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Hydroclimate changes across the Amazon lowlands over the past 45,000 years

Naturevolume 541, pages204–207 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Reconstructing the history of tropical hydroclimates has been difficult, particularly for the Amazon basin—one of Earth’s major centres of deep atmospheric convection1,2. For example, whether the Amazon basin was substantially drier3,4 or remained wet1,5 during glacial times has been controversial, largely because most study sites have been located on the periphery of the basin, and because interpretations can be complicated by sediment preservation, uncertainties in chronology, and topographical setting6. Here we show that rainfall in the basin responds closely to changes in glacial boundary conditions in terms of temperature and atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide7. Our results are based on a decadally resolved, uranium/thorium-dated, oxygen isotopic record for much of the past 45,000 years, obtained using speleothems from Paraíso Cave in eastern Amazonia; we interpret the record as being broadly related to precipitation. Relative to modern levels, precipitation in the region was about 58% during the Last Glacial Maximum (around 21,000 years ago) and 142% during the mid-Holocene epoch (about 6,000 years ago). We find that, as compared with cave records from the western edge of the lowlands, the Amazon was widely drier during the last glacial period, with much less recycling of water and probably reduced plant transpiration, although the rainforest persisted throughout this time.

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Figure 1: Paraíso speleothem record, and comparisons with local summer insolation, tropical Atlantic SST and atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Figure 2: Comparisons of eastern Amazon and eastern China stalagmite records.
Figure 3: Comparisons of speleotherm records from the eastern and western Amazon.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) Fellowship (NRFF2011-08) and a Gary Comer Fellowship to X.W.; US National Science Foundation (NSF) grants 1103404 and 1317693 to R.L.E. and H.C.; a Brazil National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) grant (540064/01-7) to A.S.A.; grants from the China National Basic Research Program (NBRP; 2013CB955902) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC; 41230524) to H.C.; and a grant from the São Paulo Research Foundation of Brazil and US NSF Dimensions of Biodiversity joint program (FAPESP/NSF; 2012/50260-6) to F.W.C. Field travelling funds were partially supported by a National Geographical Society grant, 7574-03. We acknowledge the help of colleagues from the Grupo Bambuí de Pesquisas Espeleológicas with cave mapping and sampling. We thank R. Fonseca, S. Yuan, Y. Lu and Y. Djamil for assistance with the figures concerning wind fields and regional rainfall, and B. Wohlfarth and S. Hemming for discussions during manuscript preparation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore

    Xianfeng Wang & Hong-Wei Chiang

  2. Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, 639798, Singapore

    Xianfeng Wang

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 55455, Minnesota, USA

    R. Lawrence Edwards & Hai Cheng

  4. Instituto do Carste, Belo Horizonte, Minas, 30150-160, Gerais, Brazil

    Augusto S. Auler

  5. Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Hai Cheng

  6. School of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Xinggong Kong & Yongjin Wang

  7. Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, 05508-080, Brazil

    Francisco W. Cruz

  8. Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, Iowa, USA

    Jeffrey A. Dorale

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  1. Xianfeng Wang

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Contributions

X.W., R.L.E. and A.S.A. designed the project. X.W., A.S.A. and J.A.D. performed the fieldwork and sampling. X.W. and H.-W. C. carried out the uranium/thorium dating. X.W., X.K. and Y.W. contributed to the oxygen-isotope measurements. X.W. wrote the manuscript, which was edited by R.L.E. and other authors. All authors discussed the results and implications and commented on the manuscript at all stages.

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Correspondence toXianfeng Wang.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Additional information

Reviewer InformationNature thanks M. Bush, J. Shakun and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 Cave locations and moisture pathways.

a, The locations of Paraíso Cave in the eastern Amazon (red rectangle), and of Diamante cave17 (blue rectangle) and Tigre Perdido cave9 (purple rectangle) in the western Amazon. Paraíso Cave is located between Belém and Manaus, next to the Tapajós River. Also shown are easterlies, which carry moisture to the lowlands from the tropical Atlantic. The Amazon basin and the Andes are shown in green and brown, respectively.b, 72-hour back-trajectories of moisture arriving at Paraíso and the western Amazonian cave sites (white stars), during the wet season (in red) and the dry season (in blue), averaged over 1981 to 2010. The background topographical map was created with grid files from the global multi-resolution topography (GMRT) synthesis (http://www.marine-geo.org/tools/GMRTMapTool). Moisture trajectories were derived using the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hysplit model (http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php). The moisture at the Paraíso Cave site is predominantly from the tropical Atlantic, whereas precipitation received in the western Amazon has largely endured recycling in the lowlands.

Extended Data Figure 2 Climatology of tropical South America.

a, Depiction of horizontal winds over South America at 850 hPa (vectors, in metres per second), based on data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) (1981–2010;http://cfs.ncep.noaa.gov/cfsr/atlas/). Also shown is precipitation (blue shading, in millimetres per day) from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) 3B43 dataset (1998–2010;http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/3b43.html). Winds and precipitation are averaged over December to March.b, As ina, but for June to September.c, Monthly averaged temperature, precipitation and rainfall δ18O over Belém (blue dots) and Manaus (green triangles). The local climate at Paraíso Cave shares the same characteristics as those of Belém and Manaus. Data are from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Global Networks of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) database (http://www-naweb.iaea.org/napc/ih/IHS_resources_gnip.html).

