Sea surface temperature of the western equatorial Pacific Ocean during the younger dryas

High resolution (similar to 200 yr sample spacing) records of sea surface temperature for the past 15,000 yr have been inferred from planktonic foraminiferal assemblages in a sediment core from the South China Sea. Although the assemblages imply a large glacial-to-interglacial temperature change (similar to 7 degrees C for winter temperatures), they give no indication of a cooling during Younger Dryas time. This suggests that the Younger Dryas increase in delta(18)O observed in cores from the western equatorial Pacific is not due to a climatic cooling but rather to a change in the isotopic composition of the oceans. (C) 1996 University of Washington.