Asian monsoon rainfall variation during the Pliocene forced by global temperature change

The Asian monsoon variations under global temperature changes during the Pliocene are still debated. Here we use a sedimentary record of phytoliths (plant silica) from the Weihe Basin, central China, to explore the history of C4 grasses and quantitatively reconstruct the Asian monsoon climate since the late Miocene. Our results show that C4 grasses have been a dominant grassland component since ~11.0 Ma. A subsequent marked decrease in warm- and humid-adapted C4 grasses and an increase in cool- and dry-adapted C3 grasses occurred in the Pliocene, ~4.0 Ma; the phytolith-based quantitative reconstruction of mean annual precipitation marked a decrease from 800~1673 mm to 443~900 mm, indicating a reduction in Asian monsoon rainfall in the Pliocene. Our newly obtained records conflict with the hypothesis that the growth of the Tibetan Plateau strengthened the Asian monsoon rainfall. Nevertheless, they emphasize the importance of global temperature as a determinant of Pliocene Asian monsoon variations. Asian summer monsoons and their links to global temperature changes have been the subject of intense debate. Here the authors reconstruct the Asian monsoon climate since the late Miocene, using plant silica records of C4 and C3 grasses in central China, and find that global cooling caused Asian monsoon rainfall to decrease markedly in the late Pliocene.