A 10,000 Year Story of Equatorial Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures 
and Indian Summer Monsoon

It is widely recognized that the Indian subcontinent was wetter compared to present
during early to mid-Holocene ~10-4k years before present. Especially northwest India, 
which is currently semi-arid and desert, was substantially wetter. This wetter period is 
also believed to have helped to flourish the Indus civilization. Understanding the 
cause for this wetness remains a fascinating scientific pursuit. Received wisdom from 
past research for over half a century suggests, that warming of northern hemisphere land mass
due to the precession cycle enhanced the land-ocean temperature gradient, a key ingradient in 
enhancing monsoon rainfall. We offer a competing and complementary propostion, borne from -
(i) understanding of monsoon-El Nino Southern Oscillation teleconnection
and, (ii) 10,000 year reconstruction of equatorial Pacific sea surface temepratures and Indian 
summer monsoon rainfall using marine sediment proxies and multivariate statistical techniques. 
Based on our reconstructions, we suggest that a cooler equatorial Pacific Ocean during early to 
mid-Holocene can realize a wetter north west India, enhanced by the land warming.