Hawaiian Drowned Reefs: Climate variability and coral reef response to environmental change in the sub-tropical Pacific over the last 500 ky

这项研究将产生过去50万年来亚热带太平洋海水温度和海水化学的记录。这个时间框架跨越了过去的5-6个冰川期，这些温度记录将使我们能够确定当冰盖首先前进然后随后融化时气候如何变化。我们将把温度记录与已知的气候变化驱动因素联系起来，比如大气中二氧化碳的增加和地球向太阳倾斜的变化。温度记录还将使我们能够探索过去厄尔尼诺-南方涛动等气候事件的严重程度和频率如何变化。除了这些气候记录外，研究还将提供有关珊瑚如何应对过去气候变化的信息，以及这如何影响他们建造珊瑚礁的方式。今天，珊瑚礁支撑着数十亿人的生计。计划中的研究将确定珊瑚礁在过去的生长速度是否比现在更慢或更快，以及它们对侵蚀的抵抗力是否更强或更弱。

This research will produce records of seawater temperature and seawater chemistry in the Sub-tropical Pacific Ocean over the last 500,000 years. This time frame spans the last 5-6 glaciations and these temperature records will allow us to determine how climate changed as the ice sheets first advanced and then subsequently melted. We will correlate temperature records with known drivers of climate change such as increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and variations in how the planet is tilted towards the sun. The temperature records will also allow us to explore how the severity and frequency of climate events such as El Nino-Southern Oscillation has varied in the past.In addition to these climate records, the research will also provide information as to how corals have responded to climate change in the past and how this influenced how they built reefs. In the present day, coral reefs support the livelihoods of billions of people. The planned research will determine if reefs grew more slowly or more rapidly in the past compared to the present day and if they were more or less resilient to erosion.