Grain size records reveal variability of the East Asian Winter Monsoon since the Middle Holocene in the Central Yellow Sea mud area,China

Three cores(ZY-1,ZY-2 and ZY-3) retrieved from the Central Yellow Sea mud(CYSM) were analyzed in sensitive grain size and AMS 14 C dating to reconstruct the history of the East Asian Winter Monsoon(EAWM) since the Middle Holocene in the study area.The results show that these data provide a continuous history of the EAWM over the past 7.2 ka and that the EAWM can be divided into three periods:strong and highly fluctuating during 7.2-4.2 ka BP;moderate and relatively stable during 4.2-1.8 ka BP;and weakened during 1.8-0 ka BP.Compared with the East Asian Summer Monsoon(EASM) recorded in the previous studies,the evolutionary history of the EAWM broadly follows the orbital-derived winter insolation with a similar long-term step-decreased trend as the EASM.At the centennial scale,however,the EAWM intensified events correlate well with the EASM weakened events and the North Atlantic climatic variations(Bond events 0 to 5) within the dating error,most likely forced by the reduction of solar irradiance through changes in the oceanic-atmospheric circulation patterns.