Late Cenozoic climate changes in the Huanghuai Plain

Based on the published records of loess, lacustrine-marsh deposits, stalagmite and other archives, this paper attempts to explore the characteristics of Late Cenozoic climate changes and to make comparative analyzes of the similarities and differences of climate changes on different spatiotemporal scales in the Huanghuai Plain. The results show that the East Asian monsoon system began to establish in Neogene, and as the result this area changed its climate zone from a previous arid area to a humid area. Since late Cenozoic, the pattern of climate change in the Huanghuai Plain has been consistent with the general trend of East Asian region in the tectonic timescale, which has experienced a drastic change from warm and humid to cold and dry. During the Quaternary period, the climate changes showed typical orbit-scale cold and warm fluctuations or glacial-interglacial cycles in the study area, possibly as a response to the changes of the intensity of the East Asian monsoon under the global climate background. However, due to the influence of local factors such as regional topography, the Holocene climate change shows a certain degree of spatial differentiation and diachroneity in the Huanghuai Plain on a millennium scale.