INTERSTADIAL CLIMATIC CYCLES - A LINK BETWEEN WESTERN NORTH-AMERICA AND GREENLAND

During the interval 33.6 to 26.1 ka, Searles Lake in southeastern Cali fornia went through six major cycles of expansion and contraction. A c omparison of U/Th ages for these events with the chronologies for quas i-cyclic interstadial episodes in the ice core from Summit, Greenland, suggests that the episodes of low water at Searles Lake are synchrono us with the interstadial episodes at Summit. The two phenomena may be linked by variations in the strength of the global hydrological cycle, driven by oscillations in the Atlantic Ocean thermohaline circulation .