sensitivity of extratropical cyclone characteristics to horizontal resolution in the ecmwf model the sensitivity to horizontal resolution of northern hemisphere extratropical cyclone characteristics during the wintertime december march is investigated using a set of seasonal forecasts 1982 2001 with the european centre for medium range weather forecasts ecmwf model three different horizontal resolutions tl95 tl159 and tl255 are employed in order to test the realism of the simulations the model results are compared with those obtained from era 40 re analysis data the cyclone tracking is accomplished by applying an automatic tracking scheme to six hourly mean sea level pressure data it is shown that many of the key characteristics of extratropical cyclones in the ecmwf model are highly sensitive to horizontal resolution with the low resolution version tl95 for example simulating only about 60 of the re analysed total number of extratropical cyclones regions found to be particularly sensitive include the northern pacific the arctic baffin bay and the labrador sea as well as the mediterranean sea for the latter region it is shown that even the relatively high resolution version of the model tl255 significantly underestimates the number of cases of genoa cyclogenesis furthermore it is shown that in some regions such as the entrance regions of the major northern hemisphere storm tracks model deficits are insensitive to increases in horizontal resolution the same analysis has been repeated for the high resolution operational ecmwf analysis 2000 2004 truncated at different total wave numbers tl95 tl159 tl255 and tl511 in order to separate dynamical effects of differences in resolution from those due to pure spectral truncation it is found that the dynamical effect of changing horizontal resolution dominates over the truncation effect for intense cyclones whereas the truncation effect dominates for shallow cyclones copyright 2006 royal meteorological society

strontium calcium ratios in modern porites corals from the great barrier reef as a proxy for sea surface temperature calibration of the thermometer and monitoring of enso high precision sr ca ratios are reported for porites corals from davies reef at 19 s on the midshelf of the great barrier reef australia skeletal growth parameters were also determined from coral slabs using x ray photographs and densitometry measurements a calibration of the sr ca thermometer has been obtained using in situ measured sea surface temperatures which gives sr ca 10 10 48 0 01 0 0615 0 0004 t wheret is in c this calibration applies to different species of porites and a large range of annual extension and calcification rates provided sampling follows a major growth axis biases of 1 2 c have been observed in the low density margins where growth is hampered by interfering fans of corallites the analytical and the long term reproducibility of sr ca derived temperatures are both better than 0 3 c 2 coral growth parameters such as the extension rate or density generally appear to respond to environmental changes such as rainfall but do not affect the sr ca partitioning between coralline aragonite and seawater no correlation has been found between calcification rate and sr ca variations consistent with sr ca being mainly controlled by temperature in the great barrier reef the interannual variability in sst is primarily related to the el nino southern oscillation phenomenon and is typically marked by a cold anomaly during the winter preceding the mature warm phase instrumental records show that the surface waters of the coral sea around 19 s have experienced a significant cooling associated with the el ninos of 1965 1972 and 1982 1983 which the porites corals record faithfully the coral derived temperatures for the period from 1965 to 1993 show an increase of 1 3 c which has occurred mainly since 1979 this warming is larger in magnitude but consistent with the trend for the southern hemisphere land and marine temperature records which shows an increase of around 0 4 c

pacific sea surface temperature field reconstruction from coral δ18o data using reduced space objective analysis 1 a systematic methodology for the reconstruction of climate fields from sparse observational networks of proxy data employing the technique of reduced space objective analysis is applied to the reconstruction of gridded pacific ocean basin sea surface temperature sst from coral stable isotope 18o data for the period 1607 1990 in this approach we seek to reconstruct only the leading modes of large scale variability which are both observed in the modern climate and resolved in the proxy data we find that the coral data verifiably resolve two spatial patterns of sst variability the first and dominant pattern is that of the el nino southern oscillation enso a second pattern reflects uniform changes over most of the pacific basin calibration and verification tests for 1856 1990 show that root mean square variance is small 0 5 c rms and reconstruction errors are large 0 6 c rms limiting interpretation to the tropical region periods of enhanced enso activity similar to those observed in the past two decades are evident in the reconstruction for the early nineteenth century the changing frequency of enso warm phase events appears to coincide with warming of the pacific mean state inferred from similar reconstruction efforts using tree ring indicators over the last two centuries

chronological control of coral records using luminescent lines and evidence for non stationary enso teleconnections in northeast australia eight multicentury porites coral cores were used to develop a 373 year chronology by cross dating techniques adapted from dendrochronology characteristic patterns of distinct luminescent lines within the coral skeletons were matched between coral cores from inshore and mid shelf reefs in the central great barrier reef australia skeleton plots of luminescent banding were produced for each core and combined into a master chronology back to ad 1615 in addition to improving dating control the luminescence master chronology provides a proxy for burdekin river runoff and queensland summer rainfall variations in the magnitude of the correlation between the luminescence master and the mann et al 2000 nino3 sea surface temperature reconstruction provides insights into the long term stability of el nino southern oscillation enso telecon nections burdekin river runoff was significantly inversely related to enso variability for much of the period from the ad 1650s to 1800 suggesting that enso related te

