Holocene climatic evolution at the Chinese Loess Plateau: testing sensitivity to the global warming-cooling events

Abstract. A high resolution petromagnetic and sedimentary grain size analyses demonstrate that pedogenic alterations in the Holocene loess sequences from the region of the Guanzhong Basin and the Mu Us Desert of the Chinese Loess Plateau were affected by the climatic variations in temperature and precipitation, but not by the climatic variations of wind intensity. Three warm-humid intervals (~ 8.4–3.7 ka, ~ 2.4–1.2 ka, and ~ 0.81–0.48 ka), associated with the soil formation and relatively high values of petromagnetic parameters, occurred during the Holocene. A significant paleosol development from ~ 8.4 to 3.7 ka, along with the higher values of proxy parameters, indicates a generally strong warm-humid phase in the mid-Holocene which can be attributed as the Holocene optimum in the studied regions. The study demonstrates that the Holocene climate in China is sensitive to the large warming and cooling events and insensitive to millennial scale climate changes. A complete Holocene climate record is constructed, and that correlates well with the other regional climate records along the south-to-north of eastern Chinese loess plateau, suggesting that similar climatic pattern of changes occurred in the eastern monsoonal China during the Holocene. Results are supported by the other evidence of climate record in different regions of the world, implying the Holocene climatic optimum took place at the same time interval all over the northern hemisphere, and thus, our results correspond to global climate records as well.