Abstract
The Asian Monsoon climate system and accompanying precipitation play a significant role in large-scale climate variability and water supply over much of the globe. For instance, the Indian agriculture, which accounts for ~25% of the GDP and employs over 70% of the population, is heavily dependent on the monsoon rains, 80% of which arrives during the summer. While our predictive capabilities of the monsoon have improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years, perhaps a major missing link in our understanding of the phenomenon of the monsoons is knowledge of the forcing functions behind the short-term monsoon variability. To predict the evolution of inter-regional climate linkages on decadal and shorter time scales, it is crucial to understand how they evolved in the past. Palaeoclimatic studies using proxies from the marine and terrestrial records present large variations of the monsoon systems during the last glacial period and over the Holocene, which can be linked to abrupt millennial-scale warm-cold episodes over Greenland and the North Atlantic. For example, speleothem records from China indicate the links between Asian monsoon and solar input and North Atlantic ice-rafting events, during the Holocene. The Chinese records also appear to correlate fairly well with corresponding short-term variations in the Indian summer monsoon. Studies of the annual sea-ice variability over Antarctica also seem to indicate that deficient monsoon years are preceded by more than normal sea-ice extent and vice versa. Has such a linkage between the Polar Regions and the Asian monsoon persisted through time and if so, what has (have) been the forcing function (s)? Is there a synchronous or time-lagged inter-hemispheric linkage between the Arctic-Antarctic and the Asian monsoon? In this paper, I focus on these and related questions and highlight the importance of understanding the role of polar and high latitudinal regions on the monsoon phenomena.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Altabet MA, Higginson MJ, Murray DW (2002) The effect of millennial-scale changes in Arabian Sea denitrification on atmospheric CO2. Nature 415:159–162
Anderson DM, Overpeck JT, Gupta AK (2002) Increase in the Asian SW monsoon during the past four centuries. Science 297:596–599
Behl RJ, Kennett JP (1996) Brief interstadial events in the Santa Barbara basin, NE Pacific during the last 60 kyr. Nature 379:243–246
Berkelhammer M, Sinha A, Mudelsee M, Cannariato KG (2010) Persistent multi decadal power in the Indian summer monsoon. Earth Planet Sci Lett 290:166–172
Bhattacharyya A, Yadav R (1999) Climatic reconstruction using tree-ring data from tropical and temperate regions of India—a review. IAWA J 20:311–316
Bond G, Broecker WS et al (1993) Correlations between climate records from North Atlantic Sediments and Greenland ice. Nature 365:143–147
Broecker WS (1994) Massive iceberg discharges as triggers for global climate change. Nature 372:421–424
Broecker WS (1995) The glacial world according to wally, 2nd edn. Eldigio Press, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Palisades, New York
Burns SJ, Fleitmann D, Matter A, Kramers J, Al-Subbary AA (2003) Indian Ocean climate and an absolute chronology over Dansgaard/Oeschger events 9 to 13. Science 301:1365–1367
Charles CD, Lynch-Stieglitz J, Ninnemann US, Fairbanks RG (1996) Climate connections between the Hemisphere revealed by deep sea sediment core/ice core correlations. Earth Planet Sci Lett 142:19–27
Chawchai S (2014) Paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic changes in northeast Thailand during the Holocene. Ph.D. Thesis, Stockholm University, Sweden
Dansgaard W et al (1993) Evidence for general climate instability of past climate from a 250-kyr ice core record. Nature 364:218–220
Dugam SS, Kakade SB (2004) Antarctica sea-ice and monsoon variability. Indian J Radio Space Phys 33:306–309
Feng S, Hu Q (2008) How the North Atlantic multidecadal oscillation may have influenced the Indian summer monsoon during the past two millennia. Geophys Res Lett 35:L01707. doi:10.01029/2007GL032484
Fleitmann D, Burns S, Mudelsee M, Neff U, Kramers Mangini A, Matter A (2003) Holocene forcing of the Indian monsoon recorded in a stalagmite from southern Oman. Science 300:1737–1739
Goswami BN, Madhusoodanan MS, Neema CP, Sengupta D (2006) A physical mechanism for North Atlantic SST Influence on the Indian summer monsoon. Geophys Res Lett 33:L02706
Greenland Ice-Core Project (Grip) Members (1993) Climate Instability during the last interglacial period recorded in the GRIP ice core. Nature 364:203–207
