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Several long paleoclimate records generated from Lake Malawi sediments rely on an assumption that the TEX86 paleothermometer reflects annual mean lake surface temperatures. Thaumarchaeota, the producers of the isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (iGDGT) lipids that are the basis of the TEX86 proxy, can occupy a wide range of habitats in the upper water column of lacustrine systems, so it is crucial to specifically constrain the ecology of Thaumarchaeota in Lake Malawi to properly interpret its sedimentary TEX86 record. To investigate the spatial and vertical distribution of Thaumarchaeotal iGDGT production in Lake Malawi, suspended particulate matter (SPM) was collected from the upper water column (>300 m) at three sites spanning the north, central, and south basins of the lake and analyzed for intact polar (IPL) and core (CL) iGDGT lipid abundances. Samples were collected in January during the austral summer when the lake is strongly stratified. Concentrations of the most labile IPL, hexose-phosphohexose (HPH)-crenarchaeol, were greatest just below the deep chlorophyll maximum at ∼50 m water depth in the deeper north and central basins and ∼30 m in the shallow south basin. Maximum CL concentrations occur below the maximum HPH-crenarchaeol concentrations and therefore possibly reflect the accumulation of recently produced IPL GDGT degradation products. If the export of CLs to the sediments is dominated by this CL pool, sedimentary TEX86 would reflect Thaumarchaeota living within the thermocline during the stratified season and therefore may have a cool bias rather than reflecting true surface water temperatures. An increase in abundances of GDGT-2, crenarchaeol isomer, and monohexose (MH)-crenarchaeol at ∼150–200 m suggests that a secondary Thaumarchaeotal population, likely Group I.1b Thaumarchaeota, inhabits the subsurface water column near the anoxic-suboxic boundary. Total production of iGDGTs by this group

African climate is generally considered to have evolved towards progressively drier conditions over the past few million years, with increased variability as glacial–interglacial change intensified worldwide1, 2, 3. Palaeoclimate records derived mainly from northern Africa exhibit a 100,000-year (eccentricity) cycle overprinted on a pronounced 20,000-year (precession) beat, driven by orbital forcing of summer insolation, global ice volume and long-lived atmospheric greenhouse gases4. Here we present a 1.3-million-year-long climate history from the Lake Malawi basin (10°–14° S in eastern Africa), which displays strong 100,000-year (eccentricity) cycles of temperature and rainfall following the Mid-Pleistocene Transition around 900,000 years ago. Interglacial periods were relatively warm and moist, while ice ages were cool and dry. The Malawi record shows limited evidence for precessional variability, which we attribute to the opposing effects of austral summer insolation and the temporal/spatial pattern of sea surface temperature in the Indian Ocean. The temperature history of the Malawi basin, at least for the past 500,000 years, strongly resembles past changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and terrigenous dust flux in the tropical Pacific Ocean, but not in global ice volume. Climate in this sector of eastern Africa (unlike northern Africa) evolved from a predominantly arid environment with high-frequency variability to generally wetter conditions with more prolonged wet and dry intervals.

This study investigated the vertical and temporal distribution of Thaumarchaeota derived core isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) lipids through sampling and analysis of both suspended particulate matter from the water column at different times in the annual cycle and a 3 year long record of settling particles in two sediment traps at different depths at an open lake location in Lake Superior. Results from these analyses suggest that Thaumarchaeota were present throughout the water column during times of overturning, but mainly resided below the depth of the thermocline (20-40 m) during the period of thermal stratification. Fluxes of thaumarchaeotal produced GDGTs were highly periodic and mainly occurred during two periods of the annual cycle (winter and late spring/early summer). A covariance of both branched and isoprenoid GDGT fluxes with the mass accumulation flux combined with the observation that those periods of maximum fluxes were associated with increased BIT index values, however, suggest that these two periods of elevated fluxes may be related to an influx of resuspended particles transported from shallower near shore regions of Lake Superior. During all sampling periods TEX86 inferred temperatures from SPM were in good agreement with in situ water temperatures of the depths at which the SPM was sampled. The observed range of TEX86 inferred temperatures in 3 years of settling particles is relatively small and does not show significantly higher inferred temperatures during the thermally stratified period, indicating that the sedimentary TEX86 signal during the summer thermally stratified period mainly originated from depths below the relatively shallow thermocline. Additionally, TEX86 values during the winter period of increased fluxes did not capture the decrease in water temperatures observed throughout the water column during this period, and thus may be a further indication that the thaumarchaeotal lipid flux was the result of sedime

