RESEARCH PROGRESS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MECHANISMS FOR SPELEOTHEM δ¹⁸O IN ASIAN MONSOON AREA

As one of the valuable paleoclimatic indicators, the δ¹⁸O from cave speleothem is widely and successfully applied to the study of past climate changes, and has become a standard reference for low-latitude and/or global paleoclimate researches. The current investigations, however, remain controversial concerning its implications for various climate factors, such as temperature, rainfall, precipitation processes, and atmospheric circulation. Therefore, cave monitoring and associated studies have recently become urgent needs. Only if we have enough knowledge about climate factors and their responding mechanism to environmental changes, could we better make correlation and comparison in regional or even global scale.