2001), Support for tropically-driven Pacific decadal variability based on paleoproxy evidence

Abstract. Two independent proxy reconstructions of sea surface temperature reflect a common pattern of Pacific decadal sea surface temperature variability over the past two centuries. Since the pattern extends to both the north-ern and southern hemispheres, this result supports the idea that Pacific decadal variability is a basin-wide phenomenon originating in the tropics. The causes of Pacific decadal climate variability (here termed PDV) are the subject of much debate. Most work describing PDV has focused on the North Pacific, where the leading EOF of low-pass filtered sea surface temperature (SST) poleward of 20◦S was labelled the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) [Zhang et al., 1997; Mantua et al., 1997]. But is PDV generated in the North Pacific? Or is PDV a basin-wide pattern of variability? If so, then it is most likel