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 degree of methylation and cyclization of bacteria-derived branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) membrane lipids in soils depends on temperature and soil pH. Expressed in the methylation index of branched tetraethers (MBT) and cyclization ratio of branched tetraethers (CBT), these relationships are used to reconstruct past annual mean air temperature (MAT) based on the distribution of branched GDGTs in ancient sediments; the MBT-CBT proxy. Although it was shown that the best correlation of this proxy is with annual MAT, it remains unknown whether a seasonal bias in temperature reconstructions could occur, such as towards a seasonal period of 'optimal growth' of the, as yet, unidentified soil bacteria which produce branched GDGTs. To investigate this possibility, soils were sampled from eight different plots in the USA (Minnesota and Ohio), The Netherlands (Texel) and the UK (Devon) in time series over 1 year and analyzed for their branched GDGT content. Further analyses of the branched GDGTs present as core lipids (CLs; the presumed fossil pool) and intact polar lipids (IPLs; the presumed extant pool) were undertaken for two of the investigated soil plots. The amount of IPL-derived branched GDGTs is low relative to the branched GDGT CLs, i.e. only 6-9% of the total branched GDGT pool. In all soils, no clear change was apparent in the distribution of branched GDGT lipids (either core or IPL-derived) with seasonal temperature change; the MBT-CBT temperature proxy gave similar temperature estimates year-round, which generally matched the mean annual soil temperature. In addition to a lack of coherent changes in relative distributions, concentrations of the branched GDGTs did not show clear changes over the seasons. For IPL-derived GDGTs these results suggest that their turnover time in soils is in the order of 1 year or more. Thus, our study does not provide evidence for seasonal effects on the distribution of branched GDGTs in soils, at least at mid

We present a TEX86-derived surface water temperature record for Lake Malawi that provides the first continuous continental record of temperature variability in the continental tropics spanning the past similar to 74 kyr with millennial-scale resolution. Average temperature during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5A was 26.5 degrees C, with a range from 25.7 to 27.3 degrees C, comparable to Holocene temperatures. MIS 4 was a relatively cold period with temperatures generally decreasing from 25.5 degrees C at 68 ka to a minimum of 20 degrees Cat similar to 60 ka, 1.5-2 degrees C colder than the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Termination of MIS 4 is characterized by a rapid increase of 3-4 degrees C in only similar to 0.5 kyr. Temperatures were relatively stable throughout MIS 3 at the resolution of this study, with an average of 23.8 degrees C and a range from 25.1 to 22.9 degrees C. The lack of millennial-scale temperature variability during MIS 3 suggests that Lake Malawi's documented response to the bipolar seesaw (Brown et al., 2007) is not reflected in its thermal history. Our temperature estimates for the LGM and Holocene are consistent with a previously published TEX86 record from Lake Malawi with a temperature of similar to 22.6 degrees C for the LGM, similar to 25-26 degrees C in the mid Holocene and similar to 25-28 for the late Holocene. In general the present extended TEX86 record indicates that temperature variability in tropical East Africa during late MIS 5 and MIS 4 was as great as that associated with the deglaciation and Holocene. A decrease in Southern Hemisphere insolation between 70 and 60 ka may have played an important role in forcing temperatures during MIS 4, but after 60 ka other factors, such as the extent of the polar ice sheets, or atmospheric CO2 may have forced temperature in tropical Africa to a greater extent than local summer insolation.

We have applied the TEX86 paleothermometer to produce a surface water temperature record for Lake Malawi spanning the past 700 years. Over much of the record temperature fluctuates from similar to 24-27 degrees C with a mean of similar to 25 degrees C however, there has been a substantial increase in temperature of similar to 2.0 degrees C during the past similar to 100 years. The TEX86 temperature record reveals a strong similarity to the instrumental record: both records demonstrate warming (similar to 0.7-1.4 degrees C) over the past similar to 50 years as well as a cooling anomaly around 1959. Comparison of the TEX86 temperature record with the proxy records of primary productivity suggests that wind induced upwelling and/or precipitation have a strong influence on the surface temperature of Lake Malawi.

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.