Hydroclimate footprint of pan-Asian monsoon water isotope during the last deglaciation

C He; Z Liu; B L Otto-Bliesner; E C Brady; C Zhu; R Tomas; P U Clark; J Zhu; A Jahn; S Gu; J Zhang; J Nusbaumer; D Noone; H Cheng; Y Wang; M Yan; Y Bao

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe2611

Hydroclimate footprint of pan-Asian monsoon water isotope during the last deglaciation

Sci Adv. 2021 Jan 22;7(4):eabe2611. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe2611. Print 2021 Jan.

Authors

C He^{1

2

3}, Z Liu^{4

2}, B L Otto-Bliesner⁵, E C Brady⁵, C Zhu^{3

2}, R Tomas⁵, P U Clark^{6

7}, J Zhu⁵, A Jahn⁸, S Gu^{9

2}, J Zhang^{10

11}, J Nusbaumer¹², D Noone⁶, H Cheng^{13

14

15}, Y Wang¹², M Yan^{12

3}, Y Bao²

Affiliations

¹ College of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.
² Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
³ Open Studio for Ocean-Climate-Isotope Modeling, Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.
⁴ College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China. liu.7022@osu.edu.
⁵ Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA.
⁶ College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA.
⁷ School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland BT52 1SA, UK.
⁸ Department for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
⁹ School of Oceanography, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
¹⁰ Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹¹ NOAA/Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹² College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China.
¹³ Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
¹⁴ State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an, China.
¹⁵ Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.

Abstract

Oxygen isotope speleothem records exhibit coherent variability over the pan-Asian summer monsoon (AM) region. The hydroclimatic representation of these oxygen isotope records for the AM, however, has remained poorly understood. Here, combining an isotope-enabled Earth system model in transient experiments with proxy records, we show that the widespread AM δ¹⁸O_c signal during the last deglaciation (20 to 11 thousand years ago) is accompanied by a continental-scale, coherent hydroclimate footprint, with spatially opposite signs in rainfall. This footprint is generated as a dynamically coherent response of the AM system primarily to meltwater forcing and secondarily to insolation forcing and is further reinforced by atmospheric teleconnection. Hence, widespread δ¹⁸O_p depletion in the AM region is accompanied by a northward migration of the westerly jet and enhanced southwesterly monsoon wind, as well as increased rainfall from South Asia (India) to northern China but decreased rainfall in southeast China.

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