500-year climate cycles stacking of recent centennial warming documented in an East Asian pollen record

Here we presented a high-resolution 5350-year pollen record from a maar annually laminated lake in East Asia (EA). Pollen record reflected the dynamics of vertical vegetation zones and temperature change. Spectral analysis on pollen percentages/concentrations of Pinus and Quercus, and a temperature proxy, revealed ∼500-year quasi-periodic cold-warm fluctuations during the past 5350 years. This ∼500-year cyclic climate change occurred in EA during the mid-late Holocene and even the last 150 years dominated by anthropogenic forcing. It was almost in phase with a ∼500- year periodic change in solar activity and Greenland temperature change, suggesting that ∼500-year small variations in solar output played a prominent role in the mid-late Holocene climate dynamics in EA, linked to high latitude climate system. Its last warm phase might terminate in the next several decades to enter another ∼250-year cool phase, and thus this future centennial cyclic temperature minimum could partially slow down man-made global warming.

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