The magazine Nature Geoscience published a paper titled “Influence of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation on the East Asian winter monsoon” by Prof. Sun Youbin (Institute of Earth Environment, CAS) and his collaborators on Nov. 27, 2011. They presented records of grain size variations from the northwestern Chinese Loess Plateau, dated using optically stimulated luminescence. The reconstructed millennial-scale variations in the strength of the East Asian winter monsoon over the past 60,000 years are broadly correlated with temperature variations over Greenland and precipitation changes in Eastern Asia. They further investigate the effect of a slow-down of Atlantic meridional overturning circulation on the monsoon system using a coupled climate and find a strengthening winter monsoon circulation over the regions and a reduction in summer monsoon precipitation over East Asia. They conclude that Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is a driver of abrupt change in the East Asian winter and summer monsoon systems, and that the northern westerlies play a role in transmitting this signal from the North Atlantic to the Asian monsoon regions. As highlighted by Nature China, this work suggests that temperatures in Greenland may have a direct effect on the winter monsoon intensity, dust grain size and summer monsoon precipitation over East Asia. If this is true, rising temperatures in Greenland are likely to bring increasing episodes of natural disasters. The work has been jointly accomplished by the Chinese and American scientists from Institute of Earth Environment, CAS; Brown University,Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, USA; and Ocean University of China.