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This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Cheng, H. Articles by Matter, A.

Timing and structure of the 8.2 kyr B.P. event inferred from ¹⁸O records of stalagmites from China, Oman, and Brazil

¹ Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
² Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
³ Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
⁴ Instituto de Geociências, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Lago, Brazil
⁵ Instituto do Carste, Rua Kepler 385/04, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
⁶ Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, c/o Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
⁷ College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China
⁸ Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA

Correspondence: *E-mails: cheng021{at}umn.edu; fleitmann{at}geo.unibe.ch.

Oxygen isotope records of stalagmites from China and Oman reveal a weak summer monsoon event, with a double-plunging structure, that started 8.21 ± 0.02 kyr B.P. An identical but antiphased pattern is also evident in two stalagmite records from eastern Brazil, indicating that the South American Summer Monsoon was intensified during the 8.2 kyr B.P. event. These records demonstrate that the event was of global extent and synchronous within dating errors of <50 years. In comparison with recent model simulations, it is plausible that the 8.2 kyr B.P. event can be tied in changes of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation triggered by a glacial lake draining event. This, in turn, affected North Atlantic climate and latitudinal position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone, resulting in the observed low-latitude monsoonal precipitation patterns.