Age determination of sediment core SO42-74KL from the Arabian Sea (Table 1)

Here we present evidence from a high-resolution record of oxygen isotopes and carbonate spanning the past 24,000 calendar years that the response of the southwest monsoon over the Arabian Sea to long term, gradual insolation changes occurred in several distinct events of less than 300 years duration, at 14,300, 13,500, 13,060, 9,900, 8,800 and 7,300 14C yr BP.

Thus, during this transitional period from glacial to post-glacial conditions the slow solar forcing seems to have induced very rapid changes in local climate. We speculate that the rapid response may be related to albedo changes in Asia.