Pronounced centennial-scale Atlantic Ocean climate variability correlated with Western Hemisphere hydroclimate

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Thirumalai, Kaustubh, Quinn, Terrence M., Okumura, Yuko, Richey, Julie N., Partin, Judson W., Poore, Richard Z., Moreno-Chamarro, Eduardo
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
• Subjects: Article; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5786086/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29374166; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-02846-4

Surface-ocean circulation in the northern Atlantic Ocean influences Northern Hemisphere climate. Century-scale circulation variability in the Atlantic Ocean, however, is poorly constrained due to insufficiently-resolved paleoceanographic records. Here we present a replicated reconstruction of sea-surface temperature and salinity from a site sensitive to North Atlantic circulation in the Gulf of Mexico which reveals pronounced centennial-scale variability over the late Holocene. We find significant correlations on these timescales between salinity changes in the Atlantic, a diagnostic parameter of circulation, and widespread precipitation anomalies using three approaches: multiproxy synthesis, observational datasets, and a transient simulation. Our results demonstrate links between centennial changes in northern Atlantic surface-circulation and hydroclimate changes in the adjacent continents over the late Holocene. Notably, our findings reveal that weakened surface-circulation in the Atlantic Ocean was concomitant with well-documented rainfall anomalies in the Western Hemisphere during the Little Ice Age.