Monsoon Origins Traced Back 40 Million Years Through Climate Modeling

New research suggests that seasonal Asian monsoon conditions were established back in the Paleogene, a period that experienced extreme climate warming events. The researchers conducted summary analyses of 20 paleoclimate simulations and found that the uplift and creation of a number of mountain ranges through the millennia have resulted in the South Asian monsoon patterns we see today. The presence of wind-blown dust in northeast Tibet as well as the preservation of paleobotanical indicators in Myanmar and China, all point to this earlier evolution of monsoonal climate beginning in the late Eocene, 20 million years sooner than previously thought.