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Prolonged California aridity linked to climate warming and Pacific sea surface temperature

States that the California drought has prompted questions about hydroclimatic sensitivity to anthropogenic climate change and implications for the future
Addresses such questions using a Holocene lake sediment record of hydrologic change from the Sierra Nevada Mountains coupled with marine sediment records from the Pacific
These data provide evidence of a persistent relationship between past climate warming, Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) shifts and centennial to millennial episodes of California aridity
Finds that the link is most evident during the thermal-maximum of the mid-Holocene (~8 to 3 ka; ka = 1,000 calendar years before present) and during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (~1 ka to 0.7 ka)
Finds that in both cases, climate warming corresponded with cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific despite differences in the factors producing increased radiative forcing
Finds the magnitude of prolonged eastern Pacific cooling was modest, similar to observed La Niña excursions of 1o to 2 °C
States that given differences with current radiative forcing it remains uncertain if the Pacific will react in a similar manner in the 21st century, but should it follow apparent past behavior more intense and prolonged aridity in California would result

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