Millennial-scale changes in sea surface temperatures and intermediate water circulation in the northwest Pacific during the past 20,000 years

Abstract

During the end of the late Pleistocene, the large-scale shift from the last glacial state to the recent interglacial state took place and was accompanied by millennial-scale climate fluctuations. However, detailed paleoceanographic reconstructions of the subarctic North Pacific are scarce and an incomplete picture of short-term climate fluctuations of the late Pleistocene to Holocene remains so far. The principal aim of this thesis was the reconstruction of the poorly studied (millennial-scale) climate variability of the subarctic northwest Pacific by means of detailed paleoceanographic investigations of past dynamics in sea surface temperatures, sea-ice variability and intermediate water ventilation characteristics of the northwest Pacific realm during the past 20,000 years. Altogether, the results of this thesis point to rapid changes in climate and oceanography of the subarctic North Pacific due to the sensitivity to millennial-scale climate fluctuations of the last deglaciation.