Weakened AMOC related to cooling and atmospheric circulation shifts in the last interglacial Eastern Mediterranean
There is limited understanding of temperature and atmospheric circulation changes that accompany an Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slowdown beyond the North Atlantic realm. A Peqi’in Cave (Israel) speleothem dated to the last interglacial period (LIG), 129–116 thousand years ago...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Nature communications 2023-08, Vol.14 (1), p.5180-5180, Article 5180 |
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Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | There is limited understanding of temperature and atmospheric circulation changes that accompany an Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slowdown beyond the North Atlantic realm. A Peqi’in Cave (Israel) speleothem dated to the last interglacial period (LIG), 129–116 thousand years ago (ka), together with a large modern rainfall monitoring dataset, serve as the base for investigating past AMOC slowdown effects on the Eastern Mediterranean. Here, we reconstruct LIG temperatures and rainfall source using organic proxies (TEX
86
) and fluid inclusion water
d-excess
. The TEX
86
data show a stepwise cooling from 19.8 ± 0.2° (
ca
. 128–126 ka) to 16.5 ± 0.6 °C (
ca
. 124–123 ka), while
d-excess
values decrease abruptly (
ca
. 126 ka). The
d-excess
shift suggests that rainfall was derived from more zonal Mediterranean air flow during the weakened AMOC interval. Decreasing rainfall
d-excess
trends over the last 25 years raise the question whether similar atmospheric circulation changes are also occurring today.
The warm last interglacial serves as a period to investigate climate change associated with a weakened AMOC. Here the authors report evidence of Eastern Mediterranean cooling and accompanied atmospheric circulation shifts affecting rainfall. |
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ISSN: | 2041-1723 2041-1723 |
DOI: | 10.1038/s41467-023-40880-z |