View article

We reconstructed changes of temperature, salinity, and productivity within the southern Peru‐Chile Current during the last 8000 years from a high‐resolution sediment core recovered at 41°S using alkenones, isotope ratios of planktic foraminifera, biogenic opal, and organic carbon. Paleotemperatures and paleosalinities reached maximum values at ∼5500 years ago and thereafter declined to modern values, whereas paleoproductivity continuously increased throughout the last 8000 years. We ascribe these long‐term Holocene trends primarily to latitudinal shifts of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC). The concurrence with shifts in the position of the Southern Westerlies points to a common response of atmospheric and oceanographic circulation patterns off southern Chile. Millennial‐ to centennial‐scale fluctuations of paleotemperatures and paleosalinities, on the other hand, lag displacements in the position …