Higher sea surface temperature in the Indian Ocean during the Last Interglacial weakened the South Asian monsoon.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35238640.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2107720119 and PMC identifier 8915836.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
SignificanceUnderstanding the drivers of South Asian monsoon intensity is pivotal for improving climate forecasting under global warming scenarios. Solar insolation is assumed to be the dominant driver of monsoon variability in warm climate regimes, but this has not been verified by proxy data. We report a South Asian monsoon rainfall record spanning the last ∼130 kyr in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river catchment. Our multiproxy data reveal that the South Asian monsoon was weaker during the Last Interglacial (130 to 115 ka)-despite higher insolation-than during the Holocene (11.6 ka to present), thus questioning the widely accepted model assumption. Our work implies that Indian Ocean warming may increase the occurrence of severe monsoon failures in South Asia.