RESPONSE OF THE SOUTHWESTERN SOUTH CHINA SEA TO THE RAPID CLIMATE CHANGES SINCE THE LAST GLACIAL MAXIMUM

Changes in the sea surface temperature (SST) and salinity (SSS) over the last 24ka have been estimated from sediment core CG2 located in the Sunda slope by means of Mg/Ca ratio and oxygen isotopes of the planktonic foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber, combined with the quantitative statistical data of planktonic foraminifera. Our results imply that the sea surface salinity, abundance of warm-water species and the depth of thermocline have obvious responses to the rapid climate change. Compared with the slowly deglacial warming of the open Pacific, the SST record in the southwestern SCS shows a deglacial warming interrupted by a cooling event coeval with H1, followed by marked Bølling and late YD SST increasing, which suggest a ‘Greenland type’ of deglacial warming. Their difference between the two regions might be caused by the reason that the SCS is more strongly affected by the East Asian monsoon. In the eastern and western equatorial Pacific, however, salinity variations were almost the same as those during the rapid climate change events. The variation in the upper water environment of the western tropical Pacific was closely linked with the latitudinal shifts of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) and the East Asian monsoon anomaly since the LGM.