a central tropical pacific coral demonstrates pacific indian and atlantic decadal climate connections while instrumental and proxy based climate records describe significant decadal scale climate variabil ity throughout the tropical pacific indian and atlantic oceans the processes responsible for these variations and their interactionsare not readily apparent from the obs er vations a new 112 yr coral based sea surface temperature sst reconstruction from palmyra island in the central tropical pacific ctp exhibitss trong decadal variability with an amplitude of roughly 0 3 c a 12 13yr period sig nal in thiscoral record ishighly coherent with long equa torial atlantic and indian ocean climate records implying a unified phenomenon the atlantic pattern suggests that it may fall under direct influence of anomaloussst in the ctp as it does over interannual timescales while the in dian ocean pattern exhibits maximum response during the switch between warm cold states in the tropical pacific the results demonstrate that the ctp has played a significant role in determining the expression of global decadal climate variability over the twentieth century

a coral oxygen isotope record from the northern red sea documenting nao enso and north pacific teleconnections on middle east climate variability since the year 1750 a 245 year coral oxygen isotope record from the northern red sea ras umm sidd egypt 28 n in bimonthly resolution is presented the mean annual coral 18o signal apparently reflects varying proportions of both sea surface temperature and 18oseawater variability in conjunction with instrumental observations of climate the coral record suggests for interannual and longer timescales that colder periods are accompanied by more arid conditions in the northern red sea but increased rainfall in the southeastern mediterranean whereas warmer periods are accompanied by decreased rainfall in the latter and less arid conditions in the northern red sea a 70 year oscillation of probably north atlantic origin dominates the coral time series interannual to interdecadal variability is correlated with instrumental indices of the north atlantic oscillation nao the el nino southern oscillation enso and north pacific climate variability the results suggest that these modes contributed consistently to middle east climate variability since at least 1750 preferentially at a period of 5 7 years

interaction between the enso and the asian monsoon in a coral record of tropical climate the oxygen isotopic composition of a banded coral from the western equatorial indian ocean provides a 150 year long history of the relation between the el nino southern oscillation enso phenomenon and the asian monsoon interannual cycles in the coral time series were found to correlate with pacific coral and instrumental climate records suggesting a consistent linkage across ocean basins despite the changing frequency and amplitude of the enso however decadal variability that is characteristic of the monsoon system also dominates the coral record which implies important interactions between tropical and midlatitude climate variability one prominent manifestation of this interaction is the strong amplitude modulation of the quasi biennial cycle

high resolution multiproxy climatic records from ice cores tree rings corals and documentary sources using eigenvector techniques and maps assessment of recovered signal and errors palaeotemperature sensitive series from tree rings ice cores corals and documentary sources are combined to producepalaeo summer temperaturereconstructions ad 1970 1761 and geographical eigenvector eof maps in both hemispheres they are compared favourably to those of existing summer temperature average series there are 51 palaeoseries in the northern hemisphere mostly north of 40 n and 16 series in the southern hemisphere the statistics and significance of the palaeoreconstructions are examined by 1 finding the correlation coefficient palaeo to measured as a function of the number and geographical distribution of the palaeo series 2 developing and running a multiproxy model that generates pseudo series containing a signal and the same types and amounts of noise found in the various real palaeo series the model reproduces the measured correlation coefficients and the eigenvector s eof explained variances as functions of the number of sites about 77 of the signal variance can be reco

deconvolving the δ18o seawater component from subseasonal coral δ18o and sr ca at rarotonga in the southwestern subtropical pacific for the period 1726 to 1997 to reconstruct oceanographic variations in the subtropical south pacific 271 year long subseasonal time series of sr ca and delta 18 o were generated from a coral growing at rarotonga 21 5degreess 159 5degreesw in this case coral sr ca appears to be an excellent proxy for sea surface temperature sst and coral delta 18 o is a function of both sst and seawater delta 18 o composition delta 18 o sw here we focus on extracting the delta 18 o sw signal from these proxy records a method is presented assuming that coral sr ca is solely a function of sst and that coral delta 18 o is a function of both sst and delta 18 o sw this method separates the effects of delta 18 o sw from sst by breaking the instantaneous changes of coral delta 18 o into separate contributions by instantaneous sst and delta 18 o sw changes respectively the results show that on average delta 18 o sw at rarotonga explains similar to39 of the variance in delta 18 o and that variations in sst explains the remaining similar to61 of delta 18 o variance reconstructed delta 18 o sw shows systematic increases in summer months december february consistent with the regional pattern of variations in precipitation and evaporation the delta 18 o sw also shows a positive linear correlation with satellite derived estimated salinity for the period 1980 to 1997 r 0 72 this linear correlation between reconstructed delta 18 o sw and salinity makes it possible to use the reconstructed delta 18 o sw to estimate the past interannual and decadal salinity changes in this region comparisons of coral delta 18 o and delta 18 o sw at rarotonga with the pacific decadal oscillation index suggest that the decadal and interdecadal salinity and sst variability at rarotonga appears to be related to basin scale decadal variability in the pacific copyright c 2002 elsevier science ltd

