Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Mid-latitude interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw over the past 550,000 years

Nature volume 508, pages 378–382 (2014)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

An interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw—in which latitudinal migrations of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) produce simultaneous wetting (increased precipitation) in one hemisphere and drying in the other—has been discovered in some tropical and subtropical regions1,2,3. For instance, Chinese and Brazilian subtropical speleothem (cave formations such as stalactites and stalagmites) records show opposite trends in time series of oxygen isotopes (a proxy for precipitation variability) at millennial to orbital timescales2,3, suggesting that hydrologic cycles were antiphased in the northerly versus southerly subtropics. This tropical to subtropical hydrologic phenomenon is likely to be an initial and important climatic response to orbital forcing3. The impacts of such an interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw on higher-latitude regions and the global climate system, however, are unknown. Here we show that the antiphasing seen in the tropical records is also present in both hemispheres of the mid-latitude western Pacific Ocean. Our results are based on a new 550,000-year record of the growth frequency of speleothems from the Korean peninsula, which we compare to Southern Hemisphere equivalents4. The Korean data are discontinuous and derived from 24 separate speleothems, but still allow the identification of periods of peak speleothem growth and, thus, precipitation. The clear hemispheric antiphasing indicates that the sphere of influence of the interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw over the past 550,000 years extended at least to the mid-latitudes, such as northeast Asia, and that orbital-timescale ITCZ shifts can have serious effects on temperate climate systems. Furthermore, our result implies that insolation-driven ITCZ dynamics may provoke water vapour and vegetation feedbacks in northern mid-latitude regions and could have regulated global climate conditions throughout the late Quaternary ice age cycles.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Location of the study area and current atmospheric and oceanographic conditions.
Figure 2: Comparison of the growth frequency record from Korean speleothems with major palaeoclimatic records over the last 600 kyr.
Figure 3: Comparison of the Korean speleothem record with the Southern Hemisphere counterpart record from southeastern Australia.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Severinghaus, J. P. Monsoons and meltdowns. Science 326, 240–241 (2009)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Wang, X. et al. Wet periods in northeastern Brazil over the past 210 kyr linked to distant climate anomalies. Nature 432, 740–743 (2004)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Cruz, F. W., Jr et al. Insolation-driven changes in atmospheric circulation over the past 116,000 years in subtropical Brazil. Nature 434, 63–66 (2005)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Ayliffe, L. K. et al. 500 ka precipitation record from southeastern Australia: evidence for interglacial relative aridity. Geology 26, 147–150 (1998)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Nakagawa, T. et al. Regulation of the monsoon climate by two different orbital rhythms and forcing mechanisms. Geology 36, 491–494 (2008)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Kim, J.-M. & Kucera, M. Benthic foraminifer record of environmental changes in the Yellow Sea (Hwanghae) during the last 15,000 years. Quat. Sci. Rev. 19, 1067–1085 (2000)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Lim, H. S. et al. Vertebrate burrows in late Pleistocene paleosols at Korean Palaeolithic sites and their significance as a stratigraphic marker. Quat. Res. 68, 213–219 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Yi, S. & Kim, S.-J. Vegetation changes in western central region of Korean Peninsula during the last glacial (ca. 21.1–26.1 cal kyr BP). Geosci. J. 14, 1–10 (2010)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Korea Meteorological Administration. http://web.kma.go.kr/eng/biz/climate_01.jsp (2011)

