The internal development of the tropical West Pacific Warm Pool and its interaction with high latitude ocean regions on geological timescales is only poorly constrained. Based on a sediment core from the southeastern margin of the West Pacific Warm Pool (southern Manihiki Plateau), we provide new proxy data addressing the dynamically interacting ocean circulation at surface, subsurface, thermocline, and deep thermocline levels during the Pleistocene (~0.5–0 Ma). Beside an age model based on benthic stable isotopes, we use a planktonic foraminiferal multi-species isotope/geochemistry strategy, combining high-resolution stable isotope (δ18O, δ13C) time series with elemental geochemistry (i.e. Mg/Ca).