Centennial- to millennial-scale climate change since the last glacial needs to be revealed to improve the overall predictability of future environmental change. Special attention has been paid to short-term climate oscillations because they usually occurred rapidly enough to cause noticeable change in the average expected lifespan of human. Recently, short-term climate change during the late last glacial was successfully reconstructed from Hanon maar paleolake in Jeju island. In this study, centennial- to millennial-scale climate signals transferred via atmospheric teleconnection were detected for the first time in South Korea. Possible future presence of abrupt climate shifts such as Younger Dryas or 8.2 ka event would not seriously influence the Korean peninsula, especially not Jeju island, due to the Kuroshio warm currents. The study of climate variabilities in Korea could provide essential paleoclimatic information for the entire East Asian monsoon region since the climate of the Korean peninsula is driven significantly by coupled land-atmosphere-ocean dynamics.

There have been many suggestions and much debate about climate variability during the Holocene. However, their complex forcing factors and mechanisms have not yet been clearly identified. In this paper, we have examined the Holocene climate cycles and features based on the wavelet analyses of 14C, 10Be, and 18O records. The wavelet results of the 14C and 10Be data show that the cycles of ~2180-2310, ~970, ~500-520, ~350-360, and ~210-220 years are dominant, and the ~1720 and ~1500 year cycles are relatively weak and subdominant. In particular, the ~2180-2310 year periodicity corresponding to the Hallstatt cycle is constantly significant throughout the Holocene, while the ~970 year cycle corresponding to the Eddy cycle is mainly prominent in the early half of the Holocene. In addition, distinctive signals of the ~210-220 year period corresponding to the de Vries cycle appear recurrently in the wavelet distribution of 14C and 10Be, which coincide with the grand solar minima periods. These de Vries cycle events occurred every ~2270 years on average, implying a connection with the Hallstatt cycle. In contrast, the wavelet results of 18O data show that the cycles of ~1900-2000, ~900-1000, and ~550-560 years are dominant, while the ~2750 and ~2500 year cycles are subdominant. The periods of ~2750, ~2500, and ~1900 years being derived from the 18O records of NGRIP, GRIP and GISP2 ice cores, respectively, are rather longer or shorter than the Hallstatt cycle derived from the 14C and 10Be records. The records of these three sites all show the ~900-1000 year periodicity corresponding to the Eddy cycle in the early half of the Holocene.