Diatom-derived SSTs (Td′ ratio) indicate warm seas off Japan during the middle Holocene (8.2–3.3 kyr BP)

Regression analysis was performed between the ratio of warm- and cold-water diatoms (Td′ ratio) in 123 surface sediment samples in the northwest Pacific Ocean and the mean annual sea surface temperatures (SSTs) (°C) at the core sites, in order to calibrate this proxy for paleo-temperatures. Equations to derive annual SST (°C) from diatom analysis were somewhat different for the Tohoku area (y = 6.5711? × ^0.273, r = 0.89946) than for the Japan Sea (y = 5.4069? × ^0.26841, r = 0.89088). The annual paleo-SSTs (°C) in the Tohoku Area were in general higher than in the Japan Sea despite lower Td′ values, because the warm-water species Fragilariopsis doliolus is abundant only in the Tsushima Warm Current in the Japan Sea. The reliability of the equations is supported by our understanding of the ecology of recent diatoms. Td′-derived annual paleo-SSTs (°C) agree with alkenone-derived summer paleo-SST (°C) at a site off central Japan in the northwestern Pacific. In a south-to-north transect of cores around Honshu and Hokkaido, paleo-SSTs (°C) decreased when the Kuroshio and Tsushima Warm Currents weakened. The middle Holocene (8.2–3.3 cal kyr BP) was warmer by 1–2 °C than earlier and later parts of the Holocene, and mean annual paleo-SSTs (°C) show rhythmic fluctuations with durations of 1000 years and 400–500 years. These new data show that annual SSTs were warm in the northwestern Pacific at times that the northeastern Pacific was cold. In addition, oceanic warm- and cold-water species defined by Kanaya and Koizumi Kanaya, T., Koizumi, I., 1966. Interpretation of diatom thanatocoenoses from the North Pacific applied to a study of core V20–130 (studies of a deep-sea core V20–130, part IV). Sci. Rep. Tohoku Univ., 2nd series (Geol.) 37, 89–130], and Koizumi et al. Koizumi, I., Irino, T., Oba, T., 2004. Paleoceanography during the last 150 kyr off central Japan based on diatom floras. Mar. Micropaleontol. 53, 293–365] are illustrated.