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RESEARCH PRODUCT

What Drove Past Teleconnections?

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Ice core records from Greenland and Antarctica and sediment records from the world9s oceans have shown that over the past 100,000 years, climate has varied substantially across the globe. In his Perspective, Sirocko asks what drove these--sometimes very rapid--climate oscillations. He highlights the report of Burns et al., whose monsoon record from the Indian Ocean shows strong similarities with ice core records from Greenland. Sirocko argues that the large areas of homogeneous sea surface temperature in the cold circum-Antarctic current and in the warm-water masses of the low latitudes must have played an important role in linking climate forcing between distant parts of the world. The much smaller North Atlantic region may not have played as large a role as is traditionally assumed in climate studies.