Variability of Southwest Indian summer monsoon precipitation during the Bølling-Ållerød
- Ashish Sinha1,
- Kevin G. Cannariato2,
- Lowell D. Stott2,
- Hong-Chun Li2,
- Chen-Feng You3,
- Hai Cheng4,
- R. Lawrence Edwards4 and
- Indra B. Singh5
- 1Department of Earth Sciences, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California 90747, USA
- 2 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
- 3Department of Earth Sciences, National Cheng-Kung University, Taiwan 701, Republic of China
- 4 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
- 5Department of Geology, Lucknow University, Lucknow 226002, India
Abstract
We have generated a high-resolution (<20 yr) 230Th-dated stalagmite oxygen isotope record from Timta Cave in the western Himalaya in India that documents Southwest Indian summer monsoon (ISM) precipitation variations during the Bølling-Ållerød interstadial from 15.2 to 11.7 ka. Compared with the glacial and Younger Dryas, ISM precipitation was enhanced during the Bølling-Ållerød. ISM precipitation was apparently coupled to variations in the East Asian monsoon and North Atlantic climate on millennial and multicentennial time scales during the deglaciation. Analyses of a high growth rate interval (<2.5 yr resolution) encompassing the late Bølling–early Ållerød suggest that multidecadal monsoon variability was an important aspect of ISM behavior at that time. The frequency spectrum of ISM precipitation during this time interval is similar to that of the Δ14C record and other ISM precipitation records during the latest Holocene. This raises the hypothesis that multidecadal climate dynamics during the late Bølling–early Ållerød may have been similar to those that operated during the last several millennia, even though the boundary conditions of these two time intervals were very different.
Footnotes
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↵GSA Data Repository item 2005161, Figures DR1–DR3 and Table DR1, is available online at www.geosociety.org/pubs/ft2005.htm or on request from editing{at}geosociety.org or Documents Secretary, GSA, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301-9140, USA.
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- Accepted 18 June 2005.
- Received 25 February 2005.
- Revision received 16 June 2005.
- Geological Society of America
