Variations in tropical sea surface temperature patterns and the phasing relative to climate change in higher-latitudes provide insight into the mechanisms of climate change on both orbital and shorter time-scales. Here, we present well-dated, high-resolution records of planktonic foraminiferal 18O and Mg/Ca-based SST spanning the last deglaciation from the Sulu Sea, located in the western equatorial Pacific. The results indicate that the last glacial maximum was 2.3 ± 0.5°C cooler than present in the Sulu Sea with a concomitant decrease in sea surface salinity. The similarity between variations in surface salinity in the Sulu Sea, the western and eastern equatorial Pacific, and the Greenland ice-core record suggests that the observed changes in salinity reflect large-scale rearrangement of atmospheric patterns, which were coherent and synchronous throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The results suggest that the glacial equatorial Pacific climate was strongly influencedby both tropical, and extra-tropical forcing, although it is not clear whether interannual (ENSO) variability is a good analogue of glacial-interglacial climate change.
The amplitude and phasing of climate change during the last deglaciation in the Sulu Sea, western equatorial Pacific