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Central Asia is a large-scale source of dust transport, but it also held a prominent changing hydrological system during the Quaternary. A 223 m long sediment core (GN200) was recovered from the Ejina Basin (synonymously Gaxun Nur Basin) in NW China to reconstruct the main modes of water availability in the area during the Quaternary. The core was drilled from the Heihe alluvial fan, one of the world’s largest alluvial fans, which covers a part of the Gobi Desert. Grain-size distributions supported by endmember modelling analyses, geochemical-mineralogical compositions (based on XRF and XRD measurements), and bioindicator data (ostracods, gastropods, pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs, and n-alkanes with leaf-wax ∂D) are used to infer the main transport processes and related environmental changes during the Pleistocene. Magnetostratigraphy supported by radionuclide dating provides the age model. Grainsize endmembers indicate that lake, playa (sheetflood), fluvial, and aeolian dynamics are the major factors influencing sedimentation in the Ejina Basin. Core GN200 reached the pre-Quaternary quartz- and plagioclase-rich “Red Clay” formation and reworked material derived from it in the core bottom. This part is overlain by silt-dominated sediments between 217 and 110m core depth, which represent a period of lacustrine and playa-lacustrine sedimentation that presumably formed within an endorheic basin. The upper core half between 110 and 0m is composed of mainly silty to sandy sediments derived from the Heihe that have accumulated in a giant sediment fan until modern time. Apart from the transition from a siltier to a sandier environment with frequent switches between sediment types upcore, the clay mineral fraction is indicative of different environments. Mixed-layer clay minerals (chlorite/smectite) are increased in the basal Red Clay and reworked sediments, smectite is indicative of lacustrine-playa deposits, and increased chlorite content is characteristic of the Hei

International Ocean Discovery Program Expedition 361 drilled six sites on the southeast African margin (southwest Indian Ocean) and in the Indian-Atlantic Ocean gateway, from 30 January to 31 March 2016. In total, 5175 m of core was recovered, with an average recovery of 102%, during 29.7 days of on-site operations. The sites, situated in the Mozambique Channel at locations directly influenced by discharge from the Zambezi and Limpopo River catchments, the Natal Valley, the Agulhas Plateau, and Cape Basin, were targeted to reconstruct the history of the greater Agulhas Current system over the past ~5 My. The Agulhas Current is the strongest western boundary current in the Southern Hemisphere, transporting some 70 Sv of warm, saline surface water from the tropical Indian Ocean along the East African margin to the tip of Africa. Exchanges of heat and moisture with the atmosphere influence southern African climates, including individual weather systems such as extratropical cyclone formation in the region and rainfall patterns. Recent ocean model and paleoceanographic data further point at a potential role of the Agulhas Current in controlling the strength and mode of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) during the Late Pleistocene. Spillage of saline Agulhas water into the South Atlantic stimulates buoyancy anomalies that may influence basin-wide AMOC, with implications for convective activity in the North Atlantic and global climate change. The main objectives of the expedition were to establish the role of the Agulhas Current in climatic changes during the Pliocene–Pleistocene, specifically to document the dynamics of the Indian-Atlantic Ocean gateway circulation during this time, to examine the connection of the Agulhas leakage and AMOC, and to address the influence of the Agulhas Current on African terrestrial climates and coincidences with human evolution. Additionally, the expedition set out to fulfill the needs of Ancillary Project Letter numb

