Reversed Holocene temperature-moisture relationship in the Horn of Africa.

Anthropogenic climate change is predicted to severely impact the global hydrological cycle1, particularly in tropical regions where agriculture-based economies depend on monsoon rainfall2. In the Horn of Africa, more frequent drought conditions in recent decades3,4 contrast with climate models projecting precipitation to increase with rising temperature5. Here we use organic geochemical climate-proxy data from the sediment record of Lake Chala (Kenya and Tanzania) to probe the stability of the link between hydroclimate and temperature over approximately the past 75,000 years, hence encompassing a sufficiently wide range of temperatures to test the 'dry gets drier, wet gets wetter' paradigm6 of anthropogenic climate change in the time domain. We show that the positive relationship between effective moisture and temperature in easternmost Africa during the cooler last glacial period shifted to negative around the onset of the Holocene 11,700 years ago, when the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration exceeded 250 parts per million and mean annual temperature approached modern-day values. Thus, at that time, the budget between monsoonal precipitation and continental evaporation7 crossed a tipping point such that the positive influence of temperature on evaporation became greater than its positive influence on precipitation. Our results imply that under continued anthropogenic warming, the Horn of Africa will probably experience further drying, and they highlight the need for improved simulation of both dynamic and thermodynamic processes in the tropical hydrological cycle.

Two modes of change in Southern Ocean productivity over the past million years.

Export of organic carbon from surface waters of the Antarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean decreased during the last ice age, coinciding with declining atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO(2)) concentrations, signaling reduced exchange of CO(2) between the ocean interior and the atmosphere. In contrast, in the Subantarctic Zone, export production increased into ice ages coinciding with rising dust fluxes, thus suggesting iron fertilization of subantarctic phytoplankton. Here, a new high-resolution productivity record from the Antarctic Zone is compiled with parallel subantarctic data over the past million years. Together, they fit the view that the combination of these two modes of Southern Ocean change determines the temporal structure of the glacial-interglacial atmospheric CO(2) record, including during the interval of "lukewarm" interglacials between 450 and 800 thousand years ago.

Deglacial pulses of deep-ocean silicate into the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean.

Growing evidence suggests that the low atmospheric CO2 concentration of the ice ages resulted from enhanced storage of CO2 in the ocean interior, largely as a result of changes in the Southern Ocean. Early in the most recent deglaciation, a reduction in North Atlantic overturning circulation seems to have driven CO2 release from the Southern Ocean, but the mechanism connecting the North Atlantic and the Southern Ocean remains unclear. Biogenic opal export in the low-latitude ocean relies on silicate from the underlying thermocline, the concentration of which is affected by the circulation of the ocean interior. Here we report a record of biogenic opal export from a coastal upwelling system off the coast of northwest Africa that shows pronounced opal maxima during each glacial termination over the past 550,000 years. These opal peaks are consistent with a strong deglacial reduction in the formation of silicate-poor glacial North Atlantic intermediate water (GNAIW). The loss of GNAIW allowed mixing with underlying silicate-rich deep water to increase the silicate supply to the surface ocean. An increase in westerly-wind-driven upwelling in the Southern Ocean in response to the North Atlantic change has been proposed to drive the deglacial rise in atmospheric CO2 (refs 3, 4). However, such a circulation change would have accelerated the formation of Antarctic intermediate water and sub-Antarctic mode water, which today have as little silicate as North Atlantic Deep Water and would have thus maintained low silicate concentrations in the Atlantic thermocline. The deglacial opal maxima reported here suggest an alternative mechanism for the deglacial CO2 release. Just as the reduction in GNAIW led to upward silicate transport, it should also have allowed the downward mixing of warm, low-density surface water to reach into the deep ocean. The resulting decrease in the density of the deep Atlantic relative to the Southern Ocean surface promoted Antarctic overturning, which released CO2 to the atmosphere.

Foraminiferal isotope evidence of reduced nitrogen fixation in the ice age Atlantic Ocean.

Fixed nitrogen (N) is a limiting nutrient for algae in the low-latitude ocean, and its oceanic inventory may have been higher during ice ages, thus helping to lower atmospheric CO2 during those intervals. In organic matter within planktonic foraminifera shells in Caribbean Sea sediments, we found that the 15N/14N ratio from the last ice age is higher than that from the current interglacial, indicating a higher nitrate 15N/14N ratio in the Caribbean thermocline. This change and other species-specific differences are best explained by less N fixation in the Atlantic during the last ice age. The fixation decrease was most likely a response to a known ice age reduction in ocean N loss, and it would have worked to balance the ocean N budget and to curb ice age-interglacial change in the N inventory.

Glacial/interglacial changes in subarctic north pacific stratification.

Since the first evidence of low algal productivity during ice ages in the Antarctic Zone of the Southern Ocean was discovered, there has been debate as to whether it was associated with increased polar ocean stratification or with sea-ice cover, shortening the productive season. The sediment concentration of biogenic barium at Ocean Drilling Program site 882 indicates low algal productivity during ice ages in the Subarctic North Pacific as well. Site 882 is located southeast of the summer sea-ice extent even during glacial maxima, ruling out sea-ice-driven light limitation and supporting stratification as the explanation, with implications for the glacial cycles of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

Southward migration of the intertropical convergence zone through the Holocene.

Titanium and iron concentration data from the anoxic Cariaco Basin, off the Venezuelan coast, can be used to infer variations in the hydrological cycle over northern South America during the past 14,000 years with subdecadal resolution. Following a dry Younger Dryas, a period of increased precipitation and riverine discharge occurred during the Holocene "thermal maximum." Since approximately 5400 years ago, a trend toward drier conditions is evident from the data, with high-amplitude fluctuations and precipitation minima during the time interval 3800 to 2800 years ago and during the "Little Ice Age." These regional changes in precipitation are best explained by shifts in the mean latitude of the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), potentially driven by Pacific-based climate variability. The Cariaco Basin record exhibits strong correlations with climate records from distant regions, including the high-latitude Northern Hemisphere, providing evidence for global teleconnections among regional climates.

Rapid changes in the hydrologic cycle of the tropical Atlantic during the last glacial.

Sedimentary time series of color reflectance and major element chemistry from the anoxic Cariaco Basin off the coast of northern Venezuela record large and abrupt shifts in the hydrologic cycle of the tropical Atlantic during the past 90,000 years. Marine productivity maxima and increased precipitation and riverine discharge from northern South America are closely linked to interstadial (warm) climate events of marine isotope stage 3, as recorded in Greenland ice cores. Increased precipitation at this latitude during interstadials suggests the potential for greater moisture export from the Atlantic to Pacific, which could have affected the salinity balance of the Atlantic and increased thermohaline heat transport to high northern latitudes. This supports the notion that tropical feedbacks played an important role in modulating global climate during the last glacial period.