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A tale of shifting relations: East Asian summer and winter monsoon variability during the Holocene
Understanding the dynamics between the East Asian summer (EASM) and winter monsoon (EAWM) is needed to predict their variability under future global warming scenarios. Here, we investigate the relationship between EASM and EAWM as well as the mechanisms driving their variability during the last 10,000 years by stacking marine and terrestrial (non-speleothem) proxy records from the East Asian realm. This provides a regional and proxy independent signal for both monsoonal systems. The respective signal was subsequently analysed using a linear regression model. We find that the phase relationship between EASM and EAWM is not time-constant and significantly depends on orbital configuration changes. In addition, changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning circulation, Arctic sea-ice coverage, El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Sun Spot numbers contributed to millennial scale changes in the EASM and EAWM during the Holocene. We also argue that the bulk signal of monsoonal activity captured by the stacked non-speleothem proxy records supports the previously argued bias of speleothem climatic archives to moisture source changes and/or seasonality.
Insolation-paced sea level and sediment flux during the early Pleistocene in Southeast Asia
Global marine archives from the early Pleistocene indicate that glacial-interglacial cycles, and their corresponding sea-level cycles, have predominantly a periodicity of ~ 41 kyrs driven by Earth’s obliquity. Here, we present a clastic shallow-marine record from the early Pleistocene in Southeast Asia (Cholan Formation, Taiwan). The studied strata comprise stacked cyclic successions deposited in offshore to nearshore environments in the paleo-Taiwan Strait. The stratigraphy was compared to both a δ18O isotope record of benthic foraminifera and orbital parameters driving insolation at the time of deposition. Analyses indicate a strong correlation between depositional cycles and Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, which is precession-dominated with an obliquity component. Our results represent geological evidence of precession-dominated sea-level fluctuations during the early Pleistocene, independent of a global ice-volume proxy. Preservation of this signal is possible due to the high-accommodation creation and high-sedimentation rate in the basin enhancing the completeness of the stratigraphic record.