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Modeling the late Pliocene global monsoon response to individual boundary conditions

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Abstract

The late Pliocene is a pre-Quaternary warming period compared to the preindustrial period. Here, based on the updated PRISM4 (Pliocene Research, Interpretation and Synoptic Mapping version 4) boundary conditions from the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project phase 2 (PlioMIP2), seven experiments are conducted to simulate the global monsoon in the late Pliocene interglacial period and further investigate the impacts from changes in the individual boundary conditions by using the Community Earth System Model (CESM 1.0.4). The simulated late Pliocene interglacial climate is generally warmer and wetter than the preindustrial period climate, with an expanded monsoon domain, particularly in North Africa, Asia and Australia. The differences in topography, vegetation and lakes outside of Greenland and Antarctica account for the greatest contribution to monsoon changes. Moreover, orbital parameter variations further significantly affect monsoon domains and lead to significant fluctuations in monsoon precipitation and winds on the orbital scale, and the changed magnitude is even larger than that between the late Pliocene and preindustrial period when orbital forcing is not considered.

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Data availability

All the PlioMIP2/PRISM4 boundary condition data are available from the USGS PlioMIP2 web page: http://geology.er.usgs.gov/egpsc/prism/7_pliomip2.html.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41888101, 41775088 and 41472160).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Ran Zhang, Dabang Jiang, Qing Yan & Xiangyu Li

  2. Department of Atmospheric Science, School of Environmental Studies, China University of Geoscience (Wuhan), Wuhan, 430074, China

    Zhongshi Zhang

  3. Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disasters, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Dabang Jiang

  4. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Dabang Jiang & Qing Yan

  5. NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, 5007, Bergen, Norway

    Zhongshi Zhang

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  1. Ran Zhang
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Correspondence to Ran Zhang.

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Zhang, R., Jiang, D., Zhang, Z. et al. Modeling the late Pliocene global monsoon response to individual boundary conditions. Clim Dyn 53, 4871–4886 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04834-w

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