,440 m long with a large main passage (about 120,000 m 3 ). Cave air pCO 2 in the main passage varies seasonally, between 600 ppm in winter and 1,800 ppm in summer. The seasonal variability in cave pCO 2 permits the estimation of a cave air exchange time of 36 ± 5 days and a winter ventilation rate of 3,300 ± 1,000 m 3 /day for the main cave passage. Calculations of virtual temperature and differences between cave and surface temperature indicate that the seasonal temperature cycle is the main driver of the alternation between a well-ventilated winter mode and a near-stagnant summer mode. The winter mode is characterized by a positive buoyancy contrast at night leading to maximal cave ventilation, while cave ventilation is at a minimum during summer. Between winter and summer, a transitional mode of partial cave ventilation is observed. On shorter time scales (diurnal to weekly), cave pCO 2 is also influenced by atmospheric pressure but this variation is one order of magnitude lower than the seasonal pCO 2 change. The cave morphology of Cueva Larga including its large volume, tubular shape and the obstructed cave entrance geometry are important boundary conditions for the observed ventilation patterns. Our findings emphasize that cave systems with varying morphology have to be studied individually in order to correctly describe ventilation processes. environmental monitoring, cave ventilation, carbon dioxide, virtual temperature, air exchange time

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A 1500‐year El Niño/Southern Oscillation and rainfall history for the Isthmus of Panama from speleothem calcite

Cited by 122 publications

References 32 publications

Support for global climate reorganization during the “Medieval Climate Anomaly”

Support for global climate reorganization during the “Medieval Climate Anomaly”

Climatic and biotic thresholds of coral-reef shutdown

Seasonal temperature variations controlling cave ventilation processes in Cueva Larga, Puerto Rico

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