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Tropical rainfall over the last two millennia: evidence for a low-latitude hydrologic seesaw

Lechleitner, Franziska A.; Breitenbach, Sebastian F.M.; Rehfeld, Kira; Ridley, Harriet E.; Asmerom, Yemane; Prufer, Keith M.; Marwan, Norbert; Goswami, Bedartha; Kennett, Douglas J.; Aquino, Valorie V.; Polyak, Victor; Haug, Gerald H.; Eglinton, Timothy I.; Baldini, James U.L

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Authors

Franziska A. Lechleitner

Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach

Kira Rehfeld

Harriet E. Ridley

Yemane Asmerom

Keith M. Prufer

Norbert Marwan

Bedartha Goswami

Douglas J. Kennett

Valorie V. Aquino

Victor Polyak

Gerald H. Haug

Timothy I. Eglinton



Abstract

The presence of a low- to mid-latitude interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw is apparent over orbital and glacial-interglacial timescales, but its existence over the most recent past remains unclear. Here we investigate, based on climate proxy reconstructions from both hemispheres, the inter-hemispherical phasing of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and the low- to mid-latitude teleconnections in the Northern Hemisphere over the past 2000 years. A clear feature is a persistent southward shift of the ITCZ during the Little Ice Age until the beginning of the 19th Century. Strong covariation between our new composite ITCZ-stack and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) records reveals a tight coupling between these two synoptic weather and climate phenomena over decadal-to-centennial timescales. This relationship becomes most apparent when comparing two precisely dated, high-resolution paleorainfall records from Belize and Scotland, indicating that the low- to mid-latitude teleconnection was also active over annual-decadal timescales. It is likely a combination of external forcing, i.e., solar and volcanic, and internal feedbacks, that drives the synchronous ITCZ and NAO shifts via energy flux perturbations in the tropics.

Citation

Lechleitner, F. A., Breitenbach, S. F., Rehfeld, K., Ridley, H. E., Asmerom, Y., Prufer, K. M., …Baldini, J. U. (2017). Tropical rainfall over the last two millennia: evidence for a low-latitude hydrologic seesaw. Scientific Reports, 7, Article 45809. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep45809

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 6, 2017
Online Publication Date Apr 5, 2017
Publication Date Apr 5, 2017
Deposit Date Apr 5, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Scientific Reports
Publisher Nature Research
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 7
Article Number 45809
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/srep45809

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/





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