Circulation Variability Reflected in Ice Core and Lake Records of the Southern Tropical Andes

Abstract

The circulation mechanisms of climate anomalies in the southern tropical Andes are of particular interest for the January–February core of the precipitation season. With this focus, we evaluate in context upper-air and surface analyses, water level measurements of Lake Titicaca, and records of net balance and δ18O from ice cores. Precipitation is more abundant with enhanced and southward expanded easterlies through a deep layer of the troposphere over the southern tropical Andes. Concomitant with this is a southward displaced circulation system over the equatorial Atlantic, entailing reduced interhemispheric gradient of sea surface temperature (SST; cold/warm anomalies in the North/South), more southerly position of the surface wind confluence and Intertropical Convergence Zone, and thus more abundant rainfall in Northeast Brazil. Such ensemble of circulation departures in boreal winter is common to the high phase of the Southern Oscillation.δ18O in the ice cores from Peru's Quelccaya Icecap, as wellas the cores from Sajama and Ilimani in Bolivia is more negative with more abundant precipitation, both in the same annual cycle and on interannual timescales. The large-scale circulation departures associated with the more negative δ18O are in the sense as for anomalously abundant precipitation activity over the southern tropical Andes. The variability of δ18O seasonally and interannually appears to be controlled mainly by the fate of the water vapor along its trajectory and over the Andes, rather than by the SST of the South Atlantic source region.