Abstract. The impact of vegetation-atmosphere and ocean-atmosphere interactions on the mid- to late Holocene climate change as well as their synergy is studied for different regions in Central and Eastern Asia (60–140° E, 0–55° N), giving consideration to the large climatic and topographical heterogeneity in that area. With main focus on the Asian monsoon, we concentrate on both, temperature and precipitation changes. For our purpose, we analyze a set of coupled numerical experiments, performed with the Earth system model ECHAM5/JSBACH-MPIOM under present-day and mid-Holocene (6 k) orbital configurations (Otto et al., 2009). Like expected, the temperature change caused by the insolation forcing reveals an enhanced seasonal cycle, with a pronounced warming in summer (0.7 K) and autumn (1 K) and a cooling in the other seasons (spring: −0.8 K; winter −0.5 K). Most of this change can be attributed to the direct response of the atmosphere, but the ocean, whose reaction has a lagged seasonal cycle (warming in autumn and winter, cooling in the other seasons), strongly modifies the signal. The simulated contribution of dynamic vegetation is small and most effective in winter, where it slightly warms the near-surface atmosphere (≈0.05 K). Concerning the precipitation, the most remarkable change is the postponement and enhancement of the Asian monsoon (0.27 mm/d in summer, 0.23 mm/d in autumn), mainly related to the direct atmospheric response. On regional average, the ocean (ca. 0.05 mm/d) amplifies the direct effect, but tends to weaken the East Asian summer monsoon and strongly increases the Indian summer monsoon rainfall rate (0.68 mm/d). The influence of dynamic vegetation and synergy effects on precipitation is comparatively small.
Reach-scale river dynamics moderate the impact of rapid Holocene climate change on floodwater farming in the desert Nile
