资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

The tropical Pacific influences climate patterns across the globe, yet robust constraints on decadal to centennial-scale climate variations are difficult to extract from sparse instrumental observations in this region. Oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O) records from long-lived corals enable the quantitative reconstruction of tropical Pacific climate variability and trends over the 20^th century and beyond, but such corals are exceedingly rare. Here, we use multiple short coral δ¹⁸O records to create a coral ‘ensemble’ reconstruction of 20^th century climate in the central tropical Pacific. Ten U/Th-dated fossil coral δ¹⁸O records from Kiritimati Island (2ºN, 157ºW) span 1891CE to 2006CE, with the younger samples enabling quantitative comparison to a large ensemble of modern coral records and instrumental sea surface temperature. A composite record constructed of modern and fossil Kiritimati coral δ¹⁸O records shows a shift towards warmer and fresher conditions from 1970CE onwards, consistent with previously published records in this region.

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