Francisco W. Cruz

Insolation-driven changes in atmospheric circulation over the past 116,000 years in subtropical Brazil

During the last glacial period, large millennial-scale temperature oscillations—the ‘Dansgaard/Oeschger’ cycles—were the primary climate signal in Northern Hemisphere climate archives from the high latitudes to the tropics. But whether the influence of these abrupt climate changes extended to the tropical and subtropical Southern Hemisphere, where changes in insolation are thought to be the main direct forcing of climate, has remained unclear. Here we present a high-resolution oxygen isotope record of a U/Th-dated stalagmite from subtropical southern Brazil, covering the past 116,200 years. The oxygen isotope signature varies with shifts in the source region and amount of rainfall in the area, and hence records changes in atmospheric circulation and convective intensity over South America. We find that these variations in rainfall source and amount are primarily driven by summer solar radiation, which is controlled by the Earths precessional cycle. The Dansgaard/Oeschger cycles can be detected in our record and therefore we confirm that they also affect the tropical hydrological cycle, but that in southern subtropical Brazil, millennial-scale climate changes are not as dominant as they are in the Northern Hemisphere.

Timing and structure of the 8.2 kyr B.P. event inferred from δ18O records of stalagmites from China, Oman, and Brazil

Oxygen isotope records of stalagmites from China and Oman reveal a weak summer monsoon event, with a double-plunging structure, that started 8.21 ± 0.02 kyr B.P. An identical but antiphased pattern is also evident in two stalagmite records from eastern Brazil, indicating that the South American Summer Monsoon was intensifi ed during the 8.2 kyr B.P. event. These records demonstrate that the event was of global extent and synchronous within dating errors of <50 years. In comparison with recent model simulations, it is plausible that the 8.2 kyr B.P. event can be tied in changes of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation triggered by a glacial lake draining event. This, in turn, affected North Atlantic climate and latitudinal position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, resulting in the observed low-latitude monsoonal precipitation patterns.

The Global Paleomonsoon as seen through speleothem records from Asia and the Americas

The regional monsoons of the world have long been viewed as seasonal atmospheric circulation reversal—analogous to a thermally-driven land-sea breeze on a continental scale. This conventional view of monsoons is now being integrated at a global scale and accordingly, a new paradigm has emerged which considers regional monsoons to be manifestations of global-scale seasonal changes in response to overturning of atmospheric circulation in the tropics and subtropics, and henceforth, interactive components of a singular Global Monsoon (GM) system. The paleoclimate community, however, tends to view ‘paleomonsoon’ (PM), largely in terms of regional circulation phenomena. In the past decade, many high-quality speleothem oxygen isotope (δ18O) records have been established from the Asian Monsoon and the South American Monsoon regions that primarily reflect changes in the integrated intensities of monsoons on orbital-to-decadal timescales. With the emergence of these high-resolution and absolute-dated records from both sides of the Equator, it is now possible to test a concept of the ‘Global-Paleo-Monsoon’ (GPM) on a wide-range of timescales. Here we present a comprehensive synthesis of globally-distributed speleothem δ18O records and highlight three aspects of the GPM that are comparable to the modern GM: (1) the GPM intensity swings on different timescales; (2) their global extent; and (3) an anti-phased inter-hemispheric relationship between the Asian and South American monsoon systems on a wide range of timescales.

Abrupt variations in South American monsoon rainfall during the Holocene based on a speleothem record from central-eastern Brazil

Well-dated high-resolution oxygen isotope records of speleothems in central-eastern Brazil spanning from 1.3 to 10.2 kyr B.P. reveal that the occurrence of abrupt variations in monsoon precipitation is not random. They show a striking match with Bond events and a significant pacing at ∼800 yr, a dominant periodicity present in sea surface temperature records from both the North Atlantic and equatorial Pacific Oceans that is possibly related to periods of low solar activity (high 14 C based on the atmospheric Δ 14 C record). The precipitation variations over central-eastern Brazil are broadly antiphased with the Asian and Indian Monsoons during Bond events and show marked differences in duration and structure between the early and late Holocene. Our results suggest that these abrupt multicentennial precipitation events are primarily linked to changes in the North Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). Anomalous cross-equatorial flow induced by negative AMOC phases may have modulated not only the monsoon in South America but also affected El Nino–like conditions in the tropical Pacific during the Holocene.

Hydroclimate changes across the Amazon lowlands over the past 45,000 years

Reconstructing the history of tropical hydroclimates has been difficult, particularly for the Amazon basin—one of Earth’s major centres of deep atmospheric convection. For example, whether the Amazon basin was substantially drier or remained wet during glacial times has been controversial, largely because most study sites have been located on the periphery of the basin, and because interpretations can be complicated by sediment preservation, uncertainties in chronology, and topographical setting. Here we show that rainfall in the basin responds closely to changes in glacial boundary conditions in terms of temperature and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Our results are based on a decadally resolved, uranium/thorium-dated, oxygen isotopic record for much of the past 45,000 years, obtained using speleothems from Paraíso Cave in eastern Amazonia; we interpret the record as being broadly related to precipitation. Relative to modern levels, precipitation in the region was about 58% during the Last Glacial Maximum (around 21,000 years ago) and 142% during the mid-Holocene epoch (about 6,000 years ago). We find that, as compared with cave records from the western edge of the lowlands, the Amazon was widely drier during the last glacial period, with much less recycling of water and probably reduced plant transpiration, although the rainforest persisted throughout this time.

