Climate of the Past Discussions www.clim-past-discuss.net 1814-9340 1814-9359 3 5 2007 10.5194/cpd-3-1119-2007 http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/3/1119/2007/ http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/3/1119/2007/cpd-3-1119-2007.html http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/3/1119/2007/cpd-3-1119-2007.pdf 1119 1132 2007-10-11 Strong summer monsoon during the cool MIS-13 Q. Z. Yin yin@astr.ucl.ac.be Z. T. Guo Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 9825, Beijing 100029, China Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics G. Lemaître, Catholic University of Louvain, Chemin du Cyclotron 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium The δ¹⁸O record in deep-sea sediments show a significant reduced amplitude of the ice volume variations before Marine Isotope Stage 11, about 400 kyr ago, with less warm interglacials and less cold glacials. The deuterium temperature and the greenhouse gases records in the Antarctic ice cores show the same feature. As the reduction in the amplitude of climate and greenhouse gases concentration variations before 400 kyr BP is present in both deep-sea and ice cores, it is tempting to conclude that this is a worldwide phenomenon. This is not necessarily true, at least as far as some of the records, in particular of China, are concerned. The loess in northern China, the sedimentary core in the eastern Tibetan Plateau and the palaeosols in southern China all record an unusually warm and wet climate during Marine Isotope Stage 13, indicating an extremely strong East Asian summer monsoon. During the same interglacial, unusually strong African and Indian monsoon are recorded in the sediments of the equatorial Indian Ocean and of the Mediterranean Sea. Other extreme climate events are also recorded in sediment cores of the equatorial Atlantic, the Pacific, the subtropical South Atlantic Ocean and in the Lake Baikal of Siberia. An, Z. S. and Wei, L. 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