Insolation and Abrupt Climate Change Effects on the Western Pacific Maritime Monsoon

The response of the Asian-Australian monsoon system to changes in summer insolation over the Holocene is recorded in many monsoon-sensitive paleoclimate reconstructions. The response is commonly direct; more summer insolation leads to increased monsoon rainfall over land as captured in stalagmite δ18O records from Oman and China. We evaluate this direct response using a maritime stalagmite record from the island of Palawan, Philippines (10 N, 119 E). The wet season in Palawan occurs over the same months (June-October) as in Oman, India and China. Therefore, we expected the stalagmite δ18O record from Palawan, a proxy of rainfall, to have a similar trend of decreasing monsoon rainfall over the Holocene. However, the Holocene trend in stalagmite δ18O is opposite to that expected: rainfall increases over the Holocene. Our explanation for the Holocene trend observed at Palawan is that the increase in the maritime monsoon balances the reduction in the land monsoon; an explanation that is consistent with previously published coupled ocean-atmosphere general circulation model results. Seawater δ18O reconstructions from marine sediment cores in the western tropical Pacific contain a freshening trend over the Holocene, also supporting the hypothesis of increase maritime monsoon rainfall. However, the decrease in maritime monsoon rainfall during the Younger Dryas at Palawan matches that observed in Chinese stalagmite records, meeting our original expectation of a similar wet season response in the various Asian-Australian monsoon records. One explanation for the similar Younger Dryas response in these monsoon records is the influence of seasonal changes in sea ice coverage, as previously suggested. A stalagmite δ18O record from Borneo (~800 km SE of Palawan), which lacks evidence of the Younger Dryas, provides supporting evidence for this explanation.