Extended Data Figure 3 A Paraíso calcite stalagmite, and age models.

a, Image of a Paraíso sample. The Paraíso calcite stalagmites typically have a high uranium concentration (up to 40 p.p.m.) but a low thorium concentration (<1 parts per billion, p.p.b.), almost ideal for uranium/thorium-based age determination.b, Age models for samples PAR01, PAR03, PAR06, PAR07, PAR08, PAR16 and PAR24. The chronology of the samples is established by linear interpolation between successive uranium/thorium dates. Dates are shown in black dots. Age uncertainties (2σ) are also included (most of the error bars are smaller than the symbols).

Extended Data Figure 4 Scatterplots of oxygen and carbon isotope ratios for the Paraíso stalagmites.

a, Relationship between the δ18O and δ13C data for Holocene Paraíso stalagmites.b, As ina, but for glacial Paraíso samples.

Extended Data Figure 5 Estimation of monthly water balance in the region.

a, Monthly averaged precipitation (solid dots and triangles) and actual evapotranspiration (AET, open dots and triangles) over Belém and Manaus. We used the water-balance model44 as implemented in the US Geological Survey (USGS) Thornthwaite model45 to calculate monthly AET.b, As ina, but for LGM conditions. We assume that the cave temperature was ~21 °C during the LGM. Rainfall in the region was ~60% of today’s in each month, as calculated inExtended Data Table 1. The LGM and present-day patterns are essentially the same.

Extended Data Figure 6 Comparisons of the Paraíso record with local insolation curves.

The cave δ18O record spans about 46,000 years, long enough to cover two precessional cycles. However, no obvious correlation can be observed between the cave record with local insolation in the months of January (blue), April (cyan), July (dark blue) and October (dark cyan). Insolation data are from ref.50.

Extended Data Figure 7 Comparisons of the Paraíso δ18O record with atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Changes in atmospheric CO2 (blue) and CH4 (dark blue) concentrations are recorded in Antarctic ice cores51,52.

Extended Data Figure 8 Comparisons of the Paraíso cave record and ice-core records.

a, The Paraíso δ18O record is compared with ice-core records from Greenland53 (dark blue; North Greenland Ice Core Project (NGRIP)) and from Antarctica54 (blue; EPICA Dronning Maud Land (EDML) Ice Core) during the time interval from 25 kyrbp to 45 kyrbp. The NGRIP ice-core data are plotted in the Antarctic ice-core chronology 2012 (AICC12) timescale55, which is identical to the annual-layer-counted Greenland ice-core chronology 2005 (GICC05) timescale56 for the studied time interval. The EDML ice-core data are plotted in the AICC12 age scale55. D/O events are marked on the NGRIP record. The strong correlations between the Paraíso record and the ice-core records confirm the existence of rapid air–sea interactions between the high latitudes and the tropics on millennial timescales57,58, probably through the so-called bipolar seesaw mechanism59.b, As ina, but the Paraíso record is compared with ice-core records from Greenland53 (dark blue; NGRIP) and from Antarctica25 (blue; West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide Ice Core (WDC)). The NGRIP and WDC data are plotted in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WD) 2014 timescale25. The slightly enhanced correlations between the Paraíso record and the ice-core records, albeit visually, support the chronological method adopted in ref.60. VSMOW, Vienna standard mean ocean water.

Extended Data Figure 9 Paraíso δ13C record.

Contrary to the stalagmite δ18O record, the Paraíso δ13C record does not show an obvious shift from the last glacial period to the Holocene. In fact, the δ13C value reaches as low as about −10‰ during the LGM, similar to the observed minimum value in the Holocene. This suggests that the type of vegetation in the region has not undergone dramatic changes, remaining dominated by C3 plants37,61. The rainforest in the eastern Amazon might have become an open forest when the precipitation decreased substantially during the LGM. However, it was not replaced by savanna or grassland—that is, it has not become dominated by C4 plants. The δ13C spikes were probably caused by individual air–water–rock interactions during calcite precipitation.

Extended Data Table 1 Calculations of water vapour loss over the eastern Amazon

Supplementary information

Supplementary Table 1

This table contains the Paraíso speleothem U-Th dating results, and δ18O and δ13C data. (XLS 458 kb)

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Wang, X., Edwards, R., Auler, A.et al. Hydroclimate changes across the Amazon lowlands over the past 45,000 years.Nature541, 204–207 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20787

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Editorial Summary

Amazon Basin resilience to hydroclimate variation

The Amazon forest both responds to and drives much of the variability in climate and biogeochemistry from annual to millennial time scales. But highly resolved records of past climate variability in the region are hard to come by, and until now it has not been clear whether the Amazon forest was wetter or drier during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Xianfeng Wanget al. have now collected oxygen isotope data covering the past 45,000 years from stalagmite calcite deposits in the Paraíso Cave in eastern Amazonia. Their data show that rainfall was about half that of today during the LGM (around 21,000 years ago) but was some 50% greater during the mid-Holocene (6,000 years ago), broadly coinciding with global changes in temperature and carbon dioxide. Although the Amazon was drier during the glacial period, the rainforest persisted throughout. Whether or not it can be sustained in the future, however, remains an open question.

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