North Atlantic meltwater during Heinrich Stadial 1 drives wetter climate with more atmospheric rivers in western North America.

ABSTRACT: Atmospheric rivers (ARs) bring concentrated rainfall and flooding to the western United States (US) and are hypothesized to have supported sustained hydroclimatic changes in the past. However, their ephemeral nature makes it challenging to document ARs in climate models and estimate their contribution to hydroclimate changes recorded by time-averaged paleoclimate archives. We present new climate model simulations of Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1; 16,000 years before the present), an interval characterized by widespread wetness in the western US, that demonstrate increased AR frequency and winter precipitation sourced from the southeastern North Pacific. These changes are amplified with freshwater fluxes into the North Atlantic, indicating that North Atlantic cooling associated with weakened Atla

SUBMITTER: Oster JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10656076 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature