Patterns of Climate Change in the Central and Eastern Sectors of the South Pacific

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Abstract ATM-9619035 Wellington, George M. University of Houston Title: Patterns of Climate Change in the Central and Eastern Sectors of the South Pacific Isotopic and chemical tracers within coral aragonite can accurately record seasonal and interannual changes in environmental parameters such as sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, rainfall, nutrient availability, and river input. Corals provide the only means to accurately reconstruct tropical ocean surface conditions at high temporal resolution. Analysis of satellite-derived monthly sea surface temperatures show that large scale oceanographic events, such as ENSO, register a significant signal in the central and eastern South Pacific region and indicate that corals from the Cook Islands and Easter Islands may be suitable for reconstructing long-term climate records to: 1) relate interannual climate variability over a large global scale, 2) identify the frequency and magnitude of pre-historic ENSO events and, 3) evaluate potential evidence of anthropogenic influence with respect to observed recent warming of the troposphere. This SGER award supports a project to collect several multi-century long cores from massive coral colonies at Cooks and Easter Islands. Initial stable isotope analyses will be conducted at subannual resolution on the upper (recent) portion to of the core. By comparing these results with instrumental SST data we can accurately assess the potential for developing long climatic time-series reconstructions from these regions.