Between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago, the Earth experienced significant climatic changes, including the rapid retreat of ice sheets and rising sea levels, during the Glacial–Holocene transition. This period featured abrupt climatic events such as the Bølling–Allerød warm period and the Younger Dryas (YD) cold reversal, highlighting shifts from glacial to interglacial conditions.
During this period, while eastern China saw increased summer monsoon activity that fostered agriculture and human settlement, the arid Tarim Basin in western China remains less understood due to limited climatic records. To fill this gap, a research team from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences studied the Tarim Basin.
The researchers selected a representative aeolian loess profile, “AQ16,” located on the southern margin of the Tarim Basin. By employing high-resolution optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and grain-size analysis of the AQ16 loess record, the team reconstructed the region’s dust accumulation history. The work is published in the journal Global and Planetary Change.
The study revealed that during the YD period, dust flux in the Tarim Basin increased nearly tenfold, exhibiting episodic variations and frequent centennial-scale fluctuations. These findings correlate with dust records from the Guliya ice core in the Kunlun Mountains, the Greenland ice core, and other regional records from Western Europe, the Middle East, and the Chinese Loess Plateau.
The data suggest that a prolonged stagnation of the westerly jet stream over the Tarim Basin during the YD may have played a significant role in modulating regional dust deposition and influencing downstream climatic patterns.
This research provides crucial evidence for abrupt shifts in dust accumulation and atmospheric circulation over millennial to centennial timescales in the arid interior of Asia during the Glacial–Holocene transition.
More information:
Peixian Shu et al, Dust emissions in the arid Asian interior and abrupt changes in midlatitude atmospheric circulation during the glacial-Holocene transition, Global and Planetary Change (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.104758
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Dust dynamics and atmospheric circulation shifts in the Tarim Basin during the Glacial–Holocene transition (2025, March 17)
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