Abstract
Hydroclimate extremes in North America, Europe, and the Mediterranean are linked to ocean and atmospheric circulation anomalies in the Atlantic, but the limited length of the instrumental record prevents complete identification and characterization of these patterns of covariability especially at decadal to centennial timescales. Here we analyze the coupled patterns of drought variability on either side of the North Atlantic Ocean basin using independent climate field reconstructions spanning the last millennium in order to detect and attribute epochs of coherent basin-wide moisture anomalies to ocean and atmosphere processes. A leading mode of broad-scale moisture variability is characterized by distinct patterns of North Atlantic atmosphere circulation and sea surface temperatures. We infer a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation and colder Atlantic sea surface temperatures in the middle of the 15th century, coincident with weaker solar irradiance and prior to strong volcanic forcing associated with the early Little Ice Age.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Volume | Early View |
| Early online date | 7 Nov 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 7 Nov 2019 |
Access to Document
- Anchukaitis_2019_GPL_Coupledmodes_FinalPubVersion
Copyright © 2019 American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084350