East Asian Monsoonal Climate Sensitivity Changed in the Late Pliocene in Response to Northern Hemisphere Glaciations

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Zhang, Ze, Licht, Alexis, de Vleeschouwer, David, Wang, Zhixiang, Li, Yanzhen, Kemp, David, B, Tan, Liangcheng, Zhang, Rui, Qiang, Xiaoke, Huang, Chunju
• Other Authors: China University of Geosciences Wuhan (CUG), Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de l'Environnement (CEREGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster = University of Münster (WWU), Chinese Academy of Sciences Xi’an, Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xjtu), Hubei Normal University
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology; Antarctic; Antarc*; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-03894632; https://hal.science/hal-03894632/document; https://hal.science/hal-03894632/file/Zhang%20et%20al%202022%20GRL%20pliocene.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2022gl101280

International audience Mio-Pliocene sedimentary archives of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) in NE Tibet record a monotonic response to orbital forcing, dominated by eccentricity. By contrast, Pleistocene archives display a more stochastic response that varies regionally and temporally. When and why this response changed is poorly understood. Here, we present a new high-resolution Rb/Sr ratio data set of EASM intensity from the Sanmenxia Basin, North China, that spans the Plio-Pleistocene transition. Our results indicate decreased monsoonal rainfall in the late Pliocene, dated at 2.75–2.6 Ma, associated with an intensified response to obliquity and enhanced climate stochasticity. This transition is attributed to the increase of Northern Hemisphere ice volume. Quaternary monsoons display a sensitivity unique to the modern icehouse with large bipolar ice sheets, while pre-Quaternary monsoons were solely impacted by Antarctic ice sheet dynamics on orbital time-scales.