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Episode of Strengthened Summer Monsoon Climate of Younger Dryas Age on the Loess Plateau of Central China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

An Zhisheng ,
Stephen C. Porter ,
Zhou Weijian ,
Lu Yanchou ,
Douglas J. Donahue ,
M. J. Head ,
Wu Xihuo ,
Ren Jianzhang  and
Zheng Hongbo
An Zhisheng
Affiliation:
Xi'an Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Academia Sinica, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China
Stephen C. Porter
Affiliation:
Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
Zhou Weijian
Affiliation:
Xi'an Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Academia Sinica, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China
Lu Yanchou
Affiliation:
Xi'an Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Academia Sinica, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China
Douglas J. Donahue
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
M. J. Head
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Research Unit, ANU, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
Wu Xihuo
Affiliation:
Xi'an Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Academia Sinica, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China
Ren Jianzhang
Affiliation:
Xi'an Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Academia Sinica, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China
Zheng Hongbo
Affiliation:
Xi'an Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Academia Sinica, Xi'an 710061, People's Republic of China
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Abstract

The Baxie loess section, just east of the Tibetan Plateau, contains evidence showing that the Asian monsoon climate experienced an abrupt reversal near the end of the last glacial age. Rapid deposition of dust under cool, dry full-glacial conditions gave way to an interval of soil development and reduced dust influx attributed to a strengthening of the warm, moist summer monsoon. A subsequent abrupt increase in dust deposition, a response to a weakening of the summer monsoon, was later followed by renewed soil formation as summer monsoon circulation again intensified during the early Holocene. By one interpretation, the thin upper loess is a manifestation of the European Younger Dryas oscillation; however, in this case the available 14C ages require either that (1) onset of loess deposition lagged the beginning of the Younger Dryas event in Europe by as much as 2000 calibrated 14C years or (2) all the 14C ages are too young, possibly due to contamination. Alternatively, the late-glacial paleosol, the top of which is synchronous with the abrupt end of the late-glacial δ18O anomaly in the Dye 3 Greenland ice core, records the Younger Dryas event. Such an interpretation is consistent with general circulation model simulations of Younger Dryas climate that show strong seasonality and a strengthened summer monsoon, and with marine cores from the western Pacific Ocean that contain evidence of pronounced cooling of surface waters during Younger Dryas time.

Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 45 - 54
Copyright
University of Washington

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