Sea-surface temperatures of the southwest Pacific Ocean during the Last Glacial Maximum

The southwest Pacific Ocean covers a broad range of surface-water conditions ranging from warm, salty water in the subtropical East Australian Current to fresher, cold water in the Circumpolar Current. Using a new database of planktonic foraminifera assemblages (AUSMAT-F2), we demonstrate that the m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Paleoceanography
Main Authors: Barrows, T. T., Juggins, S., De Deckker, P., Thiede, Jörn, Martinez, J. I.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: AGU (American Geophysical Union) 2000
Subjects:
New Zealand
Pacific
Planktonic foraminifera
Online Access:https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/30974/
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/30974/1/Barrows.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1029/1999PA900047
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Summary:The southwest Pacific Ocean covers a broad range of surface-water conditions ranging from warm, salty water in the subtropical East Australian Current to fresher, cold water in the Circumpolar Current. Using a new database of planktonic foraminifera assemblages (AUSMAT-F2), we demonstrate that the modern analog technique can be used to accurately reconstruct the magnitude of sea-surfacetemperature (SST) in this region. We apply this technique to data from 29 deep-sea cores along a meridional transect of the southwest Pacific Ocean to estimate the magnitude of SST cooling during the Last Glacial Maximum. We find minimal cooling in the tropics (0°–2°C), moderate cooling in the subtropical midlatitudes (2°–6°C), and maximum cooling to the southeast of New Zealand (6°–10°C). The magnitude of cooling at the sea surface from the tropics to the temperate latitudes is found to generally be less than cooling at the surface of adjacent land masses.

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