The paleoclimatic events and cause in the Okinawa Trough during 50 kaBP

Planktonic foraminiferal delta O-18 record for core DGKS9603 from the Okina wa Trough shows a series of climatic fluctuations and sudden cooling events in short time scale during 50 kaBP, which appear to correlate closely to t he Younger Dryas and Heinrich events H1-5 recorded in Chinese loess, the So uth China Sea, the North Atlantic cores and the Greenland ice cores. Three polarity reversal events, correlating to Gothenburg, Mungo and Laschamp eve nts, approximately correspond to Heinrich events H1, H3 and H5 respectively , which could be a cause of global climate changes. The delta O-18 curve of the Okinawa Trough is well associated with the grain size record of the Li jiayuan loess profile in northwestern China and is somewhat different from the climate fluctuations documented in the Greenland ice cores. These corre lation results indicate that regional factors play an important role in con trolling the climate changes in the East Asia, and the East Asian Monsoon c ould be the prominent regional controlling factor.