Title
Identifying Hydro-Sensitive Coral δ<sup>18</sup>O Records for Improved High-Resolution Temperature and Salinity Reconstructions
Date Issued
16 May 2022
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Thompson D.M.
Conroy J.L.
Konecky B.L.
Stevenson S.
DeLong K.L.
McKay N.
Reed E.
Jonkers L.
Sorbonne Universités
Publisher(s)
John Wiley and Sons Inc
Abstract
Stable oxygen isotopic ratios in corals (δ18Ocoral) are commonly utilized to reconstruct climate variability beyond the limit of instrumental observations. These measurements provide constraints on past seawater temperature, due to the thermodynamics of isotopic fractionation, but also past salinity, as both salinity and seawater δ18O (δ18Osw) are similarly affected by precipitation/evaporation, advection, and other processes. We use historical observations, isotope-enabled model simulations, and the PAGES Iso2k database to assess the potential of δ18Ocoral to provide information on past salinity. Using ‘‘pseudocorals’’ to represent δ18Ocoral as a function of observed or simulated temperature and salinity/δ18Osw, we find that δ18Osw contributes up to 89% of δ18Ocoral variability in the Western Pacific Warm Pool. Although uncertainty in the δ18Osw-salinity relationship influences the inferred salinity variability, corals from these sites could provide valuable δ18Osw reconstructions. Coordinated in situ monitoring of salinity and δ18Osw is vital for improving estimates of hydroclimatic change.
Volume
49
Issue
9
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Geoquímica, Geofísica
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85130093474
Source
Geophysical Research Letters
ISSN of the container
00948276
Sponsor(s)
The authors acknowledge Iso2k, a contribution to Phase 3 of the PAGES 2k Network, for the database used in this manuscript, and Hussein Sayani and Emilie Dassie for their role in curating and quality controlling data as part of the coral archive team. PAGES received support from the Swiss Academy of Sciences, the US National Science Foundation, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Support for this work comes from NSF‐CAREER‐1945479 and NSF‐1931242 to DMT, NSF‐CAREER‐1847791 to JLC, NSF‐AGS‐1805141 to BLK, NSF‐AGS‐PRF‐1433408 to BLK, NSF‐1805143 to SS, NSF‐1805702, NSF‐2102931 and South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center Cooperative Agreement G19AC00086 for KLD, and the PALMOD climate modeling initiative supported by the German Ministry of Science and Education for LJ.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus