Abstract
Understanding how precipitation responds to temperature change is crucial for anticipating future climate variability. The geological past provides a unique window into rainfall responses to large-scale climate shifts, yet regional responses in the South–Central Pacific remain poorly constrained due to the lack of continuous long-term palaeoclimate records extending beyond the Holocene. To address this gap, we reconstruct temperature and precipitation using biomarker proxies from a 50,000-year peat core from Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia. During the Last Glacial period, increased hydrogen isotopic values of plant waxes indicate drier conditions. Pollen data show increased abundances of drought-adapted herbaceous taxa and reduced cloud forest species. Temperature-sensitive bacterial lipids indicate substantially cooler glacial conditions relative to the Holocene. Notably, reconstructed temperature and precipitation changes are strongly correlated, consistent with data assimilation studies. These results highlight the sensitivity of the tropical Pacific to background climate state and provide important constraints on regional climate dynamics.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
Proxy data generated as part of this study are available via Zenodo62.
References
Power, S. B., Schiller, A., Cambers, G., Jones, D. & Hennessy, K. The Pacific climate change science program. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 92, 1409–1411 (2011).
Brown, J. R. et al. South Pacific Convergence Zone dynamics, variability and impacts in a changing climate. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 1, 530–543 (2020).
Vincent, E. M. et al. Interannual variability of the South Pacific Convergence Zone and implications for tropical cyclone genesis. Clim. Dyn. 36, 1881–1896 (2011).
Salinger, M., Renwick, J. A. & Mullan, A. Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and South Pacific climate. Int. J. Climatol. 21, 1705–1721 (2001).
Brown, J., Moise, A. & Colman, R. The South Pacific Convergence Zone in CMIP5 simulations of historical and future climate. Clim. Dyn. 41, 2179–2197 (2013).
Cai, W. et al. More extreme swings of the South Pacific convergence zone due to greenhouse warming. Nature 488, 365–369 (2012).
Linsley, B. K. et al. SPCZ zonal events and downstream influence on surface ocean conditions in the Indonesian Throughflow region. Geophys. Res. Lett. 44, 293–303 (2017).
d’Aubert, A. & Nunn, P. D. Furious Winds and Parched Islands: Tropical Cyclones (1558-1970) and Droughts (1722–1987) in the Pacific (Xlibris Corporation, 2012).
Faraji, M. et al. High-resolution reconstruction of infiltration in the Southern Cook Islands based on trace elements in speleothems. Quat. Res. 118, 20–40 (2024).
Faraji, M. et al. Controls on rainfall variability in the tropical South Pacific for the last 350 years reconstructed from oxygen isotopes in stalagmites from the Cook Islands. Quat. Sci. Rev. 289, 107633 (2022).
Maupin, C. et al. Persistent decadal-scale rainfall variability in the tropical South Pacific Convergence Zone through the past six centuries. Climate 10, 1319–1332 (2014).
Peaple, M. et al. Ocean variability drives a millennial-scale shift in South Pacific hydroclimate. Commun. Earth Environ. 6, 679 (2025).
Brown, J. R., Moise, A. F. & Delage, F. P. Changes in the South Pacific Convergence Zone in IPCC AR4 future climate projections. Clim. Dyn. 39, 1–19 (2012).
Narsey, S. et al. Storylines of South Pacific Convergence Zone changes in a warmer world. J. Clim. 35, 6549 – 6567 (2022).
Saint-Lu, M., Braconnot, P., Leloup, J., Lengaigne, M. & Marti, O. Changes in the ENSO/SPCZ relationship from past to future climates. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 412, 18–24 (2015).
Widlansky, M. J. et al. Changes in South Pacific rainfall bands in a warming climate. Nat. Clim. change 3, 417–423 (2013).
Maloney, A. E. et al. Contrasting Common Era climate and hydrology sensitivities from paired lake sediment dinosterol hydrogen isotope records in the South Pacific Convergence Zone. Quat. Sci. Rev. 281, 107421 (2022).
Sear, D. A. et al. Human settlement of East Polynesia earlier, incremental, and coincident with prolonged South Pacific drought. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 117, 8813–8819 (2020).
Toomey, M. R., Donnelly, J. P. & Tierney, J. E. South Pacific hydrologic and cyclone variability during the last 3000 years. Paleoceanography 31, 491–504 (2016).