reliability of coral isotope records from the western pacific warm pool a comparison using age optimized records stable isotope analysis of two separate corals from nauru island in the warm pool of the western tropical pacific confirm that coral oxygen isotopes are a robust recorder of environmental variables coral delta 18 o faithfully records interannual variability even when strongly influenced by kinetic effects interannual to decadal variability of coral delta 13 c remains enigmatic only one of the two corals exhibits the expected light delta 13 c response in the interannual band coral delta 18 o from this region has a great similarity to global instrumental temperature records reflecting the impact of the pacific warm pool and variations of the indonesian low in concert with el nino southern oscillation on global climate since 1896 coral delta 18 o has exhibited a cumulative decrease of 0 7 parts per thousand which reflects a combination of warming and more frequent el nino events precipitation affecting the surface waters of this region

high resolution isotopic records from corals using ocean temperature and mass spawning chronometers abstract we present a 6 year long 1978 1984 18 o and 13 c record from a great barrier reef pandora reef porites lutea coral based on near weekly sample intervals a sampling technique was designed to minimise any smoothing or distortion of the isotopic record due to complex coral growth calyx architecture and calcification at depth within the tissue layer the arrival time of the mid winter minimum sea surface temperature is very consistent 2 weeks near pandora reef and provides an annual time marker offering more precision than the traditional density band chronometer the improved chronology and high resolution record demonstrate that signal distortion in porites due to calcification within the tissue layer and variable intra annual coral extension is generally negligible also confirmed is that the arrival time of monsoonal floods is precisely preserved 1 week within the skeleton of porites the sensitivity of weekly sampling allows the detection of a subtle warm to cool sea surface temperature anomaly which preceded by more than one year a similar temperature anomaly associated with the 1982 83 el nin o in the east pacific sharply higher 13 c values coincide with the time of the annual coral mass spawning event in the great barrier reef recognition of this mass spawning signal should simplify the interpretation of coral 13 c records and provides an additional precise time marker with which to adjust chronologies when intra annual coral extension is not constant

el nino southern oscillation enso and decadal scale climate variability at 10 n in the eastern pacific from 1893 to 1994 a coral based reconstruction from clipperton atoll we have developed a 101 year 1893 1994 subseasonal oxygen 18o and carbon 13c isotopic time series from clipperton atoll in the eastern pacific using the coral porites lobata in agreement with linsley et al 1999 we find that seasonal and interannual coral 18o variability at clipperton results from variability in both water temperature and salinity three new coral time series demonstrate the reproducibility of a secular coral 18o trend of 0 35 since 1910 but show varying 13c trends strong decadal scale variability in the 18o record appears related to the pacific decadal oscillation pdo through postulated changes in the strengths of the equatorial counter current and north equatorial current interannual variability in this coral 18o record is directly related to the el nino southern oscillation enso and isolation of this frequency band indicates reduced enso variability in the eastern equatorial pacific in the period 1925 to 1940 in agreement with instrumental and other pacific coral records

optimal sites for coral based reconstruction of global sea surface temperature we determine the structure of a network of sites from which coral based proxy measurements of sea surface temperature sst variability minimize the error in a reconstruction of the large scale features of the global sst field for a wide range of coral derived sst observational error and several minimization criteria sites in the equatorial oceans especially the central and eastern equatorial pacific best minimize the error in the reconstruction if the observational error is sufficiently low additional optimal sites are in selected subtropical locations if the observational error is high the error is minimized by resampling the most important equatorial sites the marginal return on additional sites diminishes rapidly and is not sensitive to the size of the observational error two sites reduce the analysis error by half as much as 10 sites while the first 6 7 sites achieve half the error reduction of all 65 sites in the analysis domain in the extratropics the reduction of reconstruction error is small and gradual while error in the tropical pacific is sharply reduced by 2 3 sites and gradually thereafter these results suggest that a limited set of redundantly sampled sites with uncorrelated and low observational error 0 3 0 6 c will provide the best approach to reconstruction of large scale features of the sst field from coral data for the preinstrumental period

