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Vegetation, Climate, Man
—
Holocene
Variability in Monsoonal Central Asia
Anne Dallmeyer, Ulrike Herzschuh, Martin Claussen, Jian Ni,
Yongbo Wang, Steffen Mischke and Xianyong Cao
Abstract We have investigated the Holocene climate and vegetation change in the
Asian monsoon region using climate model simulations and proxy derived vege-
tation and climate reconstructions. The simulated mid-Holocene climate is quali-
tatively in good agreement with the reconstructions. Both methods reveal no
systematic and uniform large-scale climate shifts, but asynchronous moisture
changes in different sub-areas of the Asian monsoon region. The atmospheric
response to the Holocene insolation forcing is strongly modi
ed by ocean-atmo-
sphere interactions, while the interaction between vegetation and atmosphere has
minor in
uence on the large-scale Holocene climate change and is only important at
a regional level. Nevertheless, sensitivity simulations reveal that large-scale forest
decline in the Asian monsoon region leads to substantial losses in regional pre-
cipitation. During the Holocene, substantial vegetation changes are con
ned to the
fringe zone of the Asian monsoon area and to the Tibetan Plateau, where simulated
forest fraction has decreased by approx. 15 % and 30 % since mid-Holocene,
respectively.
Keywords Holocene
Asian monsoon
Land cover change
Vegetation-
atmosphere interaction
Pollen-based reconstructions
Paleo-climate modeling
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