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Peer-reviewedCC BY-NCScience Advances

Monsoon zonal seesaw: Development of the South Asian monsoon aridified North Africa in the Cenozoic

  • Zihan Yin1
  • Ji Nie1,2,3
  • William R. Boos4
  • Alexander Farnsworth5,6
  • Zhongshi Zhang1
  • Yonggang Liu1
  • Jun Yang1
  • Zhengtang Guo7
  • Yongyun Hu1,2,3
7 affiliations
  1. 1Laboratory for Climate and Ocean-Atmosphere Studies, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  2. 2Institute of Ocean Research, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  3. 3Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Peking University, Beijing, China.
  4. 4Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
  5. 5School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
  6. 6State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
  7. 7Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
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Abstract

North Africa experienced a pronounced transition from humid to arid conditions during the early Cenozoic. Meanwhile, the South Asian monsoon underwent substantial intensification, largely driven by the uplift of the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau. Here, we demonstrate that the two events, which greatly shaped the paleoenvironment and modern regional climate, are not independent responses to paleogeography changes; rather, the former is primarily driven by the latter through the monsoon-desert mechanism, in which South Asian monsoon diabatic heating produces large-scale subsidence and aridity over North Africa. Using multiple ensembles of paleoclimate simulations and a model for the atmospheric response to imposed diabatic heating, we show that the intensification and poleward shift of Asian monsoon rainfall each make comparable contributions to the aridification of North Africa. Our findings identify a persistent dynamical pathway linking the South Asian and North African monsoons and suggest that it played a major role in early Cenozoic North African aridification, while its climatic expression at other times depended on the relative strengths of competing forcings.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{yin2026monsoon,
  title = {{Monsoon zonal seesaw: Development of the South Asian monsoon aridified North Africa in the Cenozoic}},
  author = {Zihan Yin and Ji Nie and William R. Boos and Alexander Farnsworth and Zhongshi Zhang and Yonggang Liu and Jun Yang and Zhengtang Guo and Yongyun Hu},
  journal = {Science Advances},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aee1112},
  url = {https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aee1112},
  note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Monsoon zonal seesaw: Development of the South Asian monsoon aridified North Africa in the Cenozoic
AU  - Zihan Yin
AU  - Ji Nie
AU  - William R. Boos
AU  - Alexander Farnsworth
AU  - Zhongshi Zhang
AU  - Yonggang Liu
AU  - Jun Yang
AU  - Zhengtang Guo
AU  - Yongyun Hu
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/30
JO  - Science Advances
DO  - 10.1126/sciadv.aee1112
UR  - https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/sciadv.aee1112
AB  - North Africa experienced a pronounced transition from humid to arid conditions during the early Cenozoic. Meanwhile, the South Asian monsoon underwent substantial intensification, largely driven by the uplift of the Himalayan-Tibetan Plateau. Here, we demonstrate that the two events, which greatly shaped the paleoenvironment and modern regional climate, are not independent responses to paleogeography changes; rather, the former is primarily driven by the latter through the monsoon-desert mechanism, in which South Asian monsoon diabatic heating produces large-scale subsidence and aridity over North Africa. Using multiple ensembles of paleoclimate simulations and a model for the atmospheric response to imposed diabatic heating, we show that the intensification and poleward shift of Asian monsoon rainfall each make comparable contributions to the aridification of North Africa. Our findings identify a persistent dynamical pathway linking the South Asian and North African monsoons and suggest that it played a major role in early Cenozoic North African aridification, while its climatic expression at other times depended on the relative strengths of competing forcings.
SN  - 2375-2548
ER  -