eastern pacific sea surface temperature since 1600 a d the δ18o record of climate variability in galapagos corals we measured stable oxygen isotope ratios and skeletal growth rates in the massive corals pavona clavus and p gigantea from the west coast of isabela island galapagos to assess interannual to decadal climate variability in the eastern pacific comparisons of instrumental data sets show that sea surface temperatures sst in the galapagos region are representative of a broad portion of the eastern equatorial pacific the site is especially well suited for long term studies of the el nino southern oscillation enso phenomenon as it lies within the eastern pacific center of action for thermal anomalies associated with enso the p gigantea isotope record is nearly monthly in resolution spans the period 1961 1982 and shows strong correlation with a galapagos instrumental sst record r 0 90 for annual averages cross spectral analysis shows that sst can explain greater than 80 of the variance in 18o at both the annual cycle and within the high frequency portion of the enso band 3 5 years the p clavus record is annual in resolution extends from 1587 to 1953 a d and was obtained from a 10 m diameter colony preserved within the urvina bay uplift because seawater 18o variations in the region are very small we interpret the urvina bay coral 18o record in terms of annual average sst the isotopic record appears to be a very good but not perfect indicator of enso events and shows good correspondence with the historical enso reconstruction of quinn et al 1987 a number of low 18o excursions that we observe during the 17th and 18th centuries very likely represent enso events that are missing from the historical tabulations most interannual 18o variations between 1607 and 1953 a d represent annual average temperature excursions of 1 to 2 5 c during the little ice age the annual 18o series correlates well with many north american tree ring records and shows low temperatures during the early 1600s and early 1800s and relatively warmer conditions during the 1700s unlike most northern hemisphere tree ring and instrumental records we see no evidence at this site for warming between 1880 and 1940 but rather observe a slight cooling 28 of the total variance the main enso mode is centered at 4 6 years and accounts for 12 of the total variance additional significant oscillations occur at periods of 3 3 6 8 11 17 22 and 34 years both annual growth rate and 18o show variance at periods equivalent to the solar and solar magnetic periods e g 11 and 22 years respectively in addition the amplitude of the 11 year 18o cycle generally varies with the amplitude of the solar cycle supporting previous suggestions that the solar cycle may modulate interannual to decadal climate variability in the tropics the dominant oscillatory modes both within the enso and interdecadal frequency bands shift to shorter periods from the early to middle 1700s and again from the middle to late 1800s this may reflect major reorganizations within the tropical ocean atmosphere system and suggests that tropical pacific climate variability is linked across timescales ranging from years to decades

new views of tropical paleoclimates from corals abstract corals offer a rich archive of past climate variability in tropical ocean regions where instrumental data are limited and where our knowledge of multi decadal climate sensitivity is incomplete in the eastern equatorial pacific coral isotopic records track variations in enso related changes in sea surface temperature further west corals record variability in sea surface temperature and rainfall that accompanies zonal displacement of the indonesian low during enso events these multi century records reveal previously unrecognised enso variability on time scales of decades to centuries outside the enso sensitive equatorial pacific long term trends towards recent warmer wetter conditions suggest the tropics respond to global forcings new coral paleothermometers indicate that surface ocean temperatures in the tropical southwestern pacific were depressed by 4 6 c during the younger dryas climatic event and rose episodically during the next 4000 yr high temporal resolution measurements of sr ca and 18 o in corals provide information about the surface ocean hydrologic balance and can resolve the seasonal balance between precipitation and evaporation radiocarbon measurements in corals coupled with ocean circulation models may be used to reconstruct near surface ocean circulation past mixing rates and the distribution of fossil fuel co2 in the upper ocean most recently seasonal to interannual variations in the radiocarbon of corals from the equatorial pacific have been linked to the redistribution of surface waters associated with the enso

salinity records for the 1997 98 el nino from western pacific corals 1 seasonal sea surface salinity sss records can be of great value in reconstructing el nino southern oscillation enso variability in the equatorial western and central pacific a region where enso related evaporation and precipitation e p changes are dramatic the 18o values of coral skeleton 18ocoral reflect seawater 18o 18oseawater changes which in tropical oceans are also generally influenced by e p changes therefore 18ocoral is a good indicator of rainfall and enso variability we present biweekly data from palau in the northern part of the western pacific warm pool for the period 1998 2000 which indicate a strong quantitative relationship between 18ocoral sea surface temperature 18oseawater and sss the coral skeletal 18o values documented the sss changes after the 1997 98 el nino therefore 18ocoral can be used to estimate paleosalinity changes however the slope of the 18oseawater sss relationship cannot be assumed to be constant throughout the tropics making site specific calibrations is essential

