Holocene precipitation changes in northeastern China from CCSM3 transient climate simulations

Abstract

To date, climate records have mainly shown three different trends of Holocene precipitation evolution in northeastern (NE) China, and the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we use model results from Holocene transient climate simulations conducted by the Community Climate System Model version 3 to investigate the evolution of precipitation in NE China and the associated mechanisms. The model results indicate that precipitation changes within NE China show obvious spatial discrepancies. In particular, the annual precipitation maximum occurs in the early Holocene for the western subregion, while it occurs in the mid-late Holocene for the eastern subregion. These results show two different trends of Holocene precipitation within NE China capturing the large-scale precipitation changes appearing in climate records. These spatial features are closely related to the gradual weakening of the East Asian summer monsoon during the Holocene and are mainly attributed to the combined effects of orbital forcing and the ice sheet. Changes in orbital parameters play a major role in the decreased precipitation in the western subregion, while changes in the ice sheet contribute more to the increased precipitation in the eastern subregion. The observed model-data discrepancy partly relates to the low horizontal resolution employed and the physical processes and parameterizations of the model used.