Last glacial maximum/last deglacial South Pacific interannual to decadal climate variability - Sub-seasonal reconstructions from Tahiti reef corals

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We suggest opening time-windows of interannual to decadal climate variability in the South Pacific during the last gfacial maximum and the last deglaciation, by analysing fossil reef corals from Tahiti. The corals have been recovered during IODP Expedition 310 (October- November 2005), a Mission Specific Platform Expedition implemented by the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD). A member of the science party is Thomas Felis. Individual corals grew continuously for periods of >100 years! We plan to generate subseasonally resolved reconstructions of changes in both temperature and hydrologic balance at the sea surface during time intervals between 21 to 10 kyr ago, based on oxygen isotope and Sr/Ca variations in coral skeletons. This study will provide unique insights into the dynamics of natural modes of atmosphere/ocean variability, such as the El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, under boundary conditions different from today, and addresses a major scientific objective of IODP Expedition 310. Comparing such coral based reconstructions with state-of-the-art climate model simulations might help to assess the validity of future greenhouse projections.