Using speleothems from northern Vietnam you will investigate the past dynamics of the Southeast Asian monsoon. Preliminary investigations in this area indicate the presence of speleothems suitable for palaeoclimate investigations with growth periods covering key intervals of climate change in the late Pleistocene and Holocene. You will develop a programme to monitor the cave hydrologic and environmental characteristics, and the connection to local and regional climate. After a careful calibration of geochemical signal in the cave with climate parameters, you will develop high-resolution timeseries of stable isotopes in speleothems and investigate the teleconnections of local monsoon variability with regional and global climate. This will allow the identification of monsoon forcings on both short and long timescales and the presence of leads and lags in the climate system. The results can then be used to test existing and developing climate models, including those used by the IPCC for future climate prediction. The project will be a collaboration between Northumbria University, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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