Resilience of the Asian atmospheric circulation shown by Paleogene dust provenance

Licht, Alexis; Dupont‐Nivet, Guillaume; Pullen, Alex; Kapp, Paul; Abels, Hemmo A.; Lai, Zhongping; Guo, Zhaojie; Abell, Jordan T.; Giesler, Dominique

doi:10.1038/ncomms12390

Cited by 89 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The Oligocene to Miocene Transition (OMT) is characterised by a higher variability in climate, which corresponds to the Late Oligocene Warming and the first Miocene Glacial. This record, which post-dates the retreat of the Tarim sea and predates the main tectonic up-lift events, confirm that aridification during Oligocene is a general feature for Central Asia (Licht et al 2016b). These multiple aridification events generally follow global climatic trends; however, regional scale climatic and faunal variation is also recorded in the sediments of the Valley of Lakes.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Geochemistry and mineralogy of the Oligo-Miocene sediments of the Valley of Lakes, Mongolia

Richoz

Baldermann

Frauwallner

et al. 2017

Palaeobio Palaeoenv

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The Valley of Lakes is approximately a 500-km elongate depression in Central Mongolia, where Eocene to Miocene continental sediments are long known for their outstanding fossil richness. The palaeontological record of this region is an exceptional witness for the evolution of mammalian communities during the Cenozoic global cooling and regional aridification. In order to precisely elucidate the climatic evolution of the region, we studied the mostly siliciclastic sediments with several levels of paleosols for their sedimentology, mineralogy, major and trace element composition and δ13C and δ18O composition. The obtained results show that temperate hydrothermal fluids induced a strong illitization of the fluvial and lacustrine sediments. This finding contradicts the current conceptual view that the fine fraction of the sediments is of aeolian origin. Moreover, the diagenetic growth of illite resulted in a strong overprinting of the sediments and, subsequently, largely disturbed the pristine mineralogical and geochemical composition of the sediments that could have carried any palaeo-climatic information. An exception is the δ13C (and δ18O) isotope values of authigenic carbonate found in calcrete horizons that still record the ambient climatic conditions prevailing during paleosol formation. Our novel δ13C and δ18O record suggests an early Oligocene aridification in Central Asia at ∼31 Ma, whereas the Oligocene glacial maximum shows no increase in aridification. A second, regional-scale aridification occurs at ~25 Ma and corresponds to a late Oligocene marked mammalian turnover in the Valley of Lakes sediments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Geochemistry and mineralogy of the Oligo-Miocene sediments of the Valley of Lakes, Mongolia

Richoz

Baldermann

Frauwallner

et al. 2017

Palaeobio Palaeoenv

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“…Cooling of the austral subpolar regions and/or ice sheet formation in Antarctica – which may have occurred as early as around 36.5 Ma in the Weddell Sea 46 – would cool the Southern Hemisphere, mimicking the seasonal pattern during the austral winter and forcing the ITCZ to shift northwards over monsoonal Asia and SE Tibet. Although the conjecture of an Eocene ITCZ anchored to the Tibetan Plateau was recently debated 47 , a more northern ITCZ over monsoonal Asia, associated with progressive tropical warming and enhanced heat accumulation in the low-latitudes 6 , would arguably favor wetter climatic conditions in our study area (~20°N; Fig. 1); this configuration would create more humidity and less continentality in SE Tibet, as inferred from our sedimentological data documenting persistently wetter conditions around ~35.5 Ma.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

“…This Late Eocene climatic pattern over SE Asia does not question the numerous paleoclimatic records documenting a coeval aridification throughout Central Asia 7 . Rather, it does suggest that monsoonal and SE Asia experienced a significant wetter climate during the LED while marked aridity prevailed in Central Asia, due to the persistence of subtropical high pressures throughout most of the year and westerly-dominated surface circulation along the northern margin of the Tibetan Plateau 47 . In addition, our findings suggest that the stepwise retreat of the Tarim Sea – leading to the aridification of Central Asia by reducing moisture supply to the Asian continental interior 48, 49 – most likely had little impact (if any) on the synoptic-level atmospheric circulation and regional climatic patterns in SE Tibet.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wet tropical climate in SE Tibet during the Late Eocene

Sorrel

Eymard

Leloup

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Cenozoic climate cooling at the advent of the Eocene-Oligocene transition (EOT), ~33.7 Ma ago, was stamped in the ocean by a series of climatic events albeit the impact of this global climatic transition on terrestrial environments is still fragmentary. Yet archival constraints on Late Eocene atmospheric circulation are scarce in (tropical) monsoonal Asia, and the paucity of terrestrial records hampers a meaningful comparison of the long-term climatic trends between oceanic and continental realms. Here we report new sedimentological data from the Jianchuan basin (SE Tibet) arguing for wetter climatic conditions in monsoonal Asia at ~35.5 Ma almost coevally to the aridification recognized northwards in the Xining basin. We show that the occurrence of flash-flood events in semi-arid to sub-humid palustrine-sublacustrine settings preceded the development of coal-bearing deposits in swampy-like environments, thus paving the way to a more humid climate in SE Tibet ahead from the EOT. We suggest that this moisture redistribution possibly reflects more northern and intensified ITCZ-induced tropical rainfall in monsoonal Asia around 35.5 Ma, in accordance with recent sea-surface temperature reconstructions from equatorial oceanic records. Our findings thus highlight an important period of climatic upheaval in terrestrial Asian environments ~2–4 millions years prior to the EOT.

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“…Likewise, the arid climate in the north and west regions of East Asia showed multistage variation. Arid climate conditions may have initiated as early as the Eocene (Li et al, 2018;Licht et al, 2016), becoming more pronounced throughout the Oligocene (e.g., Dupont-Nivet et al, 2007;Sun & Windley, 2015;Xiao et al, 2010) and Miocene (e.g., Guo et al, 2002;Zheng et al, 2015). Thus, an establishment of a modern-like monsoon climate in East Asia includes at least two criteria: a nonzonal climate pattern and strengthened precipitation and wind seasonality in East China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Cooling Contributed to the Establishment of a Modern‐Like East Asian Monsoon Climate by the Early Miocene

Zhang

Jiang

2018

Geophysical Research Letters

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The establishment of a modern‐like monsoon climate in East Asia by the early Miocene was a complex process forced by several factors, and previous studies paid less attention to global cooling. Here we investigate this process using climate modeling by considering changes in topography and global cooling under the early Miocene boundary conditions. Using early Miocene paleogeography and an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 560 ppmv, our model results indicate that a nonzonal climate pattern has appeared in East China but that this climate exhibits weak precipitation and wind seasonality. Such seasonality strengthens as the concentration of atmospheric CO2 decreases from 560 to 420 ppmv and resembles the modern‐like condition after the growth of the Antarctic ice sheet. Although the development of East Asian topography can further strengthen this seasonality, our results indicate that global cooling is also pivotal for the establishment of a modern‐like monsoon climate in East Asia.

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Resilience of the Asian atmospheric circulation shown by Paleogene dust provenance

Cited by 89 publications

References 36 publications

Geochemistry and mineralogy of the Oligo-Miocene sediments of the Valley of Lakes, Mongolia

Geochemistry and mineralogy of the Oligo-Miocene sediments of the Valley of Lakes, Mongolia

Wet tropical climate in SE Tibet during the Late Eocene

Global Cooling Contributed to the Establishment of a Modern‐Like East Asian Monsoon Climate by the Early Miocene

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