Sachse, D. et al. Molecular paleohydrology: interpreting the hydrogen-isotopic composition of lipid biomarkers from photosynthesizing organisms. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 40, 221–249 (2012).
Ladd, S. N. et al. Leaf wax hydrogen isotopes as a hydroclimate proxy in the tropical Pacific. J. Geophys. Res.: Biogeosci. 126, e2020JG005891 (2021).
McFarlin, J. M., Axford, Y., Masterson, A. L. & Osburn, M. R. Calibration of modern sedimentary δ2H plant wax-water relationships in Greenland lakes. Quat. Sci. Rev. 225, 105978 (2019).
Maloney, A. E. et al. Reconstructing precipitation in the tropical South Pacific from dinosterol 2H/1H ratios in lake sediment. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 245, 190–206 (2019).
Feakins, S. J. et al. Plant leaf wax biomarkers capture gradients in hydrogen isotopes of precipitation from the Andes and Amazon. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 182, 155–172 (2016).
Hou, J., D’Andrea, W. J., MacDonald, D. & Huang, Y. Hydrogen isotopic variability in leaf waxes among terrestrial and aquatic plants around Blood Pond, Massachusetts (USA). Org. Geochem. 38, 977–984 (2007).
Feakins, S. J. Pollen-corrected leaf wax D/H reconstructions of northeast African hydrological changes during the late Miocene. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 374, 62–71 (2013).
Konecky, B. et al. WaxPSM: A forward model of leaf wax hydrogen isotope ratios to bridge proxy and model estimates of past climate. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 124, 2107–2125 (2019).
Yang, D. & Bowen, G. J. Integrating plant wax abundance and isotopes for paleo-vegetation and paleoclimate reconstructions: a multi-source mixing model using a Bayesian framework. Climate 18, 2181–2210 (2022).
Lisiecki, L. E. & Stern, J. V. Regional and global benthic δ18O stacks for the last glacial cycle. Paleoceanography 31, 1368–1394 (2016).
Dongmann, G., Nürnberg, H., Förstel, H. & Wagener, K. On the enrichment of H218O in the leaves of transpiring plants. Radiat. Environ. Biophys. 11, 41–52 (1974).
Meyer, J.-Y. Montane cloud forests on remote islands of Oceania: the example of French Polynesia (South Pacific Ocean). In Tropical Montane Cloud Forests (eds Bruijnzeel, L. A., Scatena, F. N. & Hamilton, L. S.) 121–129 (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Florence, J. & Lorence, D. H. Introduction to the flora and vegetation of the Marquesas Islands. Allertonia 7, 226–237 (1997).
Prebble, M. et al. Abrupt late Pleistocene ecological and climate change on Tahiti (French Polynesia). J. Biogeogr. 43, 2438–2453 (2016).
Weijers, J. W., Schouten, S., van den Donker, J. C., Hopmans, E. C. & Damsté, J. S. S. Environmental controls on bacterial tetraether membrane lipid distribution in soils. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 71, 703–713 (2007).
Jonge, C. D. et al. Occurrence and abundance of 6-methyl branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers in soils: Implications for palaeoclimate reconstruction. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 141, 97–112 (2014).
Naafs, B. D. A. et al. Introducing global peat-specific temperature and pH calibrations based on brGDGT bacterial lipids. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 208, 285–301 (2017).
Crampton-Flood, E. D., Tierney, J. E., Peterse, F., Kirkels, F. M. & Damsté, J. S. S. BayMBT: a bayesian calibration model for branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers in soils and peats. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 268, 142–159 (2020).
Laurent, V. & Maamaatuaiahutapu, K. Atlas climatologique de la Polynésie française (Météo-France, 2019).
Shakun, J. D. et al. Regional and global forcing of glacier retreat during the last deglaciation. Nat. Commun. 6, 1–7 (2015).
Tierney, J. E. et al. Glacial cooling and climate sensitivity revisited. Nature 584, 569–573 (2020).
Annan, J. D., Hargreaves, J. C. & Mauritsen, T. A new global surface temperature reconstruction for the last glacial maximum. Climate 18, 1883–1896 (2022).