Gupta AK, Anderson DM, Overpeck JT (2003) Abrupt changes in the Asian southwest monsoon during the Holocene and their links to the North Atlantic Ocean. Nature 421:354–357
Heinrich H (1988) Origin and consequences of cyclic ice rafting in the northeast Atlantic Ocean during the past 130,000 years. Quat Res 29:142–152 doi:10.1016/0033-5894(88)90057-9
Hong B et al (2014) Abrupt variations of Indian and East Asian summer monsoons during the last deglacial stadial and interstadial. Quat Sci Rev 97:58–70
Keigwin LD, Curry WB, Lehman SJ, Johnsen S (1994) The role of the deep ocean in North Atlantic climate change between 70 and 130 kyr Ago. Nature 371:323–326
Kudrass HR, Hofmann A, Doose H, Emeisand K, Erlenkeuser H (2001) Modulation and amplification of climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere by the Indian summer monsoon during the past 80 ky. Geology 29:63–66
Kutzbach JE (1981) Monsoon climate of the early Holocene: climate experiment with the earth’s orbital parameters for 9000 years ago. Science 214:59–61
Laskar J, Robutel P, Joutel F, Gastineau M., Correia ACM, And Levrard B (2004) A long-term numerical solution for the insolation quantities of the earth. Astron Astrophys 428:261–285
Lu R, Dongand B, Ding H (2006) Impact of the Atlantic multi decadal oscillation on the Asian summer monsoon. Geophys Res Lett 33:L24701
Luckge A, Doose-Rolinski A, Khan AA, Schulz H, von Rad U (2001) Monsoonal variability in the northeastern Arabian Sea during the past 5000 Years: geochemical evidence from laminated sediments. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 167:273–286
Marzin C, Kallel N, Kageyama M, Duplessy JC, Braconnot P (2013) Glacial fluctuations of the Indian Monsoon and their relationship with North Atlantic climate: new data and modelling experiments. Clim Past 9:2135–2151
Overpeck J (1996) Warm climate surprises. Science 271:1820–1821
OverpeckJ T, Anderson DM, Trumbore S, Prell WL (1996) The southwest monsoon over the last 18,000 years. Clim Dyn 12:213–225
Sarkar A, Ramesh R, Somayajulu BLK, Agnihotri R, Jull AJT, Burr GS (2000) High resolution Holocene monsoon record from the eastern Arabian Sea. Earth Planet Sci Lett 177:209–218
Schulz H, Radand U, Erlenkeuser H (1998) Correlations between Arabian Sea and Greenland climate oscillations of the past 110,00 years. Nature 393:54–57
Sirocko F, Leuschner D, Staubwasser M, Maley J, Heusser L. (1999) In: Clark P, Webb RS, Keigwin LD (eds) Mechanisms of global climate change at millennial time scales. American Geophysical Union, Washington D.C., pp 113–126
Tiwari M, Singh AK, Ramesh R (2011) High-resolution monsoon records since last glacial maximum: a comparison of marine and terrestrial paleoarchives from south Asia. J Geol Res 2011:1–12
Wang Y (2005) The Holocene Asian monsoon: links to solar changes and North Atlantic climate. Science 308:854–857
Wang YJ, Cheng H, Edwards RL, An ZS, Wu JY, Shen CC, Dorale JA (2001) A high-resolution absolute-dated late pleistocene monsoon record from Hulu Cave, China. Science 294:2345–2348
Yadava MG, Ramesh R (1999) Paleomonsoon record of the last 3400 years from speleothems of tropical India. Gondwana Geol Mag 4:141–156
Yanase W, Abe-Ouchi A (2007) The LGM surface climate and atmospheric circulation over East Asia and the North Pacific in the PMIP2 coupled model simulations. Clim Past 3:439–451
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the organizers of the Third edition of SaGAA and in particular to Ms. Sulagna Chattopadhyay, not only for giving me an opportunity to present this paper, but also for the excellent hospitality extended during the Conference. The SaGAA Conferences have always remained inspirational and I have been fortunate to have been invited to make presentations in all, till date! I would also like to thank Dr. Rasik Ravindra, the Chairman of the Organising Committee for so graciously putting up with the inordinate and inexcusable delay on my part in submitting this paper. I hope the paper justifies the delay.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rajan, S. (2018). Abrupt Climate Shifts Over the Past 10,000+ Years: An Arctic-Antarctic-Asian Imbroglio?. In: Goel, P., Ravindra, R., Chattopadhyay, S. (eds) Science and Geopolitics of The White World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57765-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57765-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57764-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57765-4
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)