44db915b-9fcb-498c-9b88-224c162ec948 urn:uuid eng UTF-8 nonGeographicDataset nonGeographicDataset 2026-03-29T05:48:47 creation ISO 19115 2016 Climatic Variability in the Southwest Pacific during the Last Termination 44db915b-9fcb-498c-9b88-224c162ec948 The degree to which palaeoclimatic changes in the Southern Hemisphere co-varied with events in the high latitude Northern Hemisphere during the Last Termination is a contentious issue, with conflicting evidence for the degree of `teleconnection' between different regions of the Southern Hemisphere. The available hypotheses are difficult to test robustly, however, because there are few detailed palaeoclimatic records in the Southern Hemisphere. Here we present climatic reconstructions from the southwestern Pacific, a key region in the Southern Hemisphere because of the potentially important role it plays in global climate change. The reconstructions for the period 20-10 kyr BP were obtained from five sites along a transect from southern New Zealand, through Australia to Indonesia, supported by 125 calibrated 14C ages. Two periods of significant climatic change can be identified across the region at around 17 and 14.2 cal kyr BP, most probably associated with the onset of warming in the West Pacific Warm Pool and the collapse of Antarctic ice during Meltwater Pulse-1A, respectively. The severe geochronological constraints that inherently afflict age models based on radiocarbon dating and the lack of quantified climatic parameters make more detailed interpretations problematic, however. There is an urgent need to address the geochronological limitations, and to develop more precise and quantified estimates of the pronounced climate variations that clearly affected this region during the Last Termination. {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[90.0, -50.0], [180.0, -50.0], [180.0, 6.0], [90.0, 6.0], [90.0, -50.0]]]} 90.0 180.0 -50.0 6.0 Earth Sciences External Publication Published_External Scientific Journal Paper climate marine Link to Publication documentDigital Link to Publication HTML Unnamed resource documentDigital HTML