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Palaeoclimate

The rhythm of the rains

Nature volume 451, pages 1062–1063 (2008)Cite this article

Deposits in a Chinese cave tell the story of the region's climate stretching back more than 200,000 years, well past the last interglacial warm period — an invaluable resource for understanding the Asian monsoon.

As Earth moves around the Sun, its orbital eccentricity (the deviation of its path from a perfect circle) and its obliquity (the tilt of its rotational axis) vary slowly over time. The axis of its rotation also wobbles like that of a spinning-top, a phenomenon known as precession. These effects combine to induce a 23,000-year quasi-periodicity in the distribution of incoming solar radiation (insolation). At different stages of this slow precessional cycle, insolation at a particular place on Earth's surface may be strongest during winter, summer, or somewhere in between.

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Figure 1: Cave records.

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  1. Jonathan Overpeck and Julia Cole are in the Departments of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA. jto@u.arizona.edu

    Jonathan Overpeck & Julia Cole

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  1. Jonathan Overpeck
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  2. Julia Cole
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Overpeck, J., Cole, J. The rhythm of the rains. Nature 451, 1062–1063 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/4511061a

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