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A high-resolution palaeorecord (06SD) from Lake Shudu, Yunnan Province, southwestern China indicates a broad trend towards catchment stability, enhanced organic productivity and regional forest-cover expansion during the early to mid Holocene. These changes are congruent with a shift to warm, wet climatic conditions, probably driven by orbitally forced Asian summer monsoon strengthening. Intriguingly, however, during the very early Holocene ( c. 10.7 to 10.1 cal. ka BP), there is a prominent reversal in this trend, suggesting a weakening Asian summer monsoon. The precise cause and extent of this event remain unclear but demonstrate the urgent need for more comprehensive dating of records from across the region to test for synchroneity and examine climatic forcing mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhong, W., Cao, J., Xue, J., Ouyang, J., Wang, H., Tang, X. & Gao, X. 2012 (January): Carbon isotope evidence of last glacial climate variations in the tropical NW Leizhou Peninsula, South China. Boreas, Vol. 41, pp. 102-112. 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2011.00224.x. ISSN 0300-9483. Bulk organic δ13C values of sediment sequences are commonly used to indicate past climatic changes, although the causes and mechanisms leading to the observed organic carbon isotope responses are presently not fully understood. Based on two sedimentary sequences, namely a peat profile and a fluvial and swamp sequence from the tropical NW Leizhou Peninsula in South China, we interpret more negative bulk organic δ13C values to suggest wetter and warmer conditions, implying a stronger East Asian (EA) summer monsoon, and less negative δ13C values to indicate drier and cooler conditions, reflecting a weakening of the EA summer monsoon. A warm and wet period occurred between c. 48.0 and 28.0 cal. ka BP. In the study region, a climate shift occurred at c. 22.0 (or 20.0) cal. ka BP, and the driest and coldest period occurred between c. 19.0 and 16.0 cal. ka BP. After c. 12.0 cal. ka BP, the climate changed towards wetter and warmer conditions. Several possible millennial-scale dry and cold oscillations characterized possibly by C4 plants, or by more positive organic δ13C values during the period when C3 plants dominated, are cautiously and tentatively interpreted as showing a similarity with Heinrich events and other cold millennial-scale oscillations evidenced from a Greenland ice core and Chinese stalagmite. We demonstrate that bulk organic δ13C records of sedimentary sequences in the study region have potential for indicating the changes in vegetation composition that were closely associated with climate variation during the last glacial period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zhou, W., Yu, S.-Y., Burr, G. S., Kukla, G. J., Jull, A. J. T., Xian, F., Xiao, J., Colman, S. M., Yu, H., Liu, Z. & Kong, X. 2010: Postglacial changes in the Asian summer monsoon system: a pollen record from the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Boreas, Vol. 39, pp. 528–539. 10.1111/j.1502-3885.2010.00150.x. ISSN 0300-9483. A new pollen record constrained by 32 AMS radiocarbon dates from the Hongyuan peatland in the Zoige Basin reveals the long-term dynamics of an alpine wetland ecosystem on the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau over the last 13 500 years. Changes in pollen assemblages and influxes suggest that local vegetation has experienced three distinct stages, from alpine coniferous forest–meadow (13 500–11 500 cal. a BP), through alpine coniferous forest (11 500–3000 cal. a BP), back to alpine coniferous forest–meadow (3000 cal. a BP–present). This record reflects an ecosystem response along a transition zone where the South Asian and East Asian monsoon systems may have had different palaeoclimatic influences. A comparison of this record with other pollen records across the Tibetan Plateau shows common features with regard to large-scale Holocene climatic changes, but highlights a pattern of regional temporal and spatial variability that depends on the topography and position relative to the South Asian and East Asian monsoon fronts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]