This award supports a study of the temporal and spatial nature of an apparently extensive and protracted Pliocene warming which has been cited as a model for global climate warming. Marine pollen and siliceous microfauna from the Japan Sea and the northwest Pacific will be analyzed at 10-20ka intervals in order to : (1) document the nature and rate of variation of northeast Asian terrestrial ecosystems; (2) define the nature and variation in offshore water masses and associated northwest Pacific and Sea of Japan oceanographic and circulation changes; (3) develop a model of early and middle Pliocene northeast Asian monsoon variability in the time and frequency domain; (4) compare our data with comparable paleoclimatic data elsewhere to assess the spatial and temporal character of the Pliocene warm event; (5) contribute regional terrestrial and marine paleoclimatic data to verify the results of general circulation model experiments investigating the roles of orbital, atmospheric and oceanic forcing in global climate warming.
