T. De Garidel-thoron et al., Millennial-scale dynamics of the East Asian winter monsoon during the last200,000 years, PALEOCEANOG, 16(5), 2001, pp. 491-502
The primary productivity dynamics of the last 200,000 years in the Sulu Sea
was reconstructed using the abundance of the coccolithophore Florisphaera
profunda in the IMAGES MD97-2141 core. We find that primary productivity wa
s enhanced during glacial periods, which we suggest is due to a stronger Ea
st Asian winter monsoon. During the last 80 kyr, eight significant increase
s in primary productivity (PP) in the Sulu Sea are similar to East Asian wi
nter monsoon changes recorded in Chinese loess. The PP maxima are not linke
d with Heinrich events (HE) in the North Atlantic, although four PP peaks a
re synchronous with HE. The PP oscillations have frequencies near those of
the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles in Northern Hemisphere ice records and indica
te a teleconnection of the East Asian winter monsoon with Greenland climate
. In this Sulu Sea record the East Asian winter monsoon oscillates with per
iodicities of similar to6, 4.2-3.4, 2.3, and 1.5 kyr. In particular, the 1.
5 kyr cycle exhibits a strong and pervasive signal from stage 6 to the Holo
cene without any ice volume modulation. This stationarity suggests that the
1.5 kyr cycle is not driven by some high-latitude forcing.