Reconstructing atmospheric changes in monsoon regions using eolian dust

Abstract

Mineral dust is generated in continental interiors and exported by winds to ocean basins, providing a sedimentary archive which is one of the few direct indicators we have of atmospheric circulation in the past. This archive can be utilized in regions of dust transport also affected by monsoons to examine how different climate forcing mechanisms impact the monsoon regions over glacial-interglacial, orbital, and millennial timescales. This thesis generates new eolian dust records from two monsoon regions to reconstruct changes in atmospheric circulation in response to forcing by high-latitude insolation and boundary condition change. In Chapters 2 and 3 I use ²³⁰Thxs-normalization to construct high-resolution eolian dust flux records from sedimentary archives downwind from the West African and East Asian Monsoon regions respectively.

The West African margin dust records show variability associated with an interplay between Northern Hemisphere summer insolation forcing and North Atlantic cooling. The longest record at ODP Site 658, stretching back to 67 ka, shows evidence for a "Green Sahara" interval from 60-50 ka and a skipped precessional "beat" from 35-20 ka. This record also shows evidence for abrupt increases in dust flux associated with Greenland stadials. The Shatsky Rise record at ODP Site 1208, downwind of East Asian dust sources, shows variability associated with glacial-interglacial boundary conditions over the last 330 ka, exhibiting high dust during glacial times. The record also exhibits variability associated with a Northern Hemisphere summer insolation control at times overriding the glacial-interglacial signal.

In Chapter 4 I demonstrate the feasibility of using radiogenic neodymium isotopes (¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd) at IODP Site U1430 in the Sea of Japan to fingerprint the provenance of eolian material at the core site from Asian dust sources. I then generate a ¹⁴³Nd/¹⁴⁴Nd record from isolated eolian material over the last 200 ka to examine Westerly Jet behavior in the Asian interior, which shows resolvable orbital-scale variability from 200 to 100 ka, and muted variability from 100 to 0 ka. The findings imply a quicker shift of the Westerly Jet to the north of the Tibetan Plateau during times of high Northern Hemisphere summer insolation and a strong Asian monsoon.