Southwest Pacific Climate Reconstructions from 20-10 kyr BP

125 calibrated radiocarbon ages from five sites along a transect from New Zealand to Indonesia support climatic reconstructions for the Last Termination. Two periods of significant change at around 17 and 14.2 thousand years ago are identified, likely linked to West Pacific Warm Pool warming and Antarctic ice collapse. The dataset provides a rare, detailed palaeoclimatic record for testing hypotheses about inter-hemispheric climate teleconnections.

Use Cases

• Testing hypotheses about climate teleconnections between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres during the Last Termination based on multi-site reconstructions.
• Calibrating or validating climate models for the period 20-10 thousand years ago using the identified climatic change events.
• Analyzing the regional impact of Meltwater Pulse-1A and West Pacific Warm Pool warming on the southwest Pacific climate.
• Developing improved geochronological models for palaeoclimate records by examining the dataset's 125 radiocarbon ages.

Strengths

• Contains data from five distinct sites along a transect, providing regional coverage from New Zealand to Indonesia.
• Supported by 125 calibrated radiocarbon ages, offering a detailed chronological framework.
• Identifies two specific periods of climatic change (around 17 and 14.2 cal kyr BP) with proposed physical drivers.

Limitations

• Lack of quantified climatic parameters and detailed column information limits precise interpretation.
• Metadata on row count, file size, license, and specific author is unavailable across all sources.
• The description notes severe geochronological constraints inherent to radiocarbon-based age models.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Climatic reconstructions derived from palaeoclimatic records, supported by radiocarbon dating.

Time Range

20,000 to 10,000 years before present (20-10 kyr BP)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-28 13:59:29.429846

Geography

Southwest Pacific transect: southern New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia