Centennial-scale Asian Monsoon variability during the mid-Younger Dryas from Qingtian Cave, central China

• Published in: Quaternary Research
• Main Authors: Liu, Dianbing, Wang, Yongjin, Cheng, Hai, Kong, Xinggong, Chen, Shitao
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2013
• Subjects: Greenland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2013.06.009; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0033589413000732?httpAccept=text/xml; http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0033589413000732?httpAccept=text/plain; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033589400005901

The regional climate correlation within the Northern Hemisphere in the cold/dry mid-Younger Dryas event (YD) remains elusive. A key to unraveling this issue is sufficient knowledge of the detailed climate variability at the low latitudes. Here we present a high-resolution (3-yr) δ 18 O record of an annually laminated stalagmite from central China that reveals a detailed Asian monsoon (AM) history from 13.36 to 10.99 ka. The YD in this record is expressed as three phases, characterized by gradual onsets but rapid ends. During the mid-YD, the AM variability exhibited an increasing trend superimposed by three centennial oscillations, well-correlated to changes in Greenland temperatures. These warming/wetting fluctuations show a periodicity of ~ 200 yr, generally in agreement with centennial changes in cosmogenic nuclides indicated by the 10 Be flux from the Greenland ice. This relationship implies that centennial-scale climate changes during the mid-YD are probably caused by solar output and rapidly transported over broad regions through atmosphere reorganization.