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 (δ18O) data from Bittoo cave, Northern India to reconstruct ISM variability...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Kathayat, Gayatri, Cheng, Hai, Sinha, Ashish, Spötl, Christoph, Edwards, R. Lawrence, Zhang, Haiwei, Li, Xianglei, Yi, Liang, Ning, Youfeng, Cai, Yanjun, Lui, Weiguo Lui, Breitenbach, Sebastian
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing 2016
Subjects:
F600 Geology
F700 Ocean Sciences
F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences
F900 Others in Physical Sciences
Antarctic
Indian
Antarc*
ice core
Online Access:https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/42138/
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep24374
https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/42138/1/srep24374.pdf
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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 (δ18O) 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 δ18O 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.

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