a 173 year stable isotope record from a tropical south pacific coral 0 we have generated a 173 year long time series a d 1806 to 1979 of changes in the 18 o and 13 c composition of a coral head platygyra lamellina to investigate environmental change in the climatologically sensitive region of the tropical south pacific little is known about decadal and centennial scale climate change at sea level in this region our coral is from near the south coast of espiritu santo island 15 s 167 e republic of vanuatu the stable isotope record from this coral is consistent with meteorological and oceanographic records during the period of overlap in the records 1964 1978 18 o values positively correlate with sst r 0 77 and 13 c values are highly coherent with rainfall r 0 82 at the annual cycle these relations suggest that the 18 o signal in this coral is a function of variations in sst and rainfall induced changes in sss whereas the 13 c signal may be related to rainfall and cloud cover modulation of photosynthesis in the coral 18 o and 13 c values are positively correlated over the entire length of the record r 0 65 a relation that is even stronger between 1806 and 1866 r 0 81 i e prior to the time of possible anthropogenic influence on the 13 c record because of the positive correlation between temperature and rainfall in this region we interpret the long term record of 18 o in terms of joint variations of these two variables the most significant cool dry excursion in the santo record occurs during the nineteenth century 1832 1866 and ends abruptly in 1866 with a change to modern values superimposed on this pattern is a slight 0 2 cooling drying toward the end of the twentieth century cross spectral analysis of the 18 o and 13 c records indicates a strong concentration of variance at the quasi biennial 2 years and el nino southern oscillation enso 4 5 years frequency bands in addition to a 15 year peak found also in global temperature records cross spectral analysis of coral isotope records from santo and the philippine sea indicate a concentration of variance at enso 4 5 years frequency bands however comparison of the santo coral isotope record with high latitude northern hemisphere temperature records indicates that the major cool dry excursion in the santo record 1832 1866 is not seen in the northern hemisphere record if verified in other tropical south pacific coral records the results have implications concerning the global scale of cooling for little ice age events

early marine diagenesis in corals and geochemical consequences for paleoceanographic reconstructions detecting the potential geochemical consequences of early marine diagenesis is essential for establishing the validity of past climate reconstructions from coral we present coral skeletal 18o and sr ca data for two long coral cores spanning 1839 1994 ad at ningaloo reef western australia one of which includes significant secondary precipitation of marine inorganic aragonite long term trends in reconstructed sea surface temperatures ssts for the well preserved coral correlate strongly with instrumental sst records spanning the 20th century in contrast the 18o and sr ca for the diagenetically altered coral give identical cool sst anomalies of 4 5 c as a consequence of the addition of secondary aragonite enriched in 18o and sr our results indicate that cross checking of paleoclimate reconstructions with two supposedly independent paleothermometers may not be valid and that coral records showing cooler ssts in the past need to be interpreted with caution furthermore modern coral records with long term trends in 18o indicating recent warming and freshening of the ocean can be potentially explained by early marine diagenesis

support for tropically driven pacific decadal variability based on paleoproxy evidence two independent proxy reconstructions of sea surface temperature reflect a common pattern of pacific decadal sea surface temperature variability over the past two centuries since the pattern extends to both the north ern and southern hemispheres this result supports the idea that pacific decadal variability is a basin wide phenomenon originating in thetropics the causes of pacific decadal climate variability here termed pdv are the subject of much debate most work describing pdv has focused on the north pacific where the leading eof of low pass filtered sea surface temperature

intercomparison of coral oxygen isotope data and historical sea surface temperature sst potential for coral based sst field reconstructions we examine the extent to which the large scale features of the sea surface temperature sst anomaly field are represented by a sparse observational network of coral oxygen isotope 18o time series regression of annually averaged 18o data against gridded estimates of local sst anomaly within the period 1856 1990 confirm the literature regression of 18o anomaly on sst anomaly for indo pacific corals however while interannual sst variability is generally well represented by individual coral time series observed decadal and secular variability does not always display a linear relationship to local sst anomaly instead many records appear to better recover nonlocal large scale phenomena which in turn are related to either the coral local sst or sst covariant changes in seawater 18o we employ empirical orthogonal function eof analysis to identify common patterns of variability in the coral data we find two significant patterns which are interpretable as the oceanographic signature of the el nino southern oscillation enso and as a near global warming in which the eastern equatorial pacific cools a third pattern weakly resembles the pacific decadal oscillation these modes are seen more clearly in a singular vector decomposition svd of the covariance between the coral data and the dominant patterns of large scale historical sst variability the results are consistent with those found in eof and svd analyses of sst data from the coral locations as additional coral based proxy estimates become available they will improve the resolution of the patterns recovered these results suggest that a sparse network of coral data may be used to reconstruct interannual secular and decadal sst variability for preinstrumental periods albeit with large uncertainty

the thermal oceanographic signal of el nino reconstructed from a kiritimati island coral central equatorial pacific sea surface temperature sst anomaly is a critical predictor of basin wide oceanographic and atmospheric effects of the el nino southern oscillation enso phenomenon we employ two geochemical thermometers measured on coralline aragonite to reconstruct an independent proxy based measure of central equatorial pacific sea surface temperature anomaly in addition we assess the observational error associated with extraction of large scale sst anomalies from 18o and sr ca measurements on the basis of paired data for the 1981 1987 period rms error for the estimation of sst from kiritimati coral 18o is about 0 4 c assuming no seawater 18o influence for sr ca the observational error is about 0 5 c singular spectrum analysis of the 18o time series suggests that 1 3 of the variance is explained by sst anomaly and that this variance may be separated from other signals in the frequency domain the interannual component of the 18o record shares 70 variance with the interannual component of local sst anomaly estimates 0 84 and correlates as highly with nino3 region 150 w 90 w 5 n 5 s sst anomaly estimates comparison of annual averages of the 18o data with analyzed sst for 55 years suggests that the error in deriving annually averaged sst anomalies at kiritimati is about 0 4 c a global sst correlation analysis suggests significant correlation with the rest of the pacific basin and the tropical indian and atlantic sectors the ocean wide level of correlation achieved using the coral data is indistinguishable from that achieved using the nino3 sst anomaly index and suggests that a few well located coral reconstructions with low observational error may be sufficient to reconstruct the global sst anomaly field associated with enso activity

