A Comparison of Modern and Fossil Coral Climatology in the Western Pacific Warm Pool PDF Download

Author: Kristen Mitchell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Climatology
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Author: David Hopley
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 904812638X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1226

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Coral reefs are the largest landforms built by plants and animals. Their study therefore incorporates a wide range of disciplines. This encyclopedia approaches coral reefs from an earth science perspective, concentrating especially on modern reefs. Currently coral reefs are under high stress, most prominently from climate change with changes to water temperature, sea level and ocean acidification particularly damaging. Modern reefs have evolved through the massive environmental changes of the Quaternary with long periods of exposure during glacially lowered sea level periods and short periods of interglacial growth. The entries in this encyclopedia condense the large amount of work carried out since Charles Darwin first attempted to understand reef evolution. Leading authorities from many countries have contributed to the entries covering areas of geology, geography and ecology, providing comprehensive access to the most up-to-date research on the structure, form and processes operating on Quaternary coral reefs.

Author: Heather M. Benway
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Paleoceanography
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Author: Jing Zhang
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030971899
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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The monograph is based on the research and training activities in the Western Pacific Ocean Region within the umbrella of UNESCO/IOC-Sub-Commission for the Western Pacific Region. The results of these activities are compared to cases from other tropical and subtropical regions on this planet to make the knowledge applicable to global aspects of sustainability of coral reef ecosystems. In this monograph, we examine the coral reefs from viewpoint of multidisciplinary approaches, including, environmental impacts, coral biology and system ecology, biogeochemical cycles and processes that drive the material and energy flow through the food web, as well as the proxies in geochemistry that have been used to track the responses of coral reefs to the changing climate and human perturbations. Although this study is focused on the Western Pacific Ocean, the Western Pacific Ocean is so large and diverse that most reef environment types on this planet are located within it. Therefore, knowledge gained in this study is relevant to the application of coastal management in practice as well as in the teaching classes on the interactions between coral reef ecosystems with changing environments.

Author: Julie Mazerat
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Reconstructing the impacts of abrupt climate change on the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, the Australasian monsoon, and El Nino-Southern Oscillation, and their teleconnections to higher latitudes, is crucial for understanding the role of the tropics in global climate change. The main objective of this thesis is to use geochemical tracers in skeletons of modern and fossil Porites corals from Alor, Indonesia, and a speleothem record from the island of Flores nearby, to explore the climatic response of southern Indonesia to the abrupt cold event 8,200 years ago originating in the North Atlantic region, referred to as the 8.2 ka event. The early Holocene interval before, during and after the 8.2ka event was investigated using 5-year resolution Sr/Ca and d18O records for eight fossil corals with U-series ages spanning 8.5ka to 7.8ka (thousand years before the present). Relative to today, fossil coral Sr/Ca-SSTs from 8.4 to 8.0 ka indicate slightly warmer SSTs and higher residual d18O (Dd18O) values suggesting drier conditions. These results compare well with other Australasian oceanic and atmospheric records, however the high-resolution Alor coral records also show gradual cooling of SSTs starting at 8.3ka and an abrupt 1.5-2C cooling at 8.0 ka associated with the 8.2ka event. Also, the speleothem record from Flores shows sharp increases in d18O, d13C, Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca around 8.4ka and 7.9ka, indicating drier/cooler conditions on land during the 8.2 ka event. High-resolution analysis of the Alor corals confirms these results. The lack of a clear antiphased interhemispheric increase in monsoon rainfall around Alor and Flores, as observed in South American records of the 8.2ka event, may be due to anomalously cool SSTs in the Indonesian maritime continent at that time. The interannual and seasonal characteristics of the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) during the early Holocene and 8.2ka event were explored via frequency analysis, threshold analysis, and analysis of the annual cycles of SST and rainfall to gain information about changes in the ENSO frequency and magnitude during different background climate states. High-resolution analysis of coral Sr/Ca and d18O show that ENSO events were suppressed during the early Holocene, though not as much as indicated by other palaeo-ENSO records and modelling studies. The coral records also show that the frequency, duration and intensity of El Nino events was greater during the 8.2ka event compared to the early Holocene ENSO climate state. A synthesis of the causes and mechanisms driving the 8.2 ka event suggests that definitive conclusions cannot be drawn about the role of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation because such a mechanism cannot explain the long duration of the 8.2ka climate anomaly, nor the fact that many records show an onset of climatic deterioration well before the abrupt 8.2ka event in the North Atlantic. Therefore, the 8.2 ka event is probably best interpreted in terms of a recurrent cycle of climatic deteriorations whose impact was amplified around 8.2ka by massive meltwater discharge into the North Atlantic.