  10. Chough, S. K. et al. Tectonic and sedimentary evolution of the Korean peninsula: a review and new view. Earth Sci. Rev. 52, 175–235 (2000)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Jo, K., Woo, K. S., Hong, G. H., Kim, S. H. & Suk, B. C. Rainfall and hydrological controls on speleothem geochemistry during climatic events (droughts and typhoons): an example from Seodong Cave, Republic of Korea. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 295, 441–450 (2010)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Lisiecki, L. E. & Raymo, M. E. A. Pliocene-Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed benthic δ18O records. Paleoceanography 20, PA1033 (2005)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Berger, A. & Loutre, M. F. Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years. Quat. Sci. Rev. 10, 297–317 (1991)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Wang, Y. et al. Millennial- and orbital-scale changes in the East Asian monsoon over the past 224,000 years. Nature 451, 1090–1093 (2008)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Cheng, H. et al. The climatic cyclicity in semiarid-arid central Asia over the past 500,000 years. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, L01705 (2012)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Jouzel, J. et al. Orbital and millennial Antarctic climate variability over the past 800,000 years. Science 317, 793–796 (2007)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Winograd, I. J. et al. Continuous 500,000-year climate record from vein calcite in Devils Hole, Nevada. Science 258, 255–260 (1992)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Tan, M. et al. Cyclic rapid warming on centennial-scale revealed by a 2650-year stalagmite record of warm season temperature. Geophys. Res. Lett. 30, 1617 (2003)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Baker, A., Smart, P. L. & Ford, D. C. Northwest European palaeoclimate as indicated by growth frequency variations of secondary calcite deposits. Palaeogeogr. , Palaeoecol.. Palaeoclimatol. 100, 291–301 (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Spötl, C., Mangini, A., Frank, N., Eichstädter, R. & Burns, S. J. Start of the last interglacial period at 135 ka: evidence from a high Alpine speleothem. Geology 30, 815–818 (2002)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  21. Vaks, A. et al. Speleothems reveal 500,000-year history of Siberian permafrost. Science 340, 183–186 (2013)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Asmerom, Y., Polyak, V. J. & Burns, S. J. Variable winter moisture in the southwestern United States linked to rapid glacial climate shifts. Nature Geosci. 3, 114–117 (2010)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Whittaker, T. E., Hendy, C. H. & Hellstrom, J. C. Abrupt millennial-scale changes in intensity of Southern Hemisphere westerly winds during marine isotope stages 2–4. Geology 39, 455–458 (2011)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Ziegler, M., Tuenter, E. & Lourens, L. J. The precession phase of the boreal summer monsoon as viewed from the eastern Mediterranean (ODP Site 968). Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 1481–1490 (2010)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  25. Weber, M. E. et al. Interhemispheric ice-sheet synchronicity during the Last Glacial Maximum. Science 334, 1265–1269 (2011)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Stager, J. C., Ryves, D. B., Chase, B. M. & Pausata, F. S. R. Catastrophic drought in the Afro-Asian monsoon region during Heinrich Event 1. Science 331, 1299–1302 (2011)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Soden, B. J., Wetherald, R. T., Stenchikov, G. L. & Robock, A. Global cooling after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo: a test of climate feedback by water vapor. Science 296, 727–730 (2002)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Kutzbach, J., Bonan, G., Foley, J. & Harrison, S. P. Vegetation and soil feedbacks on the response of the African monsoon to orbital forcing in the early to middle Holocene. Nature 384, 623–626 (1996)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Cheddadi, R. & Bar-Hen, A. Spatial gradient of temperature and potential vegetation feedback across Europe during the late Quaternary. Clim. Dyn. 32, 371–379 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  30. McCarthy, M. P. et al. The influence of vegetation on the ITCZ and South Asian monsoon in HadCM3. Earth Syst. Dyn. 3, 87–96 (2012)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  31. Jo, K. et al. Textural and carbon isotopic evidence of monsoonal changes recorded in a composite-type speleothem from Korea since MIS 5a. Quat. Res. 74, 100–112 (2010)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  32. Jo, K. et al. Holocene and Eemian climatic optima in the Korean Peninsula based on textural and carbon isotopic records from the stalagmite of the Daeya Cave, South Korea. Quat. Sci. Rev. 30, 1218–1231 (2011)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  33. Edwards, R. L., Chen, J. H. & Wasserburg, G. J. 238U–234U–230Th–232Th systematics and the precise measurement of time over the past 500,000 years. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 81, 175–192 (1987)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Cheng, H. et al. Ice age terminations. Science 326, 248–252 (2009)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Cheng, H. et al. The half-lives of uranium-234 and thorium-230. Chem. Geol. 169, 17–33 (2000)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  36. Cheng, H. et al. A new generation of 230Th dating techniques: tests of precision and accuracy. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 72, A157 (2008)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  37. Ludwig, K. R. Isoplot 3.00: a Geochronological Toolkit for Microsoft Excel 70 (Univ. of California, Special Publication 4, 2003)

