Abstract
The North Atlantic Oscillation is the dominant atmospheric pressure mode in the North Atlantic region and affects winter temperature and precipitation in the Mediterranean, northwest Europe, Greenland, and Asia1. The index1 that describes the sea-level pressure difference between Iceland and the Azores is correlated with a dipole precipitation pattern over northwest Europe and northwest Africa. How the North Atlantic Oscillation will develop as the Greenland ice sheet melts is unclear2. A potential past analogue is the early Holocene, during which melting ice sheets around the North Atlantic3,4 freshened surface waters, affecting the strength of the meridional overturning circulation5. Here we present a Holocene rainfall record from northwest Africa based on speleothem δ18O and compare it against a speleothem-based rainfall record from Europe6. The two records are positively correlated during the early Holocene, followed by a shift to an anti-correlation, similar to the modern record, during the mid-Holocene. On the basis of our simulations with an Earth system model, we suggest the shift to the anti-correlation reflects a large-scale atmospheric and oceanic reorganization in response to the demise of the Laurentide ice sheet and a strong reduction of meltwater flux to the North Atlantic, pointing to a potential sensitivity of the North Atlantic Oscillation to the melting of ice sheets.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; project IM 44/1, and WA3532/1-1) and the Max Planck Society. We would like to thank W. Wei for providing model output and performing the CCA-analysis and acknowledge D. Fleitmann for fruitful discussions. The staffs in the isotope laboratories at Bochum and Mainz (U. Weis, B. Stoll, A. Niedermayr, D. Buhl, B. Gehnen, U. Schulte) are acknowledged for their help with sample preparation and measurements. In addition, T. Reinecke, the thin section lab at Bochum and our local speleo-guides E. H. El Mansouri and T. Echchibi are gratefully acknowledged. A. Fink (Institute for Geophysics and Meteorology, University of Cologne) is thanked for providing rainfall data from the weather station in Taza, Morocco.
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J.A.W. wrote the paper and prepared and performed the stable isotope and trace element analysis; J.A.W., S.D., A.I. and D.K.R., were involved in the study design; S.D., and G.L. analysed the climate modelling data; J.A.W. and D.S. were involved in the age–depth modelling; J.A.W., J.Fohlmeister and D.S. were involved in the speleothem data interpretation; S.D., G.L. and J.A.W. contributed to the climate discussion; J.Fietzke performed the 230Th/U dating of stalagmite GP2; J.Fohlmeister performed the tuning and correlation analysis; C.S. performed the δ18O analysis of the rainwater samples; K.P.J. provided support with trace element analysis; M.O.A. provided essential feedback to multiple draft versions of the manuscript; A.S. provided logistical support essential for the collection of stalagmite GP2. All authors discussed the results and provided comments on the manuscripts.
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Wassenburg, J., Dietrich, S., Fietzke, J. et al. Reorganization of the North Atlantic Oscillation during early Holocene deglaciation. Nature Geosci 9, 602–605 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2767
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2767
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