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Orbitally driven east–west antiphasing of South American precipitation

Nature Geoscience volume 2, pages 210–214 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

The variations of tropical precipitation are antiphased between the hemispheres on orbital timescales. This antiphasing arises through the alternating strength of incoming solar radiation in the two hemispheres, which affects monsoon intensity and hence the position of the meridional atmospheric circulation of the Hadley cells1,2,3,4. Here we compare an oxygen isotopic record recovered from a speleothem from northeast Brazil for the past 26,000 years with existing reconstructions of precipitation in tropical South America5,6,7,8. During the Holocene, we identify a similar, but zonally oriented, antiphasing of precipitation within the same hemisphere: northeast Brazil experiences humid conditions during low summer insolation and aridity when summer insolation is high, whereas the rest of southern tropical South America shows opposite characteristics. Simulations with a general circulation model that incorporates isotopic variations support this pattern as well as the link to insolation-driven monsoon activity. Our results suggest that convective heating over tropical South America and associated adjustments in large-scale subsidence over northeast Brazil lead to a remote forcing of the South American monsoon, which determines most of the precipitation changes in the region on orbital timescales.

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Figure 1: Long-term mean (1979–2000) Climate Prediction Center Merged Analysis of Precipitation seasonal precipitation totals (in mm) for December–February (left) and March–May (right).
Figure 2: Comparison between South American paleoclimate records.
Figure 3: Difference in austral summer and autumn (DJFMAM) climate between 6 kyr BP and the present as simulated with ECHAM-4.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. H. Hollanda, L. Mancine and A. Barros for all the support during the stable isotope data acquisition at the University of São Paulo. We are grateful to IBAMA/C. Mendes for permission to collect stalagmite samples, and in particular to J. Cruz for helping us in the field. This work was supported by the Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil (grant to F.W.C and I.K.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Lago, 562, CEP 05508-080, São Paulo-SP, Brazil

    Francisco W. Cruz & Ivo Karmann

  2. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University at Albany, SUNY, 1400 Washington Ave, Albany, New York 12222, USA

    Mathias Vuille & Hanh Nguyen

  3. Department of Geosciences, Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA

    Stephen J. Burns

  4. Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA

    Xianfeng Wang, Hai Cheng & R. Lawrence Edwards

  5. Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Bussestr. 24, D-27570 Bremerhaven, Germany

    Martin Werner

  6. Instituto do Carste, Rua Kepler 385/04, Belo Horizonte, MG 30360-240, Brazil

    Augusto S. Auler

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  1. Francisco W. Cruz
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Correspondence to Francisco W. Cruz.

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Cruz, F., Vuille, M., Burns, S. et al. Orbitally driven east–west antiphasing of South American precipitation. Nature Geosci 2, 210–214 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo444

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