Atmospheric teleconnections between the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds during abrupt climate change

Abstract:

Abrupt, large amplitude climate oscillations occurred in the North Atlantic region during the last deglaciation and glacial period. Antarctic temperatures show a lagged and out-of-phase response, suggesting that these climate anomalies were propagated to the Southern Hemisphere high latitudes through changes in ocean circulation. Large changes in atmospheric circulation in the tropics accompanied abrupt North Atlantic climate change and modeling studies have predicted an atmospheric teleconnection between the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds. However, consistent paleoclimate evidence for this tropical-high southern latitude atmospheric teleconnection has been lacking. Here we use a new high-resolution deuterium excess record from West Antarctica to show that moisture sources for Antarctic precipitation changed in phase with abrupt shifts in Northern Hemisphere climate, significantly before Antarctic temperature change. These results suggest that Southern Hemisphere mid-latitude storm tracks and westerly winds migrated north- and southwards within decades of rapid North Atlantic warming and cooling, respectively, and in parallel with the well-established migrations of the intertropical convergence zone. Both ocean and atmospheric processes, operating on different timescales, are critical to the global expression of abrupt climate change and this atmospheric link between the hemispheres may be important to the underlying dynamics.