A tree-ring δ18O based reconstruction of East Asia summer monsoon over the past two centuries

The East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) exhibits considerable decadal variations since the late 20th century. Efforts to examine long-term behaviors and dynamics of the EASM are impeded largely due to the shortness of instrumental meteorological records. So far, reconstructions of the EASM with annual resolution from its core regions remain limited. We conduct the first 200-year robust EASM reconstruction based on tree-ring cellulose δ18O records derived from Pinus massoniana trees growing in the middle Yangtze River basin, one of the core EASM areas. The δ18O chronology accounts for 46.2% of the actual variation in an index of the EASM from 1948 to 2014. The reconstructed EASM indicates that the monsoon intensity was below average before the 1950s, peaked in the 1950s-1970s, and then began to decline. The reconstructed EASM is negatively correlated with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), but this teleconnection is dynamic through time, i.e. enhanced (reduced) ENSO variability coheres with strong (weak) EASM-ENSO connections. In addition, despite high ENSO variability since the 1980s, the EASM-ENSO relationship weakened possibly due to anthropogenic impact, particularly aerosol emissions.