Abstract
Various proxies suggest a nearly in-phase variation of monsoons with local summer insolation. Oceanic proxies of monsoons document a more complex response. Climate model simulations also indicate that the response is different over land and ocean. Here using a transient simulation by a climate model over the last 22,000 years we have unraveled the factors that lead to these differences within the Indian subcontinent. We show that during the deglacial (22–12 ka) precipitation over India and the Bay of Bengal (BoB) are in phase, whereas they are out of phase across the Holocene (sim 12 ka to 0 ka). During the deglacial, water vapor amplifies the effect of solar forcing on precipitation over both the regions, whereas contributions from surface latent heat fluxes over the BoB drive an opposite response across the Holocene. We find that greenhouse gas forcing drives similar precipitation response over land and ocean, whereas orbital forcing produces a different response over land and ocean. We have further demonstrated that during periods of abrupt climate change [such as the Bølling–Allerød (sim 14 ka)], water vapor affects precipitation mainly through its influence on the vertical stability of the atmosphere. These results highlight the complex nature of precipitation over the BoB and thus has implications for the interpretation of monsoon proxies.
Highlights
Various proxies suggest a nearly in-phase variation of monsoons with local summer insolation
There is substantial proxy-based evidence to suggest that terrestrial precipitation over the northern hemisphere vary in near synchrony with each other and are mainly driven by the variations in solar insolation[1]. This has been attributed to the latitudinal shift in the zonal mean intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), which is driven by the differential warming of the two hemispheres[2,3,4]
The peak of the last glacial period known as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM)
Summary
Various proxies suggest a nearly in-phase variation of monsoons with local summer insolation. We have further demonstrated that during periods of abrupt climate change [such as the Bølling–Allerød (∼ 14 ka)], water vapor affects precipitation mainly through its influence on the vertical stability of the atmosphere These results highlight the complex nature of precipitation over the BoB and has implications for the interpretation of monsoon proxies. The proxy suggests that precipitation increased in the BoB over the last 4,000 years, whereas speleothem records from mainland India show a decrease in monsoon over the same p eriod[10] This differential response of the land and ocean highlights the role of local factors, which are as important as the changes in solar insolation forcing. We have used a diagnostic model for moisture convergence over well-defined monsoon regions, based on the vertically integrated moist static energy and moisture budgets to investigate the changes in precipitation (see “Methods” for more details)
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