decadal sea surface temperature variability in the subtropical south pacific from 1726 to 1997 a d we present a 271 year record of sr ca variability in a coral from rarotonga in the south pacific gyre calibration with monthly sea surface temperature sst from satellite and ship measurements made in a grid measuring 1 degrees by 1 degrees over the period from 1981 to 1997 indicates that this sr ca record is an excellent proxy for sst comparison with sst from ship measurements made since 1950 in a grid measuring 5 degrees by 5 degrees also shows that the sr ca data accurately record decadal changes in sst the entire sr ca record back to 1726 shows a distinct pattern of decadal variability with repeated decadal and interdecadal sst regime shifts greater than 0 75 degrees c comparison with decadal climate variability in the north pacific as represented by the pacific decadal oscillation index 1900 1997 indicates that several of the largest decadal scale sst variations at rarotonga are coherent with sst regime shifts in the north pacific this hemispheric symmetry suggests that tropical forcing may be an important factor in at least some of the decadal variability observed in the pacific ocean

evaluation of sampling resolution in coral stable isotope records a case study using records from new caledonia and tarawa we have generated a 40 year long monthly stable isotope record from a porites lutea coral collected offshore of amedee new caledonia 22 s 167 e to investigate the relation between sampling resolution in coral isotope studies and retrieval of sea surface environmental information we interpret the high correlation between our oxygen isotope record and a twenty year long sea surface temperature record at the monthly timescale r 0 88 to indicate that our coral isotope record is an accurate monitor of environmental conditions offshore of amedee the character of the signal and the percent variance explained in the record at the annual band at the quasi biennial oscillation band qbo 2 0 2 4 years and at the el nino southern oscillation band enso 3 8 years changes little in response to a reduction in sampling density from monthly to bimonthly to quarterly similar results have been obtained in a reanalysis of a coral isotope record from tarawa kiribati our results indicate that a significant amount of the information obtained from high density sampling can also be retrieved from lower density sampling in particular bimonthly sampling yields virtually no drop off in variance explained and quarterly sampling is satisfactory for resolving interannual and decadal scale trends in time series the proposed sampling approach may enable a more rapid filling in of numerous spatial holes in coral sampling sites needed for reconstruction of long term decadal scale variations in climate

low frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network we describe new reconstructions of northern extratropical summer temperatures for nine subcontinental scale regions and a composite series representing quasi northern hemisphere temperature change over the last 600 years these series are based on tree ring density data that have been processed using a novel statistical technique age band decomposition designed to preserve greater long timescale variability than in previous analyses we provide time dependent and timescale dependent uncertainty estimates for all of the reconstructions the new regional estimates are generally cooler in almost all precalibration periods compared to estimates obtained using earlier processing methods particularly during the 17th century one exception is the reconstruction for northern siberia where 15th century summers are now estimated to be warmer than those observed in the 20th century in producing a new northern hemisphere series we demonstrate the sensitivity of the results to the methodology used once the number of regions with data and the reliability of each regional series begins to decrease we compare our new hemisphere series to other published large regional temperature histories most of which lie within the 1 confidence band of our estimates over most of the last 600 years the 20th century is clearly shown by all of the palaeoseries composites to be the warmest during this period

a multicentury stable isotope record from a new caledonia coral interannual and decadal sea surface temperature variability in the southwest pacific since 1657 a d a 335 year stable isotope record from a new caledonia coral 22 s 166 e helps fill a large gap in historical climate reconstructions although the long term coral 18o based sea surface temperature sst trend is one of warming there are notable decadal fluctuations especially in the early 18th and early 19th centuries mean annual ssts between 1658 and 1900 are estimated to be 0 3 c lower than the 20th century average with interdecadal excursions of 0 5 0 8 c time series analyses of the coral isotope record reveals significant concentrations of variance in the el nino band an inderdecadal spectral peak is present but its robustness requires additional statistical evaluation a secular but irregular decrease in coral 13c values begins in the mid 1800s and may reflect the anthropogenic perturbation of the carbon reservoir these and other results indicate that the new caledonia coral isotope record is a valuable source of information on southwest pacific climate history

