NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Yongxing Island, northern South China Sea coral d18O Data 1851-2008 CE

To date, the decadal variability of the Global Monsoon (GM) has been mainly studied using instrumental data collected over the last 50 years, and further discussion has been hampered by the limited data length. Here, we present a coral d18O record from the northern South China Sea, where the hydrology is related to the seasonal Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) migration, and we use this record to reconstruct the decadal migration of the ITCZ since 1851 A.D. Combining our record with a synthesis of monsoon records reveals an anti-phase inter-hemispheric variability of the GM over the last 150 years, indicating that the decadal-scale hydrologic variability in the tropics is modulated by the meridional migration of the ITCZ. The plausible relationship observed between the decadal variability of the GM and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation suggests that the decadal variability of tropical hydrological changes is likely linked to the climate perturbations in the North Atlantic.