Half-precessional cycles recorded in Chinese loess: response to low-latitude insolation forcing during the Last Interglaciation

Chinese loess offers favourable conditions for identifying evidence for high-resolution climatic changes. Previous studies have examined orbital scale climatic cycles and the other shorter time scale climatic oscillations, similar to the recorded glacial instability in deep-sea cores. In this study, we focus on examining the high-resolution palaeoclimatic records in the northwestern Loess Plateau, where the dust accumulation rate is high and the loess-soil sequences are highly sensitive to the shifting pattern of the East Asian monsoon system. Our results of magnetic susceptibility and particle size analysis from the northwestern Loess Plateau reveal well-defined half-precessional cycles during the last interglaciation, culminating at approximately 122,000, 111,000, 100,000, 88,000, and 79,000 yr. These variations are a direct response to the low-latitude forcing through its modulation on the East Asian summer monsoon. In this context, the East Asian summer monsoon has played an important role in conveying climatic signals from tropical Pacific to the middle latitude areas.