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The late Pleistocene history of seawater temperature and salinity
variability in the western tropical Pacific warm pool isreconstructed
from oxygen isotope (18O) and magnesium/calcium
composition of planktonic foraminifera.Differentiating the calcite
18O record into components of temperature and local
water 18O reveals a dominant salinity signal that varied
in accord withDansgaard/Oeschger cycles over Greenland. Salinities
were higherat times of high-latitude cooling and were lower during
interstadials.The pattern and magnitude of the salinity variations
imply shiftsin the tropical Pacific ocean/atmosphere system analogous
to modernEl Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). El Niño
conditions correlatewith stadials at high latitudes, whereas La
Niña conditions correlatewith interstadials. Millennial-scale
shifts in atmospheric convectionaway from the western tropical Pacific
may explain many paleo-observations,including lower atmospheric
CO2, N2O, and CH4 during stadialsand patterns of extratropical ocean variability that have tropicalsource functions that are negatively correlated with El Niño.
1 Department of Earth Sciences, University of
Southern California, 3651 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
2 Department of Geological Science, University
of South Carolina, 700 Sumter Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
stott{at}usc.edu
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18O) and magnesium/calcium
composition of planktonic foraminifera. Differentiating the calcite
