Triple oxygen isotope reveals insolation-forced tropical moisture cycles.

Tropical oceans are the main global water vapor and latent heat sources, but their responses to radiative forcing remain unclear. Here, we investigate oceanic moisture dynamics of the western tropical Pacific (WTP) over the past 210,000 years through an approach of planktonic foraminiferal triple oxygen isotope (Δ'O). The Δ'O record is dominated by the precession cycles (~23,000 years), with lower values reflecting higher humidity in concert with higher Northern Hemisphere summer insolation.

Holocene climate change in southern Oman deciphered by speleothem records and climate model simulations.

Qunf Cave oxygen isotope (δO) record from southern Oman is one of the most significant of few Holocene Indian summer monsoon cave records. However, the interpretation of the Qunf δO remains in dispute. Here we provide a multi-proxy record from Qunf Cave and climate model simulations to reconstruct the Holocene local and regional hydroclimate changes.

The spatiotemporal extent of the Green Sahara during the last glacial period.

The Sahara Desert, one of today's most inhospitable environments, has known periods of enhanced precipitation that supported pre-historic humans. However, the Green Sahara timing and moisture sources are not well known due to limited paleoclimate information. Here, we present a multi-proxy (δO, δC, ΔO, and trace elements) speleothem-based climate record from Northwest (NW) Africa.

Publisher Correction: Multi-decadal to centennial hydro-climate variability and linkage to solar forcing in the Western Mediterranean during the last 1000 years.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

A comparison of isotope ratio mass spectrometry and cavity ring-down spectroscopy techniques for isotope analysis of fluid inclusion water.

Rationale: Online oxygen (δ O) and hydrogen (δ H) isotope analysis of fluid inclusion water entrapped in minerals is widely applied in paleo-fluid studies. In the state of the art of fluid inclusion isotope research, however, there is a scarcity of reported inter-technique comparisons to account for possible analytical offsets. Along with improving analytical precisions and sample size limitations, interlaboratory comparisons can lead to a more robust application of fluid inclusion isotope records.

Multi-decadal to centennial hydro-climate variability and linkage to solar forcing in the Western Mediterranean during the last 1000 years.

Here we present a new composite record from two well-dated speleothem records from two caves in Northern Morocco. The high-resolution record covers the last millennium allowing to detect multi-decadal to centennial periodicities. Over the industrial period, δO values of our speleothems are shown to be dominated by the main mode of decadal variability in the North Atlantic region: the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

Climate variations of Central Asia on orbital to millennial timescales.

The extent to which climate variability in Central Asia is causally linked to large-scale changes in the Asian monsoon on varying timescales remains a longstanding question. Here we present precisely dated high-resolution speleothem oxygen-carbon isotope and trace element records of Central Asia's hydroclimate variability from Tonnel'naya cave, Uzbekistan, and Kesang cave, western China. On orbital timescales, the supra-regional climate variance, inferred from our oxygen isotope records, exhibits a precessional rhythm, punctuated by millennial-scale abrupt climate events, suggesting a close coupling with the Asian monsoon.