Abstract. Close coupling of Iberian hydroclimate and North Atlantic sea
surface temperature (SST) during recent glacial periods has been identified
through the analysis of marine sediment and pollen grains co-deposited on the
Portuguese continental margin. While offering precisely correlatable records,
these time series have lacked a directly dated, site-specific record of
continental Iberian climate spanning multiple glacial cycles as a point of
comparison. Here we present a high-resolution, multi-proxy (growth dynamics
and
δ13C, δ18O, and δ234U
values) composite stalagmite record of hydroclimate from two caves in western
Portugal across the majority of the last two glacial cycles (∼220 ka).
At orbital and millennial scales, stalagmite-based proxies for hydroclimate
proxies covaried with SST, with elevated δ13C,
δ18O, and δ234U values and/or growth hiatuses
indicating reduced effective moisture coincident with periods of lowered SST
during major ice-rafted debris events, in agreement with changes in
palynological reconstructions of continental climate. While in many cases the
Portuguese stalagmite record can be scaled to SST, in some intervals the
magnitudes of stalagmite isotopic shifts, and possibly hydroclimate, appear
to have been somewhat decoupled from SST.
Iberia is predicted under future warming scenarios to be increasingly impacted by drought. While it is known that this region has experienced multiple intervals of enhanced aridity over the Holocene, additional hydroclimate-sensitive records from Iberia are necessary to place current and future drying into a broader perspective. Toward that end, we present a multi-proxy composite record from six well-dated and overlapping speleothems from Buraca Gloriosa (BG) cave, located in western Portugal. The coherence between the six stalagmites in this composite stalagmite record illustrates that climate (not in-cave processes) impacts speleothem isotopic values. This record provides the first high-resolution, precisely dated, terrestrial record of Holocene hydroclimate from west-central Iberia. The BG record reveals that aridity in western Portugal increased secularly from 9.0 ka BP to present, as evidenced by rising values of both carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) stable isotope values. This trend tracks the decrease in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation and parallels Iberian margin sea surface temperatures (SST). The increased aridity over the Holocene is consistent with changes in Hadley Circulation and a southward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Centennial-scale shifts in hydroclimate are coincident with changes in total solar irradiance (TSI) after 4 ka BP. Several major drying events are evident, the most prominent of which was centered around 4.2 ka BP, a feature also noted in other Iberian climate records and coinciding with well-documented regional cultural shifts. Substantially, wetter conditions occurred from 0.8 ka BP to 0.15 ka BP, including much of the ‘Little Ice Age’. This was followed by increasing aridity toward present day. This composite stalagmite proxy record complements oceanic records from coastal Iberia, lacustrine records from inland Iberia, and speleothem records from both northern and southern Spain and depicts the spatial and temporal variability in hydroclimate in Iberia.
34Close coupling of Iberian hydroclimate and North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST) 35 during recent glacial periods has been identified through the analysis of marine sediment and 36 pollen grains co-deposited on the Portuguese continental margin. These reconstructions have 37
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