EAST ASIAN MONSOON VARIATIONS AND THEIR LINKS TO THE NORTH ATLANTIC DURING THE LAST 6,000 YEARS

We reconstructed the changes in the East Asian monsoon during the last 6000 years by high resolution maar sediments in Cheju Island, Korea situated leeward of eolian dust source areas, China. From the recovered monsoonal proxy data including eolian-originated lithogenic minerals and authigenic total organic matter, we defined intensified winter monsoon events (WME 1-9) with peaks at ca. 970, 1600, 2000, 2900, 3300, 3900, 4500, 5100, 5700 yr BP showing persistent centennial fluctuations, and summer monsoon variations showing asynchronous climatic trends in Cheju Island compared with the inner part of China, eolian dust source areas. These climatic events (WME 1-9) show close correlation with the ice-rafted debris (IRD) cooling events in the North Atlantic, implying teleconnection between both regions through cold air mass activity and the related atmospheric pressure system. Our results demonstrate that a succession of persistent centennial-scale variability in the East Asian monsoon during the last 6000 years may be linked and amplified by the North Atlantic cooling events synchronously affected by the variability of solar activity.