The analysis of stable carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios, trace element ratios, and growth rate from a Spanish speleothem provides quantitative information on past hydrological conditions during the early Holocene in south-western Europe. Our data show that the cave site experienced increased effective recharge during the 8.2 ka event. Additionally, the oxygen isotopes indicate a change in the isotopic composition of the moisture source, associated with the meltwater flux to the North Atlantic.

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Southern Annular Mode (SAM) are two important modes of climate variability, strongly influencing climate across the tropics and Southern Hemisphere mid- to high latitudes. This study sheds light on their relationship over the past millennium, combining evidence from palaeoclimate proxy archives and climate models. We show that their indices were mostly negatively correlated with fluctuations likely driven by internal variability in the climate system.

The 4.2 ka event is generally characterized as an approximately 300-year period of major global climate anomaly. However, the climatic manifestation of this event remains unclear in the Indian monsoon domain. Our high-resolution and precisely dated speleothem record from Meghalaya, India, characterizes the event as consisting of a series of multi-decadal droughts between 3.9 and 4.0 ka rather than a singular pulse of multi-centennial drought as previously thought.

To understand future ENSO behaviour we must look at the past, but temperature and rainfall proxies (e.g. tree rings, sediment cores) appear to show different responses. We tested this by making separate multi-proxy ENSO reconstructions for precipitation and temperature and found no evidence of a disagreement between ENSO-driven changes in precipitation and temperature. While this supports our physical understanding of ENSO, the lack of good proxy data must be addressed to further explore this.

The 8.2 ka BP event, a global climate anomaly that occurred 8200 years ago, could provide climate teleconnection information for the simulation of abrupt climate changes, but there are few quantitative reconstructions of this event. This paper provides a 10-year resolution rainfall record from the East Asian monsoon area during the event, showing the reduced rainfall in southwest China during the 8.2 ka BP period was coupled with Greenland cooling with a possible response rate of 110 ± 30 mm/℃.