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Palaeoclimate

Monsoon matters

Nature volume 517, pages 445–446 (2015)Cite this article

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A simplified global climate model that keeps track of water as it moves through Earth's water cycle throws fresh light on how the Asian summer monsoon has varied during the past 150,000 years.

On timescales of thousands to millions of years, changes in the tilt of Earth relative to the plane of its orbit, the shape of the orbit and its slow wobble about its axis (or 'precession') regulate and distribute incoming solar radiation (insolation) that fuels the ASM. The monsoon is thought to intensify during minima in precession, approximately every 23,000 years, when Earth is closest to the Sun during Northern Hemisphere summer (unlike today, when this occurs in winter). Further strengthening of the ASM occurs in part as a result of the growth and collapse of ice sheets covering northern Eurasia, which alter key wind patterns and shift the amount and location of East Asian rainfall. Greenhouse gases also influence the ASM by increasing the build-up of moisture in the atmosphere that is available to feed monsoonal precipitation.

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Figure 1: The Indo-Asian monsoon system.

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  1. Bronwen Konecky is at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA, and at the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis.,

    Bronwen Konecky

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  1. Bronwen Konecky
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Correspondence to Bronwen Konecky.

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Konecky, B. Monsoon matters. Nature 517, 445–446 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/517445a

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