A note on the recent use of tree-ring data to investigate a Sun-Amazon River link

ANTICO, ANDRÉS; TORRES, MARÍA E.

JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Año: 2020 vol. 583

0022-1694

In a recent study, a tree-ring oxygen isotope record (1800-2013) was used as a proxy for Amazon River discharge in order to investigate a solar influence on this river. Here we reinterpreted the results from this study by improving the analyses of tree-ring data, and by considering the recommendations made by authors critical of Sun-climate link studies. We found that strong 1915-2018 evidences of a causal sunspot-Amazon link were previously misinterpreted as weak; causation is supported by the persistence of a sunspot-Amazon flow anticorrelation over the ten consecutive sunspot cycles of 1915-2018. We also noticed that the 1915 onset of the Sun-Amazon link could have been associated with changes in the background states of solar forcing and Amazon climate.