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This archived Paleoclimatology Study is available from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), under the World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology. The associated NCEI study type is Cave. The data include parameters of speleothems with a geographic location of Mexico. The time period coverage is from 1117 to -67 in calendar years before present (BP). See metadata information for parameter and study location details. Please cite this study when using the data. 

This archived Paleoclimatology Study is available from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), under the World Data Service (WDS) for Paleoclimatology. The associated NCEI study type is Cave. The data include parameters of speleothems with a geographic location of Mexico. The time period coverage is from 62500 to 5858 in calendar years before present (BP). See metadata information for parameter and study location details. Please cite this study when using the data. 

The 8.2 ka event is the most significant global climate anomaly of the Holocene epoch, but a lack of records from Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) currently limits our understanding of the spatial and temporal extent of the climate response. A newly developed speleothem record from Tham Doun Mai Cave, Northern Laos provides the first high resolution record of this event in MSEA. Our multiproxy record (d18O, d13C, Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, and petrographic data), anchored in time by 9 U-Th ages, reveals a significant reduction in local rainfall amount and weakening of the monsoon at the event onset at ~8.29 +/- 0.03 ka BP. This response lasts for a minimum of ~170 years, similar to event length estimates from other speleothem d18O monsoon records. Interestingly, however, our d13C and Mg/Ca data, proxies for local hydrology, show that abrupt changes to local rainfall amounts began decades earlier (~70 years) than registered in the d18O. Moreover, the d13C and Mg/Ca also show that reductions in rainfall continued for at least ~200 years longer than the weakening of the monsoon inferred from the d18O. Our interpretations suggest that drier conditions brought on by the 8.2 ka event in MSEA were felt beyond the temporal boundaries defined by d18O-inferred monsoon intensity, and an initial wet period (or precursor event) may have preceded the local drying. Most existing Asian Monsoon proxy records of the 8.2 ka event may lack the resolution and/or multiproxy information necessary to establish local and regional hydrological sensitivity to abrupt climate change.