The Asian monsoon over the past 640,000 years and ice age terminations

Hai Cheng (), R. Lawrence Edwards (), Ashish Sinha, Christoph Spötl, Liang Yi, Shitao Chen, Megan Kelly, Gayatri Kathayat, Xianfeng Wang, Xianglei Li, Xinggong Kong, Yongjin Wang, Youfeng Ning and Haiwei Zhang
Additional contact information
Hai Cheng: Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University
R. Lawrence Edwards: University of Minnesota
Ashish Sinha: California State University
Christoph Spötl: Institut für Geologie, Universität Innsbruck
Liang Yi: State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University
Shitao Chen: College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University
Megan Kelly: University of Minnesota
Gayatri Kathayat: Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xianfeng Wang: Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University
Xianglei Li: Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University
Xinggong Kong: College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University
Yongjin Wang: College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University
Youfeng Ning: Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University
Haiwei Zhang: Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University

Nature, 2016, vol. 534, issue 7609, 640-646

Abstract: Abstract Oxygen isotope records from Chinese caves characterize changes in both the Asian monsoon and global climate. Here, using our new speleothem data, we extend the Chinese record to cover the full uranium/thorium dating range, that is, the past 640,000 years. The record’s length and temporal precision allow us to test the idea that insolation changes caused by the Earth’s precession drove the terminations of each of the last seven ice ages as well as the millennia-long intervals of reduced monsoon rainfall associated with each of the terminations. On the basis of our record’s timing, the terminations are separated by four or five precession cycles, supporting the idea that the ‘100,000-year’ ice age cycle is an average of discrete numbers of precession cycles. Furthermore, the suborbital component of monsoon rainfall variability exhibits power in both the precession and obliquity bands, and is nearly in anti-phase with summer boreal insolation. These observations indicate that insolation, in part, sets the pace of the occurrence of millennial-scale events, including those associated with terminations and ‘unfinished terminations’.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/nature18591

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