The paleo-hydrography in the Japan Sea called a "mini-Ocean" was reconstructed based on the high-resolution analysis of diatom assemblages over the period of 150,000 yr. The decrease of diatom fertilization in the Japan Sea, when it was isolated from surrounding seas due to the drop of sea-level during the glacial to stadial phase, resulted in dissolution and/or extremely low diatom production in the northern cores in the subarctic water-masses. The annual Td'-derived paleo-SSTs ( degrees C) were controlled by the fluctuations of 2-kyr and 4-kyr periods at intervals of 20 kyr and 40 kyr over the last 160 kyr BP, respectively. A 23-kyr cycle is recognized during the periods from 140 ka to 100 ka, according to the Wavelet analysis. After temperature and sea-level increased both at 133-128 ka, 60-53 ka and 15-10 ka, oceanic warm-water diatom species predominated at 127-119 ka and after 9 cal ka in the interstadial phase. At 21.3-16.9 ka and 12.9-9.8 ka, sea-level and salinity increased as the transgression developed. At 10.0-7.0 ka, the oceanic association shifted from cold-water species in the stadial period to warm-water ones in the interstadial phase. The fluctuations of Td' derived-SSTs ( degrees C) on century to millennial time-scales during the Holocene are well correlated with abrupt climatic events that different paleoclimatic proxies record in many regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Abstract Copyright (2011) Elsevier, B.V.