TY  - JOUR
IS  - 14
EP  - 10
SN  - 0094-8276
TI  - Severe Drought Conditions in Northern East Asia During the Early Pliocene Caused by Weakened Pacific Meridional Temperature Gradient
AV  - public
KW  - drought conditions
KW  -  meridional SST gradient
KW  -  GDGTs
KW  -  Asian summer monsoon
KW  -  early pliocene
N1  - This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions.
N2  - The evolution of hydroclimate in East Asia during the Pliocene?a potential analog of the future greenhouse climate?remains highly uncertain. Here we reconstruct changes in the hydroclimate of Northern China during this epoch. Our results reveal previously undocumented severe drought conditions that persisted through the early Pliocene with a significantly greater magnitude than suggested by other records. Using a broad hierarchy of climate simulations, we find that reduction in the Pacific meridional sea surface temperature (SST) gradient has particularly strong impacts on precipitation over Northern China, which suggests its key role in maintaining drought conditions during the early Pliocene. The weaker Pacific meridional SST gradient causes the weakening of the East Asian summer monsoon precipitation over this region via a reduction of atmospheric northward moisture transport from the ocean, which enhances aridity inland. Our results highlight the fundamental control of the tropical ocean on the extra-tropical hydrological cycle.
ID  - discovery10152838
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098813
Y1  - 2022/07/28/
JF  - Geophysical Research Letters
A1  - Zheng, Yanhong
A1  - Fedorov, Alexey
A1  - Burls, Natalie J
A1  - Zhang, Rui
A1  - Brierley, Chris M
A1  - Fang, Zhengkun
A1  - Yu, Xuefeng
A1  - Xian, Feng
A1  - Lu, Hongxuan
PB  - AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION
VL  - 49
ER  -