The transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, 950-1250 CE) to the Little Ice Age (LIA, 1350 to 1800 CE) is the largest pre-industrial climate shift within the last two millennia, offering an opportunity to study how vegetation responds to rapid climate change. We analyzed a sedimentary record from the Colombian Andes to reconstruct regional vegetation dynamics during this time interval, identify the modern environmental distribution of taxa present in the fossil record, and provide...

Uncertainty about the influence of anthropogenic radiative forcing on the position and strength of convective rainfall in the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) inhibits our ability to project future tropical hydroclimate change in a warmer world. Paleoclimatic and modeling data inform on the timescales and mechanisms of ITCZ variability; yet a comprehensive, long-term perspective remains elusive. Here, we quantify the evolution of neotropical hydroclimate over the pre-industrial past millennium (850 to 1850 CE) using a synthesis...