Amplification of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation associated with the onset of the industrial-era warming.

North Atlantic sea surface temperatures experience variability with a periodicity of 60-80 years that is known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). It has a profound imprint on the global climate system that results in a number of high value societal impacts. However the industrial period, i.e. the middle of the 19th century onwards, contains only two full cycles of the AMO making it difficult to fully characterize this oscillation and its impact on the climate system. As a result, there is a clear need to identify paleoclimate records extending into the pre-industrial period that contain an expression of the AMO. This is especially true for extratropical marine paleoclimate proxies where such expressions are currently unavailable. Here we present an annually resolved coralline algal time series from the northwest Atlantic Ocean that exhibits multidecadal variability extending back six centuries. The time series contains a statistically significant trend towards higher values, i.e. warmer conditions, beginning in the 19th century that coincided with an increase in the time series' multidecadal power. We argue that these changes are associated with a regional climate reorganization involving an amplification of the AMO that coincided with onset of the industrial-era warming.

Ancient microbial activity recorded in fracture fillings from granitic rocks (Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory, Sweden).

Fracture minerals within the 1.8-Ga-old Äspö Diorite (Sweden) were investigated for fossil traces of subterranean microbial activity. To track the potential organic and inorganic biosignatures, an approach combining complementary analytical techniques of high lateral resolution was applied to drill core material obtained at -450 m depth in the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory. This approach included polarization microscopy, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), confocal Raman microscopy, electron microprobe (EMP) and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The fracture mineral succession, consisting of fluorite and low-temperature calcite, showed a thin (20-100 µm), dark amorphous layer lining the boundary between the two phases. Microscopic investigations of the amorphous layer revealed corrosion marks and, in places, branched tubular structures within the fluorite. Geochemical analysis showed significant accumulations of Si, Al, Mg, Fe and the light rare earth elements (REE) in the amorphous layer. In the same area, ToF-SIMS imaging revealed abundant, partly functionalized organic moieties, for example, C(x)H(y)⁺, C(x)H(y)N⁺, C(x)H(y)O⁺. The presence of such functionalized organic compounds was corroborated by Raman imaging showing bands characteristic of C-C, C-N and C-O bonds. According to its organic nature and the abundance of relatively unstable N- and O- heterocompounds, the organic-rich amorphous layer is interpreted to represent the remains of a microbial biofilm that established much later than the initial cooling of the Precambrian host rock. Indeed, δ¹³C, δ¹8O and 87Sr/86Sr isotope data of the fracture minerals and the host rock point to an association with a fracture reactivation event in the most recent geological past.