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Holocene evolution of the Indonesian throughflow and the western Pacific warm pool

Nature Geoscience volume 3, pages 578–583 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

High sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific warm pool fuel atmospheric convection and influence tropical climate. This region also hosts the Indonesian throughflow, the network of currents through which surface and thermocline waters are transported from the western equatorial Pacific Ocean into the Indian Ocean. Here we show, using records of the δ18O and Mg/Ca of planktonic foraminifera from eight sediment cores, that from about 10,000 to 7,000 years ago, sea surface temperatures in the western sector of the western Pacific warm pool were about 0.5 °C higher than during pre-industrial times. We also find that about 9,500 years ago, when the South China and Indonesian seas were connected by rising sea level, surface waters in the Makassar Strait became relatively fresher. We suggest that the permanent reduction of surface salinity initiated the enhanced flow at lower, thermocline depths seen in the modern Indonesian throughflow. However, the uniformly warm sea surface temperatures found upstream and downstream of the Indonesian throughflow indicate that the early Holocene warmth in this region was not directly related to reduced heat transport by the throughflow that may have resulted from surface freshening of the Makassar Strait. Instead, we propose that the elevated temperatures were the result of a westward shift or expansion of the boundaries of the western Pacific warm pool.

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Figure 1: Sea surface temperature and salinity in the WPWP and Makassar Strait.
Figure 2: Planktonic foraminifera Mg/Ca records of mixed-layer temperatures in the WPWP.
Figure 3: Planktonic foraminifera δ18O and δ18Osw in the WPWP and Makassar Strait.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Y. S. Djajadihardja, F. Syamsudin, the captain and crew of our 2003 R/V Baruna Jaya VIII cruise, the Indonesian Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) and the Center of Research and Development for Oceanography (LIPI) of Indonesia for their support of this project. This research was supported by the US NSF. We thank S. Howe, S. Langton, L. Zou, D. Ostermann, K. Rose, S. Pike and M. Chong for technical assistance, A. Gordon for helpful discussions and the NOSAMS facility at WHOI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University at Albany-State University of New York, Albany, New York 12222, USA

    Braddock K. Linsley

  2. and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Rutgers, The State University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA

    Yair Rosenthal

  3. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA

    Delia W. Oppo

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All authors contributed extensively to this work including project planning, field and analytical work and data interpretation.

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Correspondence to Braddock K. Linsley.

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Linsley, B., Rosenthal, Y. & Oppo, D. Holocene evolution of the Indonesian throughflow and the western Pacific warm pool. Nature Geosci 3, 578–583 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo920

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