    Google Scholar 

  38. He, X., Wang, J.-L., Li, H., Cheng, H. & Yuan, D. Growth pattern and depositional feature of stalagmites in the karst of Chongqing, SW China: climatic implications. Karst Waters I Spec. Pub. 10, 31–32 (2006)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  39. Hendy, C. The isotopic geochemistry of speleothems—I. The calculation of the effects of different modes of formation on the isotopic composition of speleothems and their applicability as paleoclimatic indicators. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 35, 801–824 (1971)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  40. Dorale, J. A. & Liu, Z. Limitations of Hendy Test criteria in judging the paleoclimatic suitability of speleothems and the need for replication. J. Caves Karst Stud. 71, 73–80 (2009)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Wang, Y. J. et al. A high-resolution absolute-dated late Pleistocene monsoon record from Hulu Cave, China. Science 294, 2345–2348 (2001)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  42. Yuan, D. et al. Timing, duration, and transitions of the last interglacial Asian mosoon. Science 304, 575–578 (2004)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  43. Chae, N. Annual variation of soil respiration and precipitation in a temperate forest (Quercus serrata and Carpinus laxiflora) under East Asian monsoon climate. J. Plant Biol. 54, 101–111 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Vaks, A. et al. Paleoclimate and location of the border between Mediterranean climate region and the Saharo-Arabian Desert as revealed by speleothems from the northern Negev Desert, Israel. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 249, 384–399 (2006)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Dobinski, W. et al. Permafrost. Earth Sci. Rev. 108, 158–169 (2011)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  46. Ersek, V. et al. Environmental influences on speleothem growth in southwestern Oregon during the last 380,000 years. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 279, 316–325 (2009)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Kim, S.-J. et al. High-resolution climate simulation of the last glacial maximum. Clim. Dyn. 31, 1–16 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Levavasseur, G. et al. Present and LGM permafrost from climate simulations: contribution of statistical downscaling. Clim. Past Discuss. 7, 1647–1692 (2011)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  49. Hennig, G. J., Grun, R. & Brunnacker, K. Speleothems, travertines, and paleoclimates. Quat. Res. 20, 1–29 (1983)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  50. Gordon, D. et al. Dating the late Pleistocene interglacial and interstadial periods in the United Kingdom from speleothem growth frequency. Quat. Res. 31, 14–26 (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  51. North Greenland Ice Core Project members. High-resolution record of Northern Hemisphere climate extending into the last interglacial period. Nature 431, 147–151 (2004)

  52. Bar-Matthews, M. Ayalon, A. & Kaufman, A. Timing and hydrological conditions of sapropel events in the Eastern Mediterranean, as evident from speleothems, Soreq Cave, Israel. Chem. Geol. 169, 145–156 (2000)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  53. Martinson, D. G. et al. Age dating and the orbital theory of the ice ages: development of a high-resolution 0 to 300,000 year chronostratigraphy. Quat. Res. 27, 1–29 (1987)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  54. Linge, H., Lauritzen, S.-E. & Lundberg, J. Stable isotope stratigraphy of a late last interglacial speleothem from Rana, northern Norway. Quat. Res. 56, 155–164 (2001)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Burns, S. J., Fleitmann, D., Matter, A., Neff, U. & Mangini, A. Speleothem evidence from Oman for continental pluvial events during interglacial periods. Geology 29, 623–626 (2001)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  56. Fleitmann, D. et al. Holocene and Pleistocene pluvial periods in Yemen, southern Arabia. Quat. Sci. Rev. 30, 783–787 (2011)

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  57. Partin, J. W., Cobb, K. M., Adkins, J. F., Clark, B. & Fernandez, D. P. Millennial-scale trends in west Pacific warm pool hydrology since the Last Glacial Maximum. Nature 449, 452–455 (2007)

    ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  58. Griffiths, M. L. et al. Increasing Australian-Indonesian monsoon rainfall linked to early Holocene sea-level rise. Nature Geosci. 2, 636–639 (2009)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  59. Cai, Y. et al. Large variations of oxygen isotopes in precipitation over south-central Tibet during Marine Isotope Stage 5. Geology 38, 243–246 (2010)

    ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank the Kangwon National University Cave Investigation Club (KNUCIC) for collecting some of the speleothem samples, S. S. Lee for the supplementary statistical test and K. R. Ludwig for providing the analytical software package. This research was a part of the project titled K-IODP (KIGAM; Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea. This project was also partially supported by Basic Research Project (GP2009-005) of KIGAM, grants NSFC 41230524 and NBRP 2013CB955902 (to H.C.) and US NSF grants 1103403 and 1337693 (to R.L.E. and H.C.).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, Daejeon 305-350, South Korea,

