ENSO and West Pacific Warm Pool Climate Variability over the Last Three Centuries

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The Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) is a component of the largest mode of inter-annual climate variability on the planet, El-Niño Southern-Oscillation (ENSO). Despite the importance of climate variability in the WPWP, the climatology of the region over the last three centuries is largely unknown. This project, involving researchers from the University of Texas at Austin, aims to produce the first sub-annually resolved, multi-century record of ENSO and WPWP climate variability utilizing corals from the Western Province, Solomon Islands. By measuring δ18O in three cores of the slow-growing coral species Diploastrea heliopora, the researchers seek to generate a record of sea surface temperature and hydrologic variability spanning the last three centuries in the WPWP. These records will enable assessment of changes in WPWP and ENSO variability from pre-industrial through modern times. In terms of broader impact, funding supports education and training of a graduate student and an undergraduate student. The research will also develop a potentially important, high-resolution data series that would provide an observational basis for relating WPWP changes to global climate conditions and may find changes in the mean state of the WPWP and ENSO as a result of anthropogenic climate forcing in the modern era.