12 - Bond events and monsoon variability during Holocene—Evidence from marine and continental archives

Abstract

The high frequency of climate instability for the late Pleistocene has revealed the recurrence of Dansgaard–Oeschger (D/O) and Heinrich (H) events. During the Holocene epoch, the Ice Rafted Debris from the North Atlantic was identified as the Bond event (BE) and were considered to be the equivalent of D/O cycles. The BE has been numbered from 0 to 8 wherein 0 corresponds to Little Ice Age (∼0.4 ka) and 1 corresponds to Dark Age Cold Period (∼1.4 ka), while 2, 3, 4, 5a, 5b, 6, 7, and 8 correspond to ∼2.8 ka, ∼4.4 ka, ∼5.5 ka, ∼7.5 ka, ∼8.1 ka, ∼9.4 ka, ∼10.3 ka, and ∼11.1 ka climatic events. Though the driving mechanism of BE remains uncertain, the reduced solar forcing and thermohaline circulation has been associated with the BE which in turn have hemispheric scale teleconnections. The Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) impacting the south Asian countries with significant rainfall over Indian landmass and nearby areas has expounded a teleconnection with other climate variables and forcing factors. Despite having extensive studies on ISM reconstruction and reviews on the Holocene epoch, its climatic association with BE remains poorly understood. The present chapter attempts to pave an understanding of the link and/or teleconnection of the ISM during each spell of the BE from 0 to 8 and highlights the response of marine and terrestrial archives from the northern Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent to the BE during the Holocene epoch.