Dancing to the Tune of the Glacial Cycles

摘要

Tropical convection acts as a heat engine that drives the world's atmospheric circulation. Any perturbation of this force has a global influence through interaction with other weather phenomena, such as monsoons, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation, and the genesis of tropical cyclones. How will a possibly warmer future climate affect tropical convective activity? On page 1301 ofthisissue,Meckleret al. (7) provide insight to this question through their analysis of an oxygen isotope record from a stalagmite in northern Borneo, reflecting tropical Pacific convective activity from 570,000 to 210,000 years ago. The record illustrates how sensitive tropical convection is to variations in global climate.