HR: 1340h
AN: PP23B-1430    [Abstracts]
TI: Sea Surface Temperature Variability in the Southwest Pacific as Reconstructed from the Skeletal Geochemistry of a Tricentennial Coral from New Caledonia
AU: * DeLong, K L
EM: kdelong@marine.usf.edu
AF: College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, 140 7th Ave. South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 United States
AU: Quinn, T M
EM: quinn@marine.usf.edu
AF: College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, 140 7th Ave. South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701 United States
AU: Taylor, F W
EM: fred@utig.ig.utexas.edu
AF: Institute for Geophysics, The John A. and Katherine G. Jackson School of Geosciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 4412 Spicewood Springs Rd., Austin, TX 78759-8500 United States
AB: We reconstruct sea surface temperatures (SST) and SST variability in the southwestern tropical Pacific back to $\sim$1654 A.D. using Sr/Ca and Mg/Ca variations in a {\it Porites} {\it lutea} coral collected offshore of Am\'{e}d\'{e}e Island, New Caledonia ($22.29\deg$S, $166.28\deg$E). Monthly samples were extracted along a path parallel to the previous sampling of this coral slab, samples from which were used to generate a seasonally resolved stable isotope record. The monthly Sr/Ca time series correlates well with the seasonal $\delta$$^{18}$O time series over the entire length of the record. There is a long-term trend of increasing SST over the length of the Sr/Ca-SST time series, the magnitude of this increase is $\sim$$1\deg$C. Temperatures in the twentieth century section of Sr/Ca-SST time series are the warmest, whereas temperatures in the eighteenth century section are the coolest. Spectral analysis (MTM) of the coral Sr/Ca time series identifies concentrations of variance ($>$95% confidence) in the interannual and decadal band. Wavelet analysis of the coral Sr/Ca time series demonstrates that decadal-scale variability is particularly prominent in the middle of the eighteenth century and during the second half of the nineteenth century. Quantitative comparisons with other long coral records and with a suite of climate indices are in progress.
DE: 3344 Paleoclimatology
DE: 4215 Climate and interannual variability (3309)
DE: 3309 Climatology (1620)
DE: 1620 Climate dynamics (3309)
SC: Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology [PP]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting