F. Vimeux á V. Masson á J. Jouzel á J. R. Petit E. J. Steig á M. Stievenard á R. Vaikmae J. W. C. White Holocene hydrological cycle changes in the Southern Hemisphere documented in East Antarctic deuterium excess records Received: 7 July 1999 / Accepted: 21 July 2000 Abstract Four Holocene-long East Antarctic deuterium excess records are used to study past changes of the hydrological cycle in the Southern Hemisphere. We combine simple and complex isotopic models to quan- tify the relationships between Antarctic deuterium excess ¯uctuations and the sea surface temperature SST) integrated over the moisture source areas for Antarctic snow. The common deuterium excess increasing trend during the ®rst half of the Holocene is therefore inter- preted in terms of a warming of the average ocean moisture source regions over this time. Available Southern Hemisphere SST records exhibit opposite trends at low latitudes warming) and at high latitudes cooling) during the Holocene. The agreement between the Antarctic deuterium excess and low-latitude SST trends supports the idea that the tropics dominate in providing moisture for Antarctic precipitation. The opposite trends in SSTs at low and high latitudes can potentially be explained by the decreasing obliquity during the Holocene inducing opposite trends in the local mean annual insolation between low and high latitudes. It also implies an increased latitudinal insolation gradient that in turn can maintain a stronger atmospheric circulation transporting more tropical moisture to Antarctica. This mechanism is supported by results from a mid-Holocene climate simulation performed using a coupled ocean-atmosphere model. 1 Introduction Whereas multidecadal climatic ¯uctuations during the Holocene are well documented by numerous continental and marine proxies in the Northern Hemisphere O'Brien et al. 1995; Bond et al. 1997; Mann et al. 1998), there are only a few such records for southern locations Ciais et al. 1992). The recent warming trend observed in the Southern Hemisphere during the last few decades Jacka and Budd 1998) highlights the impor- tance of studying Holocene climate variability in this hemisphere. Antarctic ice cores have already provided a wealth of paleoclimatic information including high-lati- tude temperature records inferred from stable isotopes in ice either deuterium, dD or oxygen 18, d 18 O, mea- surements) with a focus on glacial-interglacial changes see Dome F Ice Core Research Group 1998; Steig et al. 1998; Petit et al. 1999 for most recent examples). The combined measurement of these two isotopes can also be used to obtain a complementary paleoclimatic record, deuterium excess which provides information on remote changes in the Southern Ocean Vimeux et al. 1999 and references therein). We present a series of four Antarctic deuterium excess records covering the Holocene period. The deuterium excess d) in precipitation has been de®ned by Dansgaard 1964) from the meteoric water line Craig 1961) as follows: d  dD  8d 18 O This isotopic parameter mainly re¯ects the kinetic fractionation occurring during non-equilibrium fractionation processes such as evaporation above the ocean Merlivat and Jouzel 1979). Both Rayleigh-type Climate Dynamics 2001) 17: 503±513 Ó Springer-Verlag 2001 F. Vimeux &) á V. Masson á J. Jouzel á M. Stievenard Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement LSCE), UMR CEA-CNRS 1572, Orme des Merisiers, CEA Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France J. R. Petit Laboratoire de Glaciologie et GeÂophysique de l'Environnement LGGE), CNRS, B.P 96, Domaine Universitaire, 38402 Saint Martin d'HeÁres cedex, France E. J. Steig Department of Earth and Environmental Science, 251 Hayden Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6316, USA R. Vaikmae Institute of Geology, Tallinn Technical University, 7 Estonia Blvd., 10143 Tallinn, Estonia J. W. C. White Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research INSTAAR), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA