Elevated dust depositions in West Asia linked to ocean-atmosphere shifts during North Atlantic cold events
- 4 August 2020
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 117 (31), 18272-18277
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004071117
Abstract
Rapid North Atlantic cooling events during the last deglaciation caused atmospheric reorganizations on global and regional scales. Their impact on Asian climate has been investigated for monsoonal domains, but remains largely unknown in westerly wind-dominated semiarid regions. Here we generate a dust record from southeastern Iran spanning the period 19 to 7 cal. ka B.P. We find a direct link between frequent occurrences of dust plumes originating from the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa and rapid southward shifts of the westerlies associated with changes of the winter stationary waves during Heinrich Stadial 1, the Younger Dryas, the Preboreal Oscillation, and the 8.2-ka event. Dust input rises and falls abruptly at the transitions into and out of these cooling events, which we attribute to changes in the ocean circulation strength that are modulated by the North Atlantic winter sea-ice cover. Our findings reveal that waxing and waning of North American ice sheets have a stronger influence than those of European ice sheets on the winter climate over West Asia.Funding Information
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (03G0864F)
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