New molecular proxies of temperature and hydrology are helping to constrain tropical climate change and elucidate possible forcing mechanisms during the Holocene. Here, we examine a similar to 14,000 year record of climate variability from Lake Victoria, East Africa, the world's second largest freshwater lake by surface area. We determined variations in local hydroclimate using compound specific delta D of terrestrial leaf waxes, and compared these results to a new record of temperature utilizing the TEX86 paleo-temperature proxy, based on aquatic Thaumarchaeotal membrane lipids. In order to assess the impact of changing climate on the terrestrial environment, we generated a record of compound specific delta C-13 from terrestrial leaf waxes, a proxy for ecosystem-level C-3/C-4 plant abundances, and compared the results to previously published pollen-inferred regional vegetation shifts. We observe a general coherence between temperature and rainfall, with a warm, wet interval peaking similar to 10-9 ka and subsequent gradual cooling and drying over the remainder of the Holocene. These results, particularly those of rainfall, are in general agreement with other tropical African climate records, indicating a somewhat consistent view of climate over a wide region of tropical East Africa. The delta C-13 record from Lake Victoria leaf waxes does not appear to reflect changes in regional climate or vegetation. However, palynological analyses document an abrupt shift from a Poaceae (grasses)-dominated ecosystem during the cooler, arid late Pleistocene to a Moraceae-dominated (trees/shrubs) landscape during the warm, wet early Holocene. We theorize that these proxies are reflecting vegetation in different locations around lake Victoria. Our results suggest a predominantly insolation-forced climate, with warm, wet conditions peaking at the maximum interhemispheric seasonal insolation contrast, likely intensifying monsoonal precipitation, while maximum aridity coincides with t

The termination of the African Humid Period (AHP) about 5 thousand years ago (ka) was the most dramatic climate shift in northern and equatorial Africa since the end of the Pleistocene. Based on TEX86 paleotemperature data from lake Turkana, Kenya, we show that a temperature shift of 2-4 degrees C occurred over the two millennia spanning the end of the AHP, with the warmest conditions occurring at similar to 5 ka. We note a similar shift, though of a smaller magnitude, in other East African temperature records from Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika, as well as Mt. Kilimanjaro. Additionally, we document the temperature history for the last 220 years from Lake Turkana that indicates the thermal anomaly at 5 ka was warmer than the present day Lake Turkana temperatures and on par with modern temperatures of Lakes Tanganyika and Malawi. We suggest that the thermal response at the end of the AHP may be linked to local insolation during September-November, when local air temperature rises to an annual maximum over Lakes Malawi and Tanganyika and a secondary maximum over Lake Turkana and Mt Kilimanjaro. September-November insolation peaked at similar to 5 ka and likely caused air and water temperatures in the region to rise to maxima at that time.

The potential for increased drought frequency and severity linked to anthropogenic climate change in the semi-arid regions of the southwestern United States (US) is a serious concern(1). Multi-year droughts during the instrumental period(2) and decadal-length droughts of the past two millennia(1,3) were shorter and climatically different from the future permanent, 'dust-bowl-like' mega-drought conditions, lasting decades to a century, that are predicted as a consequence of warming(4). So far, it has been unclear whether or not such megadroughts occurred in the southwestern US, and, if so, with what regularity and intensity. Here we show that periods of aridity lasting centuries to millennia occurred in the southwestern US during mid-Pleistocene interglacials. Using molecular palaeo-temperature proxies(5) to reconstruct the mean annual temperature (MAT) in mid-Pleistocene lacustrine sediment from the Valles Caldera, New Mexico, we found that the driest conditions occurred during the warmest phases of interglacials, when the MAT was comparable to or higher than the modern MAT. A collapse of drought-tolerant C(4) plant communities during these warm, dry intervals indicates a significant reduction in summer precipitation, possibly in response to a poleward migration of the subtropical dry zone. Three MAT cycles similar to 2 degrees C in amplitude occurred within Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 and seem to correspond to the muted precessional cycles within this interglacial. In comparison with MIS 11, MIS 13 experienced higher precessional-cycle amplitudes, larger variations in MAT (4-6 degrees C) and a longer period of extended warmth, suggesting that local insolation variations were important to interglacial climatic variability in the southwestern US. Comparison of the early MIS 11 climate record with the Holocene record shows many similarities and implies that, in the absence of anthropogenic forcing, the region should be entering a cooler and wetter phase.