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High-resolution sediment records from the eastern tropical North Pacific (ETNP) spanning the last ~240 ka B.P. were studied to document the nature of millennial-scale climatic events in the tropical Pacific and to investigate teleconnection mechanisms. We present organic carbon (%OC) and diffuse spectral reflectivity records as indicative of upwelling and productivity changes off NW Mexico over the middle to late Pleistocene. The new productivity records document the persistence of abrupt millennial-scale changes over the last two glacial cycles. Detailed spectral and wavelet time series analyses show the predominance of longer climatic cycles (2–6 ka) during the last and the penultimate glacial periods. The persistence of millennial variability during the penultimate glacial, in absence of large ice rafted debris events in the North Atlantic, suggests that freshwater input through ice sheet dynamics is not essential for millennial-scale climate variability. Given the worldwide emerging picture of remarkable similar millennial-scale records over long time periods, we suggest that the pacing of this climate variability may represent a natural resonance in the climate system, amplified by a tightly coupled oceanic and atmospheric teleconnection processes. We present a schematic scenario of millennial-scale climate change depicting the role of the tropical Pacific in this global teleconnection system by linking productivity and upwelling changes in the ETNP with shifts in the position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and the strength of the subtropical North Pacific High.

We present new high-resolution N isotope records from the Gulf of Tehuantepec and the Nicaragua Basin spanning the last 50-70 ka. The Tehuantepec site is situated within the core of the north subtropical denitrification zone while the Nicaragua site is at the southern boundary. The delta N-15 record from Nicaragua shows an "Antarctic" timing similar to denitrification changes observed off Peru-Chile but is radically different from the northern records. We attribute this to the leakage of isotopically heavy nitrate from the South Pacific oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) into the Nicaragua Basin. The Nicaragua record leads the other eastern tropical North Pacific (ETNP) records by about 1000 years because denitrification peaks in the eastern tropical South Pacific (ETSP) before denitrification starts to increase in the Northern Hemisphere OMZ, i.e., during warming episodes in Antarctica. We find that the influence of the heavy nitrate leakage from the ETSP is still noticeable, although attenuated, in the Gulf of Tehuantepec record, particularly at the end of the Heinrich events, and tends to alter the recording of millennial timescale denitrification changes in the ETNP. This implies (1) that sedimentary delta N-15 records from the southern parts of the ETNP cannot be used straightforwardly as a proxy for local denitrification and (2) that denitrification history in the ETNP, like in the Arabian Sea, is synchronous with Greenland temperature changes. These observations reinforce the conclusion that on millennial timescales during the last ice age, denitrification in the ETNP is strongly influenced by climatic variations that originated in the highlatitude North Atlantic region, while commensurate changes in Southern Ocean hydrography more directly, and slightly earlier, affected oxygen concentrations in the ETSP. Furthermore, the delta N-15 records imply ongoing physical communication across the equator in the shallow subsurface continuously over the last 50-70 ka.