Synergy of the westerly winds and monsoons in lake evolution of global closed basins since the Last Glacial Maximum

Abstract

Abstract. Monsoon system and westerly circulation, to which climate change responds differently, are two important components of global atmospheric circulation, interacting with each other in the mid-to-low latitudes and having synergy effect to those regions. Relevant researches on global millennial-scale climate change in monsoon and westerlies regions are mostly devoted to multi-proxy analyses of lakes, stalagmites, ice cores, marine and eolian sediments. Different responses from these proxies to long-term environmental change make understanding climate change pattern in monsoonal and westerlies regions difficult. Accordingly, we disaggregated global closed basins into areas governed by monsoon and westerly winds and unified palaeoclimate indicators, as well as combined with the lake models and paleoclimate simulations for tracking millennial-scale evolution characteristics and mechanisms of global monsoon and westerly winds since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Our results concluded that the effective moisture in most closed basins of the mid-latitudes Northern Hemisphere is mainly a trend on the decrease since the LGM, and of the low-latitudes is mainly a trend on the rise. Millennial-scale water balance change exhibits an obvious boundary between global westerlies and monsoon regions in closed basins, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. In the monsoon dominated closed basins of the Northern Hemisphere, humid climate prevails in the early-mid Holocene and relative dry climate appears in the LGM and late Holocene. While in the westerly winds dominated closed basins of the Northern Hemisphere, climate is characterized by relative humid LGM and mid-Holocene (MH) compared with the dry early Holocene, which is likely to be connected with precipitation brought by the westerly circulation. This study provides insights into long-term evolution and synergy of monsoon and westerly wind systems and basis for projection of future hydrological balance in the low-to-mid latitudes.