Timing and structure of Mega‐SACZ events during Heinrich Stadial 1

A substantial strengthening of the South American monsoon system (SAMS) during Heinrich Stadials (HS) points toward decreased cross-equatorial heat transport as the main driver of monsoonal hydroclimate variability at millennial time scales. In order to better constrain the exact timing and internal structure of HS1 over tropical South America, we assessed two precisely dated speleothem records from central-eastern and northeastern Brazil in combination with two marine records of terrestrial organic and inorganic matter input into the western equatorial Atlantic. During HS1, we recognize at least two events of widespread intensification of the SAMS across the entire region influenced by the South Atlantic Convergence Zone (SACZ) at 16.11–14.69 kyr B.P. and 18.1–16.66 kyr B.P. (labeled as HS1a and HS1c, respectively), separated by a dry excursion from 16.66 to 16.11 kyr B.P. (HS1b). In view of the spatial structure of precipitation anomalies, the widespread increase of monsoon precipitation over the SACZ domain was termed “Mega-SACZ.”

Centennial-scale solar forcing of the South American Monsoon System recorded in stalagmites.

The South American Monsoon System (SAMS) is generally considered to be highly sensitive to Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature variations on multi-centennial timescales. The direct influence of solar forcing on moisture convergence in global monsoon systems on the other hand, while well explored in modeling studies, has hitherto not been documented in proxy data from the SAMS region. Hence little is known about the sensitivity of the SAMS to solar forcing over the past millennium and how it might compete or constructively interfere with NH temperature variations that occurred primarily in response to volcanic forcing. Here we present a new annually-resolved oxygen isotope record from a 1500-year long stalagmite recording past changes in precipitation in the hitherto unsampled core region of the SAMS. This record details how solar variability consistently modulated the strength of the SAMS on centennial time scales during the past 1500 years. Solar forcing, besides the previously recognized influence from NH temperature changes and associated Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) shifts, appears as a major driver affecting SAMS intensity at centennial time scales.

Orbital and Millennial-Scale Precipitation Changes in Brazil from Speleothem Records

Paleorainfall variability on orbital and millennial time scales is discussed for the last glacial period and the Holocene, based on a multi-proxy study of speleothem records from Brazil. Oxygen isotope (δ18O) records from Botuvera and Santana caves, precisely dated by U-series methods, indicate stronger summer monsoon circulation in subtropical Brazil during periods of high summer insolation in the southern hemisphere. In addition, variations in Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios from speleothems confirm that this monsoon intensification led to an increase in the long-term mean rainfall during insolation maxima. However, they also suggest that glacial boundary conditions, especially ice volume buildup in the northern hemisphere, promoted an additional displacement of the monsoon system to the south, which produced rather wet conditions during the period from approximately 70 to 17 ka B.P., in particular at the height of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

A high-resolution history of the South American Monsoon from Last Glacial Maximum to the Holocene

The exact extent, by which the hydrologic cycle in the Neotropics was affected by external forcing during the last deglaciation, remains poorly understood. Here we present a new paleo-rainfall reconstruction based on high-resolution speleothem δ18O records from the core region of the South American Monsoon System (SAMS), documenting the changing hydrological conditions over tropical South America (SA), in particular during abrupt millennial-scale events. This new record provides the best-resolved and most accurately constrained geochronology of any proxy from South America for this time period, spanning from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to the mid-Holocene.

Equatorial Pacific forcing of western Amazonian precipitation during Heinrich Stadial 1.

Abundant hydroclimatic evidence from western Amazonia and the adjacent Andes documents wet conditions during Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1, 18–15 ka), a cold period in the high latitudes of the North Atlantic. This precipitation anomaly was attributed to a strengthening of the South American summer monsoon due to a change in the Atlantic interhemispheric sea surface temperature (SST) gradient. However, the physical viability of this mechanism has never been rigorously tested. We address this issue by combining a thorough compilation of tropical South American paleorecords and a set of atmosphere model sensitivity experiments. Our results show that the Atlantic SST variations alone, although leading to dry conditions in northern South America and wet conditions in northeastern Brazil, cannot produce increased precipitation over western Amazonia and the adjacent Andes during HS1. Instead, an eastern equatorial Pacific SST increase (i.e., 0.5–1.5 °C), in response to the slowdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation during HS1, is crucial to generate the wet conditions in these regions. The mechanism works via anomalous low sea level pressure over the eastern equatorial Pacific, which promotes a regional easterly low-level wind anomaly and moisture recycling from central Amazonia towards the Andes.