Evidence for stronger El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Events in a Mid‐Holocene massive coral

Abstract

Abstract. We present a 47-year-long record of sea surface temperature (SST) derived from St/Ca and U/Ca analysis of a massive Potires coral which grew at-4150 calendar years before present (B.P.) in Vanuatu (southwest tropical Pacific Ocean). Mean SST is similar in both the modern instrumental record and paleorecord, and both exhibit E1 NifioSouthern Oscillation (ENSO) frequency SST oscillations. However, several strong decadal-frequency cooling events and a marked modulation of the seasonal SST cycle, with power at both ENSO and decadal frequencies, are observed in the paleorecord, which are unprecedented in the modern record.

Reconstructing twentieth‐century sea surface temperature variability in the southwest Pacific: A replication study using multiple coral Sr/Ca records from New Caledonia

“…[29] A strong relationship between coral d 18 O and Sr/Ca with SST has been previously reported for corals from Amédée Island, New Caledonia [Beck et al, 1992;Quinn et al, 1996Quinn et al, , 1998Corrège et al, 2000;Quinn and Sampson, 2002;Stephans et al, 2004] and this study's expanded New Caledonia coral Sr/Ca record exhibits the same strong relationship with SST (Figures 10 and 11). The correlations between monthly coral Sr/Ca and SST are similar to the values reported by Quinn and Sampson [2002] and slightly improved from correlations reported by Stephans et al [2004] because of adjustments made to the chronology of 92-PAD1.…”

Évolution des paléoenvironnements dans le Pacifique lors de la dernière déglaciation : exemples en Nouvelle-Calédonie et au Vanuatu

“…Les informations relatives à la paléocli-matologie sont plus récentes (Beck et al, 1992(Beck et al, , 1997Cabioch et al, 1998 ;Corrège et al, 2000 ;Quinn et al, 1996). L'étude des environnements terrestres quaternaires reste à dévelop-per.…”

Integration of proxy data and model scenarios for the mid-Holocene onset of modern ENSO variability

“…4) . One fossil coral from Vanuatu already recorded highly active ENSO around 4 ka BP (Corre`ge et al, 2000). The coral data give accurate information on ENSO dynamics during short (10 2 years) time windows…”