high resolution palynological record of holocene climatic and oceanographic changes in the northern south china sea abstract for the first time palynological records of terrestrial palynomorphs and dinoflagellate cysts are investigated in a sediment core from the northern south china sea scs covering the last 12 500 years both terrestrial and marine palynomorph records show strong signals of the sea level change during the studied interval the highest herb pollen content was associated with extensive grasslands on the exposed shelf at the low sea level stand during the younger dryas and early holocene the increase in fern spores and decrease in concentrations of dinoflagellate cysts and terrestrial palynomorphs was observed during the sea level rise interval from 12 500 to 6800 or 6000 cal yr bp then the sea level became stabilized and consistently low dinoflagellate cyst abundances and high abundances of fern spores were recorded a high abundance of impagidinium in the period 12 000 10 400 cal yr bp possibly resulted from increased input of western philippine sea waters into the scs and the branching of the kuroshio current a short term decrease of impagidinium at 11 700 11 000 cal yr bp corresponding to the mwp 1b event might be associated with input of the east china sea waters through the taiwan strait the relationship between the sedimentation rates and the concentrations of terrestrial palynomorphs indicates a water dominant transport for pollen and spore dispersal prior to 6300 cal yr bp whereas wind transport became more prominent thereafter the timing of this change corresponds to the highest sea level stand at 6800 6000 cal yr bp when the present oceanographic setting was formed the mid holocene optimum can be seen by the highest abundance of subtropical tropical broad leaved arboreal pollen and by the highest abundances of dapsilidinium pastielsii three strengthened winter monsoon intervals at 5500 cal yr bp 4000 cal yr bp and 2500 cal yr bp are reflected by increases in pinus pollen content after the present oceanographic condition formed

a calibration of the oxygen isotope paleothermometer of coral aragonite from porites the oxygen isotopic composition 18oaragonite of coral aragonite is dependent upon two parameters temperature and water oxygen isotopic composition this tracer allows temperature reconstruction in tropical zones different published 18o temperature relationships show a slope derived from the regression 18o against t c which varies between 0 16 and 0 23 for porites genus this implies greater uncertainty for paleoclimatic reconstruction the calibrations were generated differently they were obtained from several colonies collected in different locations or the formula was derived from the same coral head following seasonal variations of temperature the relationships took into account of 18osw fluctuation or 18osw were estimated from salinity or were not considered we show by using isotopic data from weber and woodhead 1972 and assessing the 18osw value by two different methods that a thermodynamically significant formula is generated

atmospheric and oceanic evidences of el nino southern oscillation events in the south central pacific ocean from coral stable isotopic records over the last 137 years we measured 18o and 13c in porites lutea collected in the moorea lagoon where the instrumental records show that an el nino southern oscillation enso event implies both a cloud cover decrease and a weak sea surface temperature sst increase two proxies allow an enso record to be reconstructed at moorea the annual 13c anomaly associated with the south pacific convergence zone motion and an annual 18o anomaly showing increased sst the frequency bands exhibited by the singular spectral analysis ssa and the multitaper method of the annual 18o and 13c records are centered on 2 5 and 5 2 years and 2 4 and 3 2 years respectively which are the main enso modes we used ssa to reconstruct enso events at moorea over the past 137 years results indicate that climate variability at this site is strongly affected by enso events

validation of coral temperature calibrations geochemical analyses of coral skeletons are increasingly used to estimate past sea surface temperatures ssts in this paper we suggest that the standard method of calibrating geochemical time series against a usually short local time series requires modification in order to draw large scale inferences about climate from coral proxy data it is also necessary to 1 calibrate against larger fields such as the local gridded data sets and 2 validate results against an independent data set e g early 20th century this approach has been applied in a pilot study to a coral record from new caledonia despite a high 18o correlation r 0 88 with the in situ and gridded sst data sets estimated early 20th century temperatures are more than 1 5 c colder than observed if the standard seasonal calibration is used regression against mean annual temperatures which has a different slope relation yields better estimates of early 20th century ssts however testing of a sr ca record from new caledonia yields better agreement with early 20th century ssts routine validation exercises for other coral sites are necessary to clarify the robustness of geochemical coral proxies as estimators of past environmental change

a strategy to improve the contribution of coral data to high resolution paleoclimatology abstract various geochemical tracers measured in massive coral skeletons have the potential to compliment other sources of high resolution proxy climate information e g tree rings ice cores by providing paleoclimatic data from shallow water tropical ocean regions twenty previously published coral records 19 18o and one sr ca series between 54 and 346 years in length were examined for their local and larger scale relationships el nino southern oscillation with climate series were examined in a consistent manner over the same time periods and relationships were tested for stability through time the results demonstrate a spectrum of climatic interpretation ranging from 1 no significant relationship of the coral record with either local or larger scale climate variables 2 significant relationship of the coral record with climate but the relationship is not stable through time and 3 the coral record shows a significant and temporally stable relationship with climate which explains a significant and useful proportion of climate variance it is concluded that reliance to date on analyzing only one long coral core from a site has prevented identification of coral records or parts of coral records where non climatic factors are dominating the geochemical signal various factors may cause these non climatic signals to dominate more process studies into how corals of particular species with various growth rates and from various environmental settings incorporate geochemical tracers into their skeleton are required to understand exactly what is being measured in addition it is recommended that some level of replication ideally three separate corals of geochemical tracers will ensure accurate dating of the record identification of periods when non climatic factors dominate and thus enhance the reliability of the paleoclimatic record such an approach will allow the rich archive of environmental information contained in massive coral skeletons to make a significant contribution to high resolution paleoclimatology and improve our understanding of the nature and causes of past climate variability

