Dynamics of the Indian Monsoon since the Mid Holocene: High-resolution multiproxy studies on the Tso Kar basin in the arid high mountain area of Ladakh (NW-India)

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The Indian Monsoon is of major socio-economic relevance for the densely populated areas of southern and south-eastern Asia. Climate models for South Asia indicate large variations in precipitation but little variation in temperature. Projections of fucture climate show large uncertainties, on the one hand due to the unknown reasons of certain abrupt changes in the Holocene and on the other hand with regard to potential regionally different impacts of changes in monsoon intensity. A strengthening of the monsoon since the 20th century has been observed in the marine record and probably will increase the precipition in large areas e.g. of northern India. This will result in more and larger scale natural catastrophes. On the other hand it is probable that the gradient of precipitation will change, with the consequence that semi-arid and arid areas are likely to experience water stress conditions. A regional study on temperature and precipitation changes will be conducted in respect of Ladakh located in the north-western Indian Himalaya. The projection of future climate will be developed with the aid of a high-resolution multiproxy inferred past temperature and precipitation record for the last 5.000 years obtained from the lake sediments of the Tso Kar basin.