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 14C 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.