Discussion of “Deglacial paleoclimate in the southwestern United States: an abrupt 18.6 cold event and evidence for a North Atlantic forcing of Termination I” by M.S. Lachniet, Y. Asmerom and V. Polyak

Utilizing a stable isotopic time series obtained from a speleothem (PC-1), which grew between 20.1 and 15.6 ka, Lachniet, Asmeron and Polyak (2011; hereafter LAP) present evidence for a significant cold event in the southern Great Basin at 18.6 ka, a finding that we accept. Supplementing this short record with a literature review, they go on to claim, as their central thesis, that the paleoclimate of the southwestern US was driven by “the transmission of atmospheric anomalies to the southwest…that coincided with deglacial climate changes in Greenland and the North Atlantic region”, not by a “dominant Pacific Ocean SST control” as suggested by SST time series off California and by the Devils Hole δ¹⁸O time series from the southern Great Basin. We do not find their central thesis supportable.