Coral records of climate change: understanding past variability in the tropical ocean-atmosphere

摘要: The coupled ocean and atmosphere of the tropics plays an important role in climatic variability over time scales relevant to past two millennia. Small changes can resonate through climate system their influence on regional ocean-atmosphere systems boundary conditions. Increasingly, records from long-lived corals are being developed applied understand pre-instrumental tropical oceans. Short many sites have demonstrated utility geochemical growth-related tracers monitoring diverse aspects environmental changes. Longer records, particularly Pacific, beginning provide new information nature intrinsic variability. New results presented here support application these techniques other regions. In particular, oxygen isotopic Venezuela clearly monitor SST patterns Atlantic. On northern Great Barrier Reef, data indicate that seasonally specific reconstructions rainfall be derived coral records. These join a growing body literature supporting development network paleoceanographic will lend fresh insight into natural sensitivity its global change.