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Investigating the Relationship between Sea Surface Chlorophyll and Major Features of the South China Sea with Satellite Information
Published on: June 13, 2020
Climate impact of late quaternary equatorial pacific sea surface temperature variations
1Department of Geological Sciences and Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Abstract:
Magnesium/calcium data from planktonic foraminifera in equatorial Pacific sediment cores demonstrate that tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were 2.8 degrees +/- 0.7 degrees C colder than the present at the last glacial maximum. Glacial-interglacial temperature differences as great as 5 degrees C are observed over the last 450 thousand years. Changes in SST coincide with changes in Antarctic air temperature and precede changes in continental ice volume by about 3 thousand years, suggesting that tropical cooling played a major role in driving ice-age climate. Comparison of SST estimates from eastern and western sites indicates that the equatorial Pacific zonal SST gradient was similar or somewhat larger during glacial episodes. Extraction of a salinity proxy from the magnesium/calcium and oxygen isotope data indicates that transport of water vapor into the western Pacific was enhanced during glacial episodes.
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