Challenges in the Paleoclimatic Evolution of the Arctic and Subarctic Pacific since the Last Glacial Period—The Sino–German Pacific–Arctic Experiment (SiGePAX)

Abstract

Arctic and subarctic regions are sensitive to climate change and, reversely, provide dramatic feedbacks to the global climate. With a focus on discovering paleoclimate and paleoceanographic evolution in the Arctic and Northwest Pacific Oceans during the last 20,000 years, we proposed this German–Sino cooperation program according to the announcement “Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) of the Federal Republic of Germany for a German–Sino cooperation program in the marine and polar research”. Our proposed program integrates the advantages of the Arctic and Subarctic marine sediment studies in AWI (Alfred Wegener Institute) and FIO (First Institute of Oceanography). For the first time, the collection of sediment cores can cover all climatological key regions in the Arctic and Northwest Pacific Oceans. Furthermore, the climate modeling work at AWI enables a “Data-Model Syntheses”, which are crucial for exploring the underlying mechanisms of observed changes in proxy records.