a high resolution sr ca and δ18o coral record from the great barrier reef australia and the 1982 1983 el nino abstract a high resolution near weekly sr ca and oxygen isotopic record is presented for a coral from the pandora reef in the great barrier reef gbr of australia during the period 1978 to 1984 the records are well correlated except for periods of high rainfall when river runoff has significantly modified the 18o value of seawater using the sr ca temperature calibration of de villiers et al 1994 the sr ca records exhibit seasonally controlled cyclical sst sea surface temperature variations of from 21 to 28 c during the very strong el nino of 1982 1983 the sr ca systematics indicate a sharp drop in the winter sst to 18 5 c this represents a temperature anomaly of 3 c which is approximately twice that given by the 18o variations suggesting an 2 amplification of the anomaly by the sr ca system possibly due to the increasing dominance of inorganically controlled aragoniteseawater fractionation the oxygen isotopic systematics show the combined effects of both temperature and changing seawater 18o values the latter reflecting the influx of 18o depleted runoff during periods of high rainfall due to the extremely low 10 3 sr and ca contents of river run off relative to seawater it is possible to use the sr ca thermometer to calculate temperatures independent of major floods and hence deconvolve the combined effects in the oxygen isotopic record of variable temperature and the 18o value of seawater using this approach it is possible to quantitatively reproduce the volume of runoff from the burdekin river during the periods of major flooding that occurred in early 1979 and 1981 the results of this study demonstrate that the combined use of high resolution sr ca and 18o systematics in scleractinian corals is a powerful tool for providing quantitative constraints on past climate

calibration of stable oxygen isotope signatures in galapagos corals a 2 year 1993 1994 study was conducted in the galapagos islands ecuador to determine the relationship between 18o in skeletal carbonate and sea surface temperature sst in three species of reef building corals pavona clavus pavona gigantea and porites lobata coral samples were grown at 3 10 and 3 m depth at bartolome island champion iisland and urvina bay isabela island respectively hourly measurements of sst and sea surface salinity sss were taken at each site immediately adjacent to colonies which were stained biannually to establish the chronology of growth in addition surface waters were sampled periodically bimonthly to monthly at each site to determine variation in 18o seawater results indicate the mean annual ssts were similar between sites varying from 22 9 c at champion to 23 8 c at urvina bay comparisons of monthly sst averages between instrumental and remote sensing satellite 1 1 grid data show a high correspondence r2 ranging from 0 84 to 0 94 indicating that remote sensing data are useful for interpreting the 18o record in corals when instrumental data are lacking here 18ocoral analyses of eight specimens show that coralline aragonite is a reliable indicator of sst in galapagos in general higher resolution coral sampling year resolved more of the monthly variation in sst up to 97 at a sampling resolution of 1 4 samples per millimeter of linear skeletal growth comparisions of the 18ocoral signal among and between species at the same site showed consistent seasonal patterns of variation closely tracking sst in addition comparisons between sites were highly concordant with some differences reflecting local variation in sst seasonal patterns however were essentially the same over the entire region thus we conclude that the 18ocoral signal from coral skeletons in galapagos can be used to interpret regional changes in sst variation

global surface temperatures over the past two millennia 1 we present reconstructions of northern and southern hemisphere mean surface temperature over the past two millennia based on high resolution proxy temperature data which retain millennial scale variability these reconstructions indicate that late 20th century warmth is unprecedented for at least roughly the past two millennia for the northern hemisphere conclusions for the southern hemisphere and global mean temperature are limited by the sparseness of available proxy data in the southern hemisphere at present

hydrometeorological reconstructions for northeastern mongolia derived from tree rings 1651 1995 reconstructions of annual prior august current july precipitation and streamflow 345 yr in length 1651 1995 are presented for northeastern mongolia based on tree ring width data these precipitation and streamflow reconstructions account for 54 and 48 of the respective variance in instrumental data over the past 50 years variations in instrumental precipitation and streamflow are within the range of those reconstructed over the length of tree ring records however there appear to be more frequent extended wet periods during the twentieth century multitaper spectral analysis revealed statistically significant peaks at 10 8 and 12 8 yr for the precipitation reconstruction and at 12 8 and 20 3 23 8 yr for the streamflow reconstruction similarly singular spectrum analysis identified spectral modes of variation at 12 and 21 yr for both series these spectra resemble those found for tree ring based precipitation reconstructions in central china as well as the western united states and may reflect solar influences on the climate of mongolia