Evidence for 800years of North Atlantic multi-decadal variability from a Puerto Rican speleothem

Amos Winter; Thomas Miller; Yochanan Kushnir; Ashish Sinha; Axel Timmermann; Mark R. Jury; Christina Gallup; Hai Cheng; R. Lawrence Edwards

doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2011.05.028

Evidence for 800years of North Atlantic multi-decadal variability from a Puerto Rican speleothem

Amos Winter, Thomas Miller, Yochanan Kushnir, Ashish Sinha, Axel Timmermann, Mark R. Jury, Christina Gallup, Hai Cheng, R. Lawrence Edwards

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

The long-term behavior of the tropical Atlantic ocean/atmospheric system prior to the 20th century is not well characterized due to a lack of high-resolution proxy records to extend the short instrumental record. Here we present the first reconstruction of rainfall variability for the western tropical Atlantic that spans the past 8 centuries and is derived from the δ¹⁸O of speleothem calcite. The δ¹⁸O of speleothem calcite at this Puerto Rican location varies primarily in response to changes in the amount of summer-time precipitation. The speleothem documents multi-decadal to centennial length oscillations in δ¹⁸O that point to large variations in rainfall that have not been manifest in the short instrumental period. Since AD 1850, variations in δ¹⁸O have tracked shifts in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). We tentatively suggest that the speleothem δ¹⁸O-based rainfall record from Puerto Rico extends the history of the AMO to the 12th century.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	23-28
Number of pages	6
Journal	Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Volume	308
Issue number	1-2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2011.05.028
State	Published - Aug 1 2011

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported, in part, by NSF OCE Grant 0738825 and NSF AGS 1003502 . M. Rincon (Univ. Southern Cal.) is thanked for his help with sampling and analyzing. Lowell Stott is thanked for fruitful discussions, stable isotope analyses and improvements to the manuscript. Luc Beaufort and Juan Estrealla are thanked for technical assistance. Y. Kushnir was supported by NOAA awards NA03OAR4320179 and NA08OAR4320912. AW would like to thank Gerald Haug for hosting him while on sabbatical.

Keywords

Atlantic multidecadal oscillation
Climate change
Puerto Rico
Rainfall variability
Speleothems

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title = "Evidence for 800years of North Atlantic multi-decadal variability from a Puerto Rican speleothem",

abstract = "The long-term behavior of the tropical Atlantic ocean/atmospheric system prior to the 20th century is not well characterized due to a lack of high-resolution proxy records to extend the short instrumental record. Here we present the first reconstruction of rainfall variability for the western tropical Atlantic that spans the past 8 centuries and is derived from the δ18O of speleothem calcite. The δ18O of speleothem calcite at this Puerto Rican location varies primarily in response to changes in the amount of summer-time precipitation. The speleothem documents multi-decadal to centennial length oscillations in δ18O that point to large variations in rainfall that have not been manifest in the short instrumental period. Since AD 1850, variations in δ18O have tracked shifts in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). We tentatively suggest that the speleothem δ18O-based rainfall record from Puerto Rico extends the history of the AMO to the 12th century.",

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AU - Cheng, Hai

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N2 - The long-term behavior of the tropical Atlantic ocean/atmospheric system prior to the 20th century is not well characterized due to a lack of high-resolution proxy records to extend the short instrumental record. Here we present the first reconstruction of rainfall variability for the western tropical Atlantic that spans the past 8 centuries and is derived from the δ18O of speleothem calcite. The δ18O of speleothem calcite at this Puerto Rican location varies primarily in response to changes in the amount of summer-time precipitation. The speleothem documents multi-decadal to centennial length oscillations in δ18O that point to large variations in rainfall that have not been manifest in the short instrumental period. Since AD 1850, variations in δ18O have tracked shifts in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). We tentatively suggest that the speleothem δ18O-based rainfall record from Puerto Rico extends the history of the AMO to the 12th century.

AB - The long-term behavior of the tropical Atlantic ocean/atmospheric system prior to the 20th century is not well characterized due to a lack of high-resolution proxy records to extend the short instrumental record. Here we present the first reconstruction of rainfall variability for the western tropical Atlantic that spans the past 8 centuries and is derived from the δ18O of speleothem calcite. The δ18O of speleothem calcite at this Puerto Rican location varies primarily in response to changes in the amount of summer-time precipitation. The speleothem documents multi-decadal to centennial length oscillations in δ18O that point to large variations in rainfall that have not been manifest in the short instrumental period. Since AD 1850, variations in δ18O have tracked shifts in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). We tentatively suggest that the speleothem δ18O-based rainfall record from Puerto Rico extends the history of the AMO to the 12th century.

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Evidence for 800years of North Atlantic multi-decadal variability from a Puerto Rican speleothem

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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