North Atlantic ice‐rafting, ocean and atmospheric circulation during the Holocene: insights from Western Mediterranean speleothems

International audienceIn this study, we present a Holocene rainfall index based on three high‐resolution speleothemrecords from the Western Mediterranean, a region under the influence of the westerly winds belt modulatedby the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). On centennial to millennial timescales, we show that the NorthAtlantic ice‐rafting events were likely associated with negative NAO‐like conditions during the EarlyHolocene and the Late Holocene. However, our data reveal that this is not clearly the case for themid‐Holocene ice‐rafting events, during which we also show evidence of positive NAO‐like patterns fromother paleo‐oceanographic and paleo‐atmospheric data. Hence, contradictory mechanisms involvingprolonged periods of both north and south shifts of the westerly winds belt (resembling positive and negativeNAO‐like patterns) might at least partially trigger or amplify the ice‐rafting events and the slowdownof the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulatio