Climate of the Past Discussions www.clim-past-discuss.net 1814-9340 1814-9359 4 4 2008 10.5194/cpd-4-929-2008 http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/929/2008/ http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/929/2008/cpd-4-929-2008.html http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/4/929/2008/cpd-4-929-2008.pdf 929 953 2008-08-13 Holocene weak summer East Asian monsoon intervals in subtropical Taiwan and their global synchronicity K. Selvaraj kselva8@yahoo.com C.-T. A. Chen J.-Y. Lou Institute of Marine Geology and Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung 804, Taiwan Department of Marine Science, Naval Academy, P.O. Box 90175, Tsoying, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Sedimentary total organic carbon and carbon-to-nitrogen ratio records from the subalpine Retreat Lake in NE Taiwan reveal four centennial periods (~8–8.3, 5.1–5.7, 4.5–~2.1, and 2–1.6 kyr BP) of relatively reduced summer East Asian monsoon (EAM) precipitation that were superimposed on the insolation-dependent, long-term decreasing monsoon trend during the middle and late Holocene while early Holocene monsoon strength was controlled by glacial boundary conditions. Strikingly, all weak monsoon events correlate with the timings of low sea surface temperature in the tropical Pacific, maxima of hematite stained-grains in the sediments of North Atlantic, reduced formation of North Atlantic Deep Water, and low concentrations of atmospheric methane over Greenland, suggesting a globally well-connected postglacial climate (from ca. 8.6 kyr BP onwards). 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