What was done
The authors derived a multi-decadal-scale record of Holocene drought in east-central North America based on Sr/Ca ratios and δ¹³C data obtained from stalagmite BCC-002 from Buckeye Creek Cave (BCC), West Virginia (USA) that "grew continuously from ~7000 years B.P. to ~800 years B.P." and then again "from ~800 years B.P. until its collection in 2002."

What was learned
Springer et al. identified seven significant Mid- to Late-Holocene droughts, six of which "correlate with cooling of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as part of the North Atlantic Ocean ice-rafted debris [IRD] cycle, which has been linked to the solar irradiance cycle," as per Bond et al. (2001). In addition, they determined that the Sr/Ca and δ¹³C time series "display periodicities of ~200 and ~500 years and are coherent in those frequency bands." They also say "the ~200-year periodicity is consistent with the de Vries (Suess) solar irradiance cycle," and they "interpret the ~500-year periodicity to be a harmonic of the IRD oscillations." Noting further that "cross-spectral analysis of the Sr/Ca and IRD time series yields statistically significant coherencies at periodicities of 455 and 715 years," they go on to note that "these latter values are very similar to the second (725-years) and third (480-years) harmonics of the 1450 ± 500-years IRD periodicity."

What it means
The five researchers conclude their report by saying their findings "corroborate works indicating that millennial-scale solar-forcing is responsible for droughts and ecosystem changes in central and eastern North America (Viau et al., 2002; Willard et al., 2005; Denniston et al., 2007)," adding that their high-resolution time series now provide even stronger evidence "in favor of solar-forcing of North American drought by yielding unambiguous spectral analysis results."

References
Bond, G., Kromer, B., Beer, J., Muscheler, R., Evans, M.N., Showers, W., Hoffmann, S., Lotti-Bond, R., Hajdas, I. and Bonani, G. 2001. Persistent solar influence on North Atlantic climate during the Holocene. Science 294: 2130-2136.

Denniston, R.F., DuPree, M., Dorale, J.A., Asmerom, Y., Polyak, V.J. and Carpenter, S.J. 2007. Episodes of late Holocene aridity recorded by stalagmites from Devil's Icebox Cave, central Missouri, USA. Quaternary Research 68: 45-52.

Viau, A.E., Gajewski, K., Fines, P., Atkinson, D.E. and Sawada, M.C. 2002. Widespread evidence of 1500 yr climate variability in North America during the past 14,000 yr. Geology 30: 455-458.

Willard, D.A., Bernhardt, C.E., Korejwo, D.A. and Meyers, S.R. 2005. Impact of millennial-scale Holocene climate variability on eastern North American terrestrial ecosystems: Pollen-based climatic reconstruction. Global and Planetary Change 47: 17-35.