Blard, P.-H., Lavé, J., Pik, R., Wagnon, P. & Bourlès, D. Persistence of full glacial conditions in the central Pacific until 15,000 years ago. Nature 449, 591–594 (2007).
Barrows, T. T., Hope, G. S., Prentice, M. L., Fifield, L. K. & Tims, S. G. Late Pleistocene glaciation of the Mt Giluwe volcano, Papua New Guinea. Quat. Sci. Rev. 30, 2676–2689 (2011).
Zhao, B. et al. Evaluating global temperature calibrations for lacustrine branched GDGTs: Seasonal variability, paleoclimate implications, and future directions. Quat. Sci. Rev. 310, 108124 (2023).
Loomis, S. E. et al. The tropical lapse rate steepened during the last glacial maximum. Sci. Adv. 3, e1600815 (2017).
van der Wiel, K., Matthews, A. J., Joshi, M. M. & Stevens, D. P. Why the South Pacific Convergence Zone is diagonal. Clim. Dyn. 46, 1683–1698 (2016).
Kageyama, M. et al. The PMIP4-CMIP6 Last Glacial Maximum experiments: preliminary results and comparison with the PMIP3-CMIP5 simulations. Clim. Discuss. 2020, 1–37 (2020).
Tian, B. & Dong, X. The double-ITCZ bias in CMIP3, CMIP5, and CMIP6 models based on annual mean precipitation. Geophys. Res. Lett. 47, e2020GL087232 (2020).
Li, Z. & Fedorov, A. T. Climate models exaggerate the enhanced double-ITCZ in the warming Tropical Pacific due to preexisting precipitation bias. Geophys. Res. Lett. 52, e2025GL115445 (2025).
Li, G. & Xie, S.-P. Tropical biases in CMIP5 multimodel ensemble: the excessive equatorial pacific cold tongue and double ITCZ problems. J. Clim. 27, 1765 – 1780 (2014).
Samanta, D., Karnauskas, K. B. & Goodkin, N. F. Tropical Pacific SST and ITCZ biases in climate models: Double trouble for future rainfall projections? Geophys. Res. Lett. 46, 2242–2252 (2019).
Fiedler, S. et al. Simulated tropical precipitation assessed across three major phases of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). Mon. Weather Rev. 148, 3653–3680 (2020).
Blaauw, M. & Christen, J. A. Flexible paleoclimate age–depth models using an autoregressive gamma process. Bayesian Anal. 6, 457 – 474 (2011).
Bi, X. et al. Molecular and carbon and hydrogen isotopic composition of n-alkanes in plant leaf waxes. Org. Geochem. 36, 1405–1417 (2005).
Krull, E. et al. Compound-specific δ13C and δ2H analyses of plant and soil organic matter: A preliminary assessment of the effects of vegetation change on ecosystem hydrology. Soil Biol. Biochem. 38, 3211–3221 (2006).
Liu, W. & Yang, H. Multiple controls for the variability of hydrogen isotopic compositions in higher plant n-alkanes from modern ecosystems. Glob. Change Biol. 14, 2166–2177 (2008).
Chikaraishi, Y. & Naraoka, H. Compound-specific δD-δ13C analyses of n-alkanes extracted from terrestrial and aquatic plants. Phytochemistry 63, 361–371 (2003).
Yao, Y. & Liu, W. Hydrogen isotopic composition of plant leaf wax in response to soil moisture in an arid ecosystem of the northeast Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China. J. Arid Land 9, 592–600 (2014).
Ardenghi, N. et al. Leaf wax n-alkane distribution and hydrogen isotopic fractionation in fen plant communities of two Mediterranean wetlands (Tenaghi Philippon, Nisí fen-Greece). Front. Earth Sci. 12, 1359157 (2024).
Hopmans, E. C., Schouten, S. & Damsté, J. S. S. The effect of improved chromatography on GDGT-based palaeoproxies. Org. Geochem. 93, 1–6 (2016).
Martínez-Sosa, P. et al. Development and application of the Branched and Isoprenoid GDGT Machine learning Classification algorithm (BIGMaC) for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatol. 38, e2023PA004611 (2023).
Peaple, M. Hydroclimate and temperature changes in the eastern SPCZ over the last 55 ka. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17805719 (2025).
Adler, R. F. et al. The Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) monthly analysis (new version 2.3) and a review of 2017 global precipitation. Atmosphere 9, 138 (2018).
