A 550,000-year record of East Asian monsoon rainfall from 10Be in loess

Cosmogenic 10Be flux from the atmosphere is a proxy for rainfall. Using this proxy, we derived a 550,000-year-long record of East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) rainfall from Chinese loess. This record is forced at orbital precession frequencies, with higher rainfall observed during Northern Hemisphere summer insolation maxima, although this response is damped during cold interstadials. The 10Be monsoon rainfall proxy is also highly correlated with global ice-volume variations, which differs from Chinese cave δ18O, which is only weakly correlated. We argue that both EASM intensity and Chinese cave δ18O are not governed by high-northern-latitude insolation, as suggested by others, but rather by low-latitude interhemispheric insolation gradients, which may also strongly influence global ice volume via monsoon dynamics.

By J. Warren Beck, et al.

May 23rd, 2018

East Asian monsoon mysteries

Paleoclimatology East Asian monsoon

By H. Jesse Smith

Nov 2nd, 2018

Asian Monsoon Failure and Megadrought During the Last Millennium

(Asian Monsoon Failure and Megadrought During the Last Millennium)[DOI: 10.1126/science.1185188]

By Edward R. Cook, et al.

Apr 22nd, 2010