The variability of Intermediate water intrusion into the South China Sea during the last deglaciation

Millennial -scale variations of the intermediate water in the South China Sea (SCS) have not been well understood due to limited data. Here we investigate the temperature and 618O of seawater (618Osw, a proxy of salinity) evolution history of the intermediate water during the last deglaciation by analyzing Mg/Ca and oxygen isotopes of planktonic foraminifera Globorotalia inflata in the southern SCS. The results indicate that intermediate water was warm and salty during the Heinrich 1 (H1) and Younger Dryas (YD) cold events, while it was cold and fresh during the B & oslash;lling-Alle & oslash;d (B -A) warm event in the southern SCS. By comparison with other paleorecords, we find that there was a weak intrusion of the low -salinity intermediate water from the western Pacific into the SCS during H1 and YD, whereas the opposite occurred during the B -A. Our study reveals that the variability in the intrusion intensity of intermediate water into the SCS from the western Pacific was primarily influenced by the changes in winter wind intensity during the last deglaciation.