McGee, D. Glacial-Interglacial precipitation changes. Annu. Rev. Mar. Sci. 12, 525–557 (2020).
Shi, X., Yang, H., Danek, C. & Lohmann, G. AWI AWI-ESM1.1LR model output prepared for CMIP6 PMIP lgm, version 20200212. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.9330 (2020).
Danek, C. et al. AWI AWI-ESM1.1LR model output prepared for CMIP6 CMIP piControl, version v20200212. Earth System Grid Federationhttps://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.9335 (2020).
Shi, X., Werner, M., Wang, Q., Yang, H. & Lohmann, G. Simulated mid-holocene and last interglacial climate using two generations of AWI-ESM. J. Clim. 35, 7811 – 7831 (2022).
Volodin, E. et al. INM INM-CM4-8 model output prepared for CMIP6 PMIP lgm, version 20201112. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.5075 (2019).
Volodin, E. et al. INM INM-CM4-8 model output prepared for CMIP6 CMIP piControl, version 20190605. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.5080 (2019).
Volodin, E. M. et al. Simulation of the modern climate using the INM-CM48 climate model. Russ. J. Numer. Anal. Math. Model. 33, 367–374 (2018).
Ohgaito, R. et al. MIROC MIROC-ES2L model output prepared for CMIP6 PMIP lgm, version 20191002. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.5644 (2019).
Hajima, T. et al. MIROC MIROC-ES2L model output prepared for CMIP6 CMIP piControl, version 20190823. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.5710 (2019).
Ohgaito, R. et al. PMIP4 experiments using MIROC-ES2L Earth system model. Geosci. Model Dev. 14, 1195–1217 (2021).
Hajima, T. et al. Development of the MIROC-ES2L Earth system model and the evaluation of biogeochemical processes and feedbacks. Geosci. Model Dev. 13, 2197–2244 (2020).
Jungclaus, J. et al. MPI-M MPI-ESM1.2-LR model output prepared for CMIP6 PMIP lgm, version 20190710. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6642 (2019).
Wieners, K.-H. et al. MPI-M MPI-ESM1.2-LR model output prepared for CMIP6 CMIP piControl, version 20190710. Earth System Grid Federation https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.6675 (2019).
Mauritsen, T. et al. Developments in the MPI-M Earth System Model version 1.2 (MPI-ESM1.2) and its response to increasing CO2. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 11, 998–1038 (2019).
Mauritsen, T. & Roeckner, E. Tuning the MPI-ESM1.2 global climate model to improve the match with instrumental record warming by lowering its climate sensitivity. J. Adv. Model. Earth Syst. 12, e2019MS002037 (2020).
Acknowledgements
We are grateful for the help and support offered by the Délégation à la Recherche de la Polynésie française. We thank the mayor of Nuku Hiva and the Department of Agriculture in Nuku Hiva for thoughtful discussions related to this work. We thank William Roberts and PROMS project partners for thoughtful discussions related to this study. This study was supported by NERC grant NE/W005565/1 to DAS and MJ. Field work and some radiocarbon dates were funded by the National Geographic Society project NGS-58688R-19 “Chasing the Rain” awarded to DAS. GNI was supported by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (DHF\R1\191178 and DHF\R\241007). Thanks to Ministere De L’Agriculture, Du Foncier, Gov. of French Polynesia and to Délégation à la Recherche de la Polynésie française, Dr Jean-Yves Meyer, for permission to undertake the sampling.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All authors contributed to the conceptualisation of the study. D.A.S. supervised the project. M.D.P. performed data acquisition and analysis, curated the data, and led the writing of the paper. D.T.S. contributed to data acquisition and analysis and writing of the paper. D.A.S., P.L., M.J., and T.J.O., R.S., and J.Y.M. also contributed to data acquisition. Funding for the project was acquired by D.A.S., G.N.I., M.J., P.L., A.J.M., and T.J.O. All authors contributed to the editing and review of the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Communications Earth and Environment thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Deborah Tangunan and Martina Grecequet. [A peer review file is available].
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Peaple, M.D., Skinner, D.T., Inglis, G.N. et al. Cooler and drier climate in the South–Central Pacific during the last glacial period. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03356-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03356-8
