Abstract

The millennial climate changes referred to as the Medieval Climate Anomaly/Little Ice Age (MCA/LIA) have been attributed to varying solar insolation and volcanism that affected Earth's radiation balance. It remains unclear whether ocean heat transport contributed to the MCA/LIA climate variability. The marine sediment core MD98-2181 from the edge of the Western Pacific Warm Pool is used in this study to reconstruct tropical and high southern latitude ocean temperatures across the MCA/LIA. The high temporal resolution benthic foraminiferal δ 18 O data documents upper Pacific Deep Water temperature and salinity variability that originates within the Southern Ocean. During the MCA benthic δ 18 O values dropped by~ 0.1% indicating an~ 0.5 C cooling of Pacific Deep Water. This decrease in deep water temperature coincided with increasing SSTs in the western tropical Pacific of~ 0.5-1 C (estimated from the …

Date

January 1, 1970

Authors

D Khider, LD Stott, R Saikku, DE Hammond

Journal

AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts

Volume

2011

Pages

PP34A-02