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Science 7 November 2008:
Vol. 322. no. 5903, pp. 940 - 942
DOI: 10.1126/science.1163965
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Reports

A Test of Climate, Sun, and Culture Relationships from an 1810-Year Chinese Cave Record

Pingzhong Zhang,1 Hai Cheng,2* R. Lawrence Edwards,2 Fahu Chen,1 Yongjin Wang,3 Xunlin Yang,1 Jian Liu,4 Ming Tan,5 Xianfeng Wang,2 Jinghua Liu,1 Chunlei An,1 Zhibo Dai,1 Jing Zhou,1 Dezhong Zhang,1 Jihong Jia,1 Liya Jin,1 Kathleen R. Johnson6

A record from Wanxiang Cave, China, characterizes Asian Monsoon (AM) history over the past 1810 years. The summer monsoon correlates with solar variability, Northern Hemisphere and Chinese temperature, Alpine glacial retreat, and Chinese cultural changes. It was generally strong during Europe's Medieval Warm Period and weak during Europe's Little Ice Age, as well as during the final decades of the Tang, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties, all times that were characterized by popular unrest. It was strong during the first several decades of the Northern Song Dynasty, a period of increased rice cultivation and dramatic population increase. The sign of the correlation between the AM and temperature switches around 1960, suggesting that anthropogenic forcing superseded natural forcing as the major driver of AM changes in the late 20th century.

1 Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environment Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China.
2 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
3 College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China.
4 Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
5 Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
6 Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.

* To whom correspondences should be addressed. E-mail: cheng021{at}umn.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)