For millennia, North America has been no stranger to severe and prolonged droughts, yet the underlying causes of these extreme dry spells have eluded scientists until now. A groundbreaking study led by researchers at the University of Helsinki, in collaboration with experts from the United States, Germany, and Sweden, sheds new light on the intricate drivers behind the continent’s Holocene-era moisture variability. Published in Nature Communications, the study not only reconstructs the millennia-long patterns of drought that cascaded across eastern North America but also identifies shifts in Earth’s orbital dynamics as a prime catalyst for these climatic extremes.
The Holocene epoch, spanning roughly the last 11,700 years following the final retreat of the last Ice Age, has long been considered a period of relatively stable and warm climate. Yet, fossil pollen evidence amassed over decades from various North American locations reveals a far more complex hydrological history. This new research exploits advanced machine learning techniques to analyze these pollen datasets, enabling the team to infer subtle, regional variations in moisture conditions throughout the Holocene. Their findings reveal a persistent deficit in moisture relative to modern levels, punctuated by diverse drought episodes lasting centuries to millennia.
Interestingly, the onset and intensity of drought did not spread evenly across the continent. According to lead investigator J. Sakari Salonen, an Academy of Finland research fellow, dryness first emerged in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canadian regions, traditionally among the wettest zones today. This anomalous early dearth of moisture peaked approximately 11,000 years ago, marking the beginning of a prolonged drought phase in these easternmost areas. Over the subsequent millennia, the drought shifted westward, culminating around 7,000 years ago in the modern prairie regions of the mid-continental United States. At this stage, the Atlantic coast had already begun to revert to wetter conditions, illustrating a migrating climate anomaly rather than a static, continent-wide drought.
Bryan Shuman, co-author of the study from the University of Wyoming, highlights that the severity of these historic droughts was comparable to the infamous Dust Bowl of the 1930s but extended over vastly longer durations. This insight is crucial not only for understanding past ecological transformations, including widespread forest dieback and shifts in fire regimes, but also for anticipating future vulnerabilities. As climate variability intensifies in the coming decades, unraveling the mechanisms controlling historical drought variability becomes imperative for improving societal resilience and resource management strategies.
The team’s reliance on fossil pollen data marks a significant advancement in paleoclimatology. Pollen grains, deposited layer by layer in lake sediments and peat bogs, serve as biological proxies for past vegetation and hence climate conditions. By feeding this rich dataset into sophisticated computational algorithms, including machine learning models, the researchers could reconstruct detailed moisture patterns with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. This approach surpasses traditional proxy analysis, providing nuanced insights into the timing, duration, and geographical progression of the Holocene droughts across North America.
To bolster their empirical reconstructions, researchers employed state-of-the-art numerical climate simulations running on supercomputers. These high-resolution models, operating at two to four times the resolution of prior attempts, allowed the team to probe the physical processes behind the reconstructed droughts. Frederik Schenk, atmospheric physicist and visiting scientist at the University of Helsinki, explains that the simulations elucidated two primary mechanisms: first, the persistence and migration of a high-pressure system linked to the massive ice sheets lingering in northern North America during the early Holocene; and second, the onset of widespread drought conditions across the continent as summer temperatures increased following the ice sheet’s disappearance.
The study also draws a striking parallel between past and future climatic conditions. As global temperatures continue to rise due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, much of North America is projected to experience heightened dryness by the century’s end. This paradox—where rising precipitation fails to counterbalance increasing evaporation due to warming—mirrors the Holocene drought dynamics identified by the researchers. Schenk emphasizes that although overall warming tends to increase global moisture availability, regional thresholds exist beyond which evaporation surpasses precipitation, triggering drought conditions akin to those that unfolded millennia ago.
However, the study carefully notes a fundamental difference between the drought drivers of the Holocene and those shaping today’s climate crisis. The ancient, multi-millennial droughts were precipitated by slow shifts in Earth’s orbital parameters—collectively known as Milankovitch cycles—including variations in axial tilt and orbital eccentricity. These orbital changes modulated the intensity and distribution of solar radiation, leading to progressively warmer summers and thus, drier conditions in eastern North America. In stark contrast, the rapid pace and scale of modern warming are predominantly fueled by human activities, particularly the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The research draws on a rich scientific tradition of studying Earth’s orbital influences on climate. For over two million years during the Quaternary period, Milankovitch cycles have governed the timing of glacial and interglacial periods. The peak of the last Ice Age approximately 20,000 years ago corresponded with an orbital configuration that reduced summer sunlight in the northern hemisphere, permitting the build-up of massive ice sheets. By around 10,000 years ago, orbital shifts reversed this pattern, triggering the melting of these ice sheets and ushering in the warmer Holocene interglacial, during which North America underwent significant hydrological transitions as revealed by this study.
The implications of these findings stretch beyond academic curiosity. As Jack Williams of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, another co-author, articulates, public perception in eastern North America often assumes water abundance as a constant. The revelation that the region has historically endured prolonged drought-induced ecosystem upheavals challenges this complacency and underscores the necessity for proactive water management policies grounded in a deep-time perspective. Such historical insights can inform adaptive strategies that better accommodate the growing risks of drought and ecosystem stress under future climate regimes.
Moreover, the use of cutting-edge computational tools—for both data analysis and climate modeling—demonstrates the powerful synergy between paleoclimatic proxy research and numerical simulations. Together, these methodologies enable scientists to transcend the limitations of fragmentary records, constructing cohesive, dynamic narratives of Earth’s climatic past. The increasing resolution and sophistication of climate models are particularly salient, as they reveal subtle circulation patterns and feedbacks that were previously too complex to decipher, thus enabling a transformative understanding of long-term drought drivers.
The study received generous support from several funding agencies, including the Research Council of Finland, the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS), the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), and the U.S. National Science Foundation, underscoring the international and interdisciplinary nature of this research endeavor. Led by J. Sakari Salonen, the team’s work exemplifies collaborative science tackling one of the most pressing challenges in climate research: understanding variability and extremes through both natural and anthropogenic lenses.
As the planet warms at an unprecedented rate, the echoes of ancient droughts may yet foreshadow troubling trends. Salonen warns that if current climate projections hold, North America might soon experience a rapid recurrence of the natural drought patterns last seen over ten thousand years ago, but compressed into mere decades. This warning adds urgency to global efforts aimed at mitigating emissions and developing adaptive measures to safeguard water resources and ecological stability in the face of inevitable climatic shifts.
Subject of Research: Not applicable
Article Title: Patterns and drivers of Holocene moisture variability in mid-latitude eastern North America
News Publication Date: 15-Apr-2025
Web References: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58685-7
References: Salonen, J.S., Schenk, F., Williams, J.W. et al. Patterns and drivers of Holocene moisture variability in mid-latitude eastern North America. Nat Commun 16, 3582 (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-58685-7
Keywords: Holocene drought, North America, climate variability, Milankovitch cycles, fossil pollen analysis, machine learning, climate modeling, Earth’s orbit, anthropogenic climate change, moisture reconstruction, paleoclimate, ecosystem transformation
