| Reconstructing climate variability prior to the instrumental era is critical to advance our understanding of the Earth's climate system. Although many paleoclimate records from the North Atlantic basin have been studied, relatively few paleoclimate records have been recovered in the North Pacific leaving a gap in our knowledge concerning North Pacific climate variability. The Eclipse and Mount Logan Prospector-Russell ice cores are favorably located in the St. Elias Mountains, Yukon, Canada to document North Pacific climate variability over the late Holocene. Detailed analysis reveals a consistent relationship of surface air temperature (SAT) anomalies associated with extreme Arctic Oscillation (AO) and Pacific-North America (PNA) index values, and a consistent relationship of North Pacific sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies associated with extreme Mt. Logan annual [Na+] and Eclipse cold season accumulation values. Spatial SAT anomaly patterns are most consistent for AO and PNA index values ≥1.5 and ≤-1.5 during the period 1872-2010. The highest and lowest ∼10% of Eclipse warm and cold season stable isotopes are associated with distinct atmospheric circulation patterns. The most-fractionated isotope values occur with a weaker Aleutian Low, and the least-fractionated isotope values occur with an amplification of the Aleutian Low and northwestern North American ridge. The assumption of stationarity between ice core records and sea-level pressure was tested for the Eclipse cold season accumulation and Mt. Logan annual sodium concentration records for 1872-2001. A stationary relationship was found for ≥95% of years when Mt. Logan sodium concentrations were ≤1.32 microg/L, with positive SLP anomalies in the eastern North Pacific. This high frequency supports the use of low sodium values at Mt. Logan for a reconstruction of SLP prior to 1872. Negative SLP anomalies in the North Pacific occurred for extreme high sodium concentration years and positive SLP anomalies occurred in the North Pacific for 70-90% of the highest accumulation seasons at Eclipse. These results contribute to our knowledge of North Pacific climate variability and can be applied to improve future North Pacific climate reconstructions. |
