Indian monsoon variability on millennial-orbital timescales

The Indian summer monsoon (ISM) monsoon is critical to billions of people living in the region. Yet, significant debates remain on primary ISM drivers on millennial-orbital timescales. Here, we use speleothem oxygen isotope (delta O-18) data from Bittoo cave, Northern India to reconstruct ISM variab...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Kathayat, Gayatri, Cheng, Hai, Sinha, Ashish, Spoetl, Christoph, Edwards, R. Lawrence, Zhang, Haiwei, Li, Xianglei, Yi, Liang, Ning, Youfeng, Cai, Yanjun, Lui, Weiguo Lui, Breitenbach, Sebastian F. M.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2016
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Online Access:http://ir.ieecas.cn/handle/361006/5756
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep24374
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Summary:The Indian summer monsoon (ISM) monsoon is critical to billions of people living in the region. Yet, significant debates remain on primary ISM drivers on millennial-orbital timescales. Here, we use speleothem oxygen isotope (delta O-18) data from Bittoo cave, Northern India to reconstruct ISM variability over the past 280,000 years. We find strong coherence between North Indian and Chinese speleothem delta O-18 records from the East Asian monsoon domain, suggesting that both Asian monsoon subsystems exhibit a coupled response to changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation (NHSI) without significant temporal lags, supporting the view that the tropical-subtropical monsoon variability is driven directly by precession-induced changes in NHSI. Comparisons of the North Indian record with both Antarctic ice core and sea-surface temperature records from the southern Indian Ocean over the last glacial period do not suggest a dominant role of Southern Hemisphere climate processes in regulating the ISM variability on millennial-orbital timescales.