Weakened AMOC related to cooling and atmospheric circulation shifts in the last interglacial Eastern Mediterranean.

ABSTRACT: There is limited understanding of temperature and atmospheric circulation changes that accompany an Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slowdown beyond the North Atlantic realm. A Peqi'in Cave (Israel) speleothem dated to the last interglacial period (LIG), 129-116 thousand years ago (ka), together with a large modern rainfall monitoring dataset, serve as the base for investigating past AMOC slowdown effects on the Eastern Mediterranean. Here, we reconstruct LIG temperatures and rainfall source using organic proxies (TEX₈₆) and fluid inclusion water d-excess. The TEX₈₆ data show a stepwise cooling from 19.8 ± 0.2° (ca. 128-126 ka) to 16.5 ± 0.6 °C (ca. 124-123 ka), while d-excess values decrease abruptly (ca. 126 ka). The d-excess shift suggests that ra

SUBMITTER: Levy EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10449873 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature