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Decline of surface temperature and salinity in the western tropical Pacific Ocean in the Holocene epoch

Map of mean annual surface salinities and core locations. Decline of surface temperature and salinity in the western tropical Pacific Ocean in the Holocene epoch
Nature v.431, pp. 56-59, 2 September 2004.

Lowell Stott1, Kevin G. Cannariato1,Robert Thunell2, Gerald H. Haug3, Athanasios Koutavas4, Steve Lund 1
1Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
2Department of Geological Sciences, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29205, USA
3 Geoforschungszentrum Potsdam, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany
4Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
ABSTRACT:
In the present-day climate, surface water salinities are low in the western tropical Pacific Ocean and increase towards the eastern part of the basin. The salinity of surface waters in the tropical Pacific Ocean is thought to be controlled by a combination of atmospheric convection, precipitation, evaporation and ocean dynamics, and on interannual timescales significant variability is associated with the El Nino/Southern Oscillation cycles. However, little is known about the variability of the coupled ocean-atmosphere system on timescales of centuries to millennia. Here we combine oxygen isotope and Mg/Ca data from foraminifers retrieved from three sediment cores in the western tropical Pacific Ocean to reconstruct Holocene sea surface temperatures and salinities in the region. We find a decrease in sea surface temperatures of ~0.5C over the past 10,000 yr, whereas sea surface salinities decreased by ~1.5 practical salinity units. Our data imply either that the Pacific basin as a whole has become progressively less salty or that the present salinity gradient along the Equator has developed relatively recently.

Download the isotope data and reconstructions from this study in text or Excel format from the WDC Paleo Archive.
To read or view the full study, please visit the Nature website.
It was published in Nature v.431, pp. 56-59, 2 September 2004.

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9 September 2004