Solar forcing of Holocene climate: New insights from a speleothem record, southwestern United States

Asmerom, Yemane; Polyak, Victor J.; Burns, Stephen J.; Rassmussen, Jessica

doi:10.1130/g22865a.1

Cited by 173 publications

(172 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…To examine the impact of the North Atlantic SST on the drought in North America during the Holocene, Figure 5 shows the PC01 for the Holocene SST (Feng et al 2009) and the two dry/wet records in North America (Asmerom et al 2007;Booth and Jackson 2003). The centennial timescale dry/wet variations in the Midwest and the southern Great Plains are clearly shown.…”

Section: Statistical Relationship Between Atlantic Sst and Persistentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beside the tree ring data, two sets of high resolution dry/wet records are also used. One is based on the δ 18 O of speleothems from a core in Guadalupe Mountains, New Mexico (105°W, 32.5°N) for the last 10,000 years (Asmerom et al 2007) and the other is the water-table depth reconstructed from a peat core in Minden Bog, Michigan (82.8°W, 43.6°N) for the last 3,500 years (Booth and Jackson 2003). The locations of the two sites are also shown in Figure 1b.…”

Section: Observed and Proxy Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Influence of Atlantic sea surface temperatures on persistent drought in North America

2010

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This study investigates the relationship between North Atlantic sea surface temperatures (SST) and persistent drought in North America using modern observations, proxy paleodata, and simulations from multiple climate models. The observational results show that persistent droughts in the Great Plains and the southwest North America are closely related to multidecadal variations of North Atlantic SST (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations, AMO). During the AMO warm (cold) phases, most of North America is dry (wet). This relationship is persistent since at least 1567 AD, as based on proxy SST for the North Atlantic and the reconstructed drought index for North America. On centennial timescales, proxy SST records from the North Atlantic and proxy drought records for North America suggest that major periods of AMO-like warm (cold) SST anomalies during the last 7.0 ka correspond to dry (wet) conditions in the Great Plains. The influence of North Atlantic SST on North American droughts is examined using simulations made by five global climate models. When forced by warm North Atlantic SST anomalies, all models captured significant drying over North America, despite some regional differences. Specifically, dry summers in the Great Plains and the southwest North America are simulated by all models. The precipitation response to a cold North Atlantic is much weaker and contains greater disagreement among the models. Overall, the ensemble of the five models could well reproduce the statistical relationship between the dry/wet fluctuations in the North America and North Atlantic SST anomalies. Our results suggest that North Atlantic SSTs are likely a major driver of decadal and centennial timescale circulation, including droughts, in North America. Possible mechanisms that connect North Atlantic SST with North American drought, as well as interactions between North Atlantic and tropical Pacific SST and their relative roles on drought are also discussed.

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Section: Statistical Relationship Between Atlantic Sst and Persistentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Observed and Proxy Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of Atlantic sea surface temperatures on persistent drought in North America

2010

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“…Although speleothems have proven a valuable source of information on past climates, it is only in the last few years that the UTh dating of last millennial speleothems for climatic reconstruction has been undertaken (Fleitmann et al, 2004;Yuan et al, 2004;He et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2005;Asmerom et al, 2007;Sinha et al, 2007;Hu et al, 2008;Lorrey et al, 2008). This is largely because of the low U content and high Th/U ratios of speleothems, particularly by comparison with pristine corals.…”

Section: Dating Recent Climatic Changementioning

confidence: 99%

High-precision 238U–234U–230Th disequilibrium dating of the recent past: a review

Zhao

Feng

2009

Quaternary Geochronology

104

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“…Some studies also show that recharge of the aquifer occurs only during months when rainfall passes a given threshold, typically during the wet season in the tropics (e.g., Jones and Banner, 2003;Partin et al, 2012), but possibly associated with the winter storm season in the extratropics. While other indicators, such as band thickness (e.g., Rasbury and Aharon, 2006;Asmerom et al, 2007), trace metal ratios (see Fairchild and Treble, 2009 and references therein), and carbon isotopes (Fairchild et al, 2000;Frappier et al, 2002;Oster et al, 2015) reflect hydroclimate variability at certain sites and continue to be developed, speleothem δ 18 O remains the primary hydroclimate proxy.…”

Section: Speleothemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing proxy and model estimates of hydroclimate variability and change over the Common Era

Smerdon¹,

Luterbacher²,

Phipps³

et al. 2017

Clim. Past

105

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Abstract. Water availability is fundamental to societies and ecosystems, but our understanding of variations in hydroclimate (including extreme events, flooding, and decadal periods of drought) is limited because of a paucity of modern instrumental observations that are distributed unevenly across the globe and only span parts of the 20th and 21st centuries. Such data coverage is insufficient for characterizing hydroclimate and its associated dynamics because of its multidecadal to centennial variability and highly regionalized spatial signature. High-resolution (seasonal to decadal) hydroclimatic proxies that span all or parts of the Common Era (CE) and paleoclimate simulations from climate models are therefore important tools for augmenting our understanding of hydroclimate variability. In particular, the comparison of the two sources of information is critical for addressing the uncertainties and limitations of both while enriching each of their interpretations. We review the principal proxy data available for hydroclimatic reconstructions over the CE and highlight the contemporary understanding of how these proxies are interpreted as hydroclimate indicators. We also review the available last-millennium simulations from fully coupled climate models and discuss several outstanding challenges associated with simulating hydroclimate variability and change over the CE. A specific review of simulated hydroclimatic changes forced by volcanic events is provided, as is a discussion of expected improvements in estimated radiative forcings, models, and their implementation in the future. Our review of hydroclimatic proxies and last-millennium model simulations is used as the basis for articulating a variety of considerations and best practices for how to perform proxy-model comparisons of CE hydroclimate. This discussion provides a framework for how best to evaluate hydroclimate variability and its associated dynamics using these comparisons and how they can better inform interpretations of both proxy data and model simulations. We subsequently explore means of using proxy-model comparisons to better constrain and characterize future hydroclimate risks. This is explored specifically in the context of several examples that demonstrate how proxy-model comparisons can be used to quantitatively constrain future hydroclimatic risks as estimated from climate model projections.

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Solar forcing of Holocene climate: New insights from a speleothem record, southwestern United States

Cited by 173 publications

References 30 publications

Influence of Atlantic sea surface temperatures on persistent drought in North America

Influence of Atlantic sea surface temperatures on persistent drought in North America

High-precision 238U–234U–230Th disequilibrium dating of the recent past: a review

Comparing proxy and model estimates of hydroclimate variability and change over the Common Era

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