Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES
Volume 98, Issue 1, Pages 53-66Publisher
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s00531-008-0326-z
Keywords
Porites; Indian Ocean; Trace elements; El Nino-southern oscillation; Pacific decadal oscillation
Categories
Funding
- German Science Foundation
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In order to assess the fidelity of coral Sr/Ca for quantitative reconstructions of sea surface temperature variations, we have generated three monthly Sr/Ca time series from Porites corals from the lagoon of Peros Banhos (71A degrees E, 5A degrees S, Chagos Archipelago). We find that all three coral Sr/Ca time series are well correlated with instrumental records of sea surface temperature (SST) and air temperature. However, the intrinsic variance of the single-core Sr/Ca time series differs from core to core, limiting their use for quantitative estimates of past temperature variations. Averaging the single-core data improves the correlation with instrumental temperature (r > 0.7) and allows accurate estimates of interannual temperature variations (0.35A degrees C or better). All Sr/Ca time series indicate a shift towards warmer temperatures in the mid-1970s, which coincides with the most recent regime shift in the Pacific Ocean. However, the magnitude of the warming inferred from coral Sr/Ca differs from core to core and ranges from 0.26 to 0.75A degrees C. The composite Sr/Ca record from Peros Banhos clearly captures the major climatic signals in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, i.e. the El NiA +/- o-southern oscillation and the Pacific decadal oscillation. Moreover, composite Sr/Ca is highly correlated with tropical mean temperatures (r = 0.7), suggesting that coral Sr/Ca time series from the tropical Indian Ocean will contribute to multi-proxy reconstructions of tropical mean temperatures.
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