Collaborative Research: Holocene/Deglacial Abrupt Climate Change and Variability of the Western Pacific Warm Pool from Multi-decadal to Century-scale Coral Climate Records

根据该奖项，PI将使用来自西部所罗门群岛和东部巴布亚新几内亚的珊瑚化石来重建高分辨率的全新世/冰消期古气候记录。 该研究区域位于西太平洋暖池（WPWP）的中心附近，该区域是行星气候系统的热机和大气水蒸气的主要来源。 对仪器记录的研究表明，WPWP的热力和水文性质的变化具有全球海洋和大气影响。 该项目将产生每月解决，几十年到世纪尺度的代理记录的热量和水文变化的WPWP通过配对同位素（？18 O）和元素比值（Sr/Ca，Mg/Ca，U/Ca）的测定。 这些地球化学测定将在使用岩相学和矿物学标准评价珊瑚化石样品的潜在成岩蚀变并通过TIMS U系列分析精确测定年代之后进行。 珊瑚代用气候记录将用于：1）确定和界定WPWP中全新世/冰川期气候突变和极端事件的时间和幅度，并确定热带突变与先前界定的热带外突变间隔之间的关系; 2）确定WPWP热带地区平均气候状态的变化如何影响全新世期间年际至百年时间尺度上热带气候变率的性质。

Under this award the PIs will use fossil corals from the western Solomon Islands and eastern Papua New Guinea to reconstruct high-resolution Holocene/ Deglacial paleoclimate records. The study area is located near the heart of the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP), a region that serves as the heat engine of the planetary climate system and a primary source of water vapor to the atmosphere. Studies of the instrumental record show that variations in the thermal and hydrologic properties of the WPWP have global ocean and atmospheric ramifications. This project would generate monthly resolved, multidecadal to century-scale proxy records of thermal and hydrologic variability in the WPWP via paired isotopic (?18O) and elemental ratio (Sr/Ca, Mg/Ca, U/Ca) determinations in fossil corals. These geochemical determinations will be made after the fossil coral samples have been evaluated for potential diagenetic alteration using petrography and mineralogy criteria and after they have been precisely dated by TIMS U-series analysis. The coral proxy climate records will be used to 1) identify and define the timing and magnitude of abrupt transitions and extremes in Holocene/Deglacial climate in the WPWP and determine how abrupt changes in the tropics are related to previously defined intervals of abrupt change in the extra-tropics; and 2) determine how changes in the mean climate state of the WPWP tropical region influence the nature of tropical climate variability on interannual to centennial timescales during the Holocene.