Author: Andrew Rothwell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Author: Michael J. McPhaden
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119548128
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Comprehensive and up-to-date information on Earth’s most dominant year-to-year climate variation The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in the Pacific Ocean has major worldwide social and economic consequences through its global scale effects on atmospheric and oceanic circulation, marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and other natural systems. Ongoing climate change is projected to significantly alter ENSO's dynamics and impacts. El Niño Southern Oscillation in a Changing Climate presents the latest theories, models, and observations, and explores the challenges of forecasting ENSO as the climate continues to change. Volume highlights include: Historical background on ENSO and its societal consequences Review of key El Niño (ENSO warm phase) and La Niña (ENSO cold phase) characteristics Mathematical description of the underlying physical processes that generate ENSO variations Conceptual framework for understanding ENSO changes on decadal and longer time scales, including the response to greenhouse gas forcing ENSO impacts on extreme ocean, weather, and climate events, including tropical cyclones, and how ENSO affects fisheries and the global carbon cycle Advances in modeling, paleo-reconstructions, and operational climate forecasting Future projections of ENSO and its impacts Factors influencing ENSO events, such as inter-basin climate interactions and volcanic eruptions The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals. Find out more about this book from this Q&A with the editors.

Author: Christopher Robert Maupin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Observations and reconstructions of climate variability are necessary to place predictions of future global climate change into temporal context (Goddard et al., 2012). I focus here on the western tropical Pacific (Solomon Islands; ~9.5°S, ~160°E), a region directly influenced by: the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ), the West Pacific Warm Pool, the Pacific Walker Circulation, and the Hadley Circulation. The West Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) is an integral source of heat and moisture to the atmosphere. It is part of both Walker and Hadley circulations, and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is the largest source of interannual climate variability on Earth. Modern observations of changes in the mean state of the WPWP, Walker circulation, and ENSO are limited in temporal scale and overprinted with the signal of anthropogenic climate change; hence, proxy-based observations in the pre-instrumental period are needed to place any future changes in these systems, and attribution of these changes, into context. I present evidence for large (~1.5 m), abrupt, and periodic changes in total annual rainfall amount on decadal to multidecadal timescales since 1423±5 CE (Year Common Era) in the Solomon Islands utilizing a fast growing (>2 mm yr−1) stalagmite sample and an empirical relationship developed between stalagmite [delta]18O and local rainfall amount. The ~600-yr Solomon Islands stalagmite [delta]18O record indicates that decadal oscillations in rainfall are a persistent characteristic of SPCZ-related climate variability, and available evidence points to these changes arising from internal forcing. Such changes have important implications to water resource management in this region, in addition to contextualizing models and future predictions of rainfall amount changes and latent heat release into the atmosphere via anthropogenic climate change. I also present a reconstruction pre-instrumental variability utilizing a monthly [delta]18O time series generated series from the long lived, slow-growing coral species Diploastrea heliopora spanning 1716-2008 CE. The record demonstrates strong coherence with modern instrumental variability, and in addition, demonstrates variance in centennial-multicentury, decadal-multidecadal and interannual bands. Quantitative comparison of the interannual component of the record to instrumental ENSO indices, and application of the resulting metrics to previously undocumented, potentially extreme ENSO events occurring during the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These extreme events are absent from existing multiproxy reconstructions due to temporal limitations of extant proxies that have the greatest ENSO sensitivity. The intensity of these events may rival or exceed the largest in the instrumental record. The record also contains significant but transient decadal to multidecadal variability. The coral record exhibits a trend toward isotopic depletion, implying significant changes in SST and/or SSS over the entirety of the record. I also document the unique behavior of the SPCZ and the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) over the past six centuries, present evidence of influence by decadal-scale advection processes on Solomon Islands SSS, and explore basin-scale changes in the tropical Pacific conditions potentially related to global average temperature change over the past three centuries.

Author: Helen Victoria McGregor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corals
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Author: Kelly Halimeda Kilbourne
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Corals, Fossil
Languages : en
Pages :

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ABSTRACT: The reduced seasonal SSS variations and increased SSTs near Vanuatu are interpreted as evidence that the SPCZ was displaced from its present location while the fossil coral lived. The geochemical response to El Nino events in the modern coral is observed twice in the fossil coral record, indicating that ENSO-like processes are not unique to interglacial time periods, but characterize the tropical Pacific at least back to MIS 10.