    Kyoung-nam Jo, Sangheon Yi & Dong Yoon Yang

  2. Department of Geology, Kangwon National University, Gangwondo 200-701, South Korea,

    Kyung Sik Woo

  3. Department of Geological Sciences, Pusan National University, Busan 609-735, South Korea,

    Hyoun Soo Lim

  4. College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210097, China

    Yongjin Wang

  5. Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Hai Cheng

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

    Hai Cheng & R. Lawrence Edwards

Authors
  1. Kyoung-nam Jo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kyung Sik Woo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Sangheon Yi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Dong Yoon Yang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Hyoun Soo Lim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Yongjin Wang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Hai Cheng
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. R. Lawrence Edwards
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

K.-n.J. collected most of the information and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. K.S.W. discussed the palaeoclimatic implications of the data and improved the manuscript. S.Y. commented on the palaeoclimatic interpretations. D.Y.Y. and H.S.L. provided research grants to K.S.W. and K.-n.J. for obtaining data on caves and speleothems. Y.W. provided the stable isotope data, and H.C. and R.L.E. supplied some of the 230Th/234U dating results. All authors approved the submitted form of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kyung Sik Woo.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Temperature, humidity, and partial pressure of CO2 in the Daeya and Eden caves.

a, b, The atmospheric conditions in Daeya cave (a) and Eden cave (b).

Source data

Extended Data Figure 2 Plot of 230Th dating results for all speleothem samples from the Korean peninsula.

Error bars show the 2σ analytical uncertainty, including the error from the detrital 230Th. Grey horizontal bars divide each sample.

Source data

Extended Data Figure 3 Plot of relative probability constructed by summing the individual ages of all the dated samples.

Panel a shows all dates, and panel b presents the relative probability density, except for samples that grew only within the Holocene (Supplementary Table 1).

Source data

Extended Data Figure 4 The age data along the growth axes of three speleothem samples.

The yellow vertical bars represent the minimum periods of major growth intervals. a, ED1 from Eden cave. b, JM3 from Joongmal cave. c, JM2 from Joongmal cave. Error bars represent 2σ analytical uncertainty with error from the detrital 230Th.

Source data

Extended Data Figure 5 Frequency distributions of speleothem growth in the Northern Hemisphere.

a, North America and Europe49; b, United Kingdom50; c, South Korea. Also shown is the oxygen isotope record (d) from Devils Hole in Nevada, western USA17 (red line with dots).

Source data

Extended Data Figure 6 Comparison of the growth frequency record from Korean speleothems with other high-resolution palaeoclimatic records from high-latitude polar to low-latitude tropical regions since the penultimate glacial termination.

a, δ18O record of Sanbao cave in central China15. b, Summer insolation at 65° N13. c, δ18O record from the North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP)51; VSMOW is Vienna standard mean ocean water. d, Growth frequency record of Korean speleothems. S numbers indicate Mediterrean sapropel events. Periods of high growth frequency are shown in light brown. e, δ18O record for Soreq cave in the eastern Mediterranean region52. f, Radiolarian temperature record from marine sediment core RC11-120 in the Southern Ocean53. The present values of each proxy record are also shown by horizontal dashed lines on each proxy curve. Palaeoclimatic signals from mid-latitude regions display both low- and high-latitude characteristics.

Source data

Extended Data Figure 7 Scenario of palaeoclimate changes linked with the interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw.

Background image is from NASA Eclipse Web Site (http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/transit/TV2004.html). a, Peak interglacial periods are characterized by large geographic variations in the seasonal ITCZ and strong atmospheric meridional overturning circulations. b, Stadial periods show intermediate climatic conditions between those of peak interglacial and full glacial periods. c, Interstadial periods show intermediate climatic conditions between those of peak interglacial and full glacial periods. d, Full glacial periods are characterized by small geographic variations in the seasonal ITCZ and weak atmospheric meridional overturning circulations. Conceptual geographic ranges of estimated permafrost and ice sheets during stadial periods are shown by grey- and white-coloured areas, respectively48. Also shown are the cave locations of active speleothem growth during each time period (red dots)4,15,21,42,49,52,54,55,56,57,58,59. See Methods for a detailed description of the scenario.

Extended Data Table 1 Information about the caves
Full size table

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

230Th dating results for speleothem samples from the Korean Peninsula. (XLSX 37 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Source data

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jo, Kn., Woo, K., Yi, S. et al. Mid-latitude interhemispheric hydrologic seesaw over the past 550,000 years. Nature 508, 378–382 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13076

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13076

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing