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Deconvolving the δO seawater component from subseasonal coral δO and Sr/Ca at Rarotonga in the southwestern subtropical Pacific for the period 1726 to 1997 |
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| Authors: | Lei Ren Braddock K Linsley Daniel P Schrag |
| Institution: | 1 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University at Albany-SUNY, Albany, NY, USA 2 Department of Biology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA 3 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA 4 Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland, St Lucia, 4072, Queensland, Australia |
| Abstract: | To reconstruct oceanographic variations in the subtropical South Pacific, 271-year long subseasonal time series of Sr/Ca and δ18O were generated from a coral growing at Rarotonga (21.5°S, 159.5°W). In this case, coral Sr/Ca appears to be an excellent proxy for sea surface temperature (SST) and coral δ18O is a function of both SST and seawater δ18O composition (δ18Osw). Here, we focus on extracting the δ18Osw signal from these proxy records. A method is presented assuming that coral Sr/Ca is solely a function of SST and that coral δ18O is a function of both SST and δ18Osw. This method separates the effects of δ18Osw from SST by breaking the instantaneous changes of coral δ18O into separate contributions by instantaneous SST and δ18Osw changes, respectively. The results show that on average δ18Osw at Rarotonga explains ∼39% of the variance in δ18O and that variations in SST explains the remaining ∼61% of δ18O variance. Reconstructed δ18Osw shows systematic increases in summer months (December-February) consistent with the regional pattern of variations in precipitation and evaporation. The δ18Osw also shows a positive linear correlation with satellite-derived estimated salinity for the period 1980 to 1997 (r = 0.72). This linear correlation between reconstructed δ18Osw and salinity makes it possible to use the reconstructed δ18Osw to estimate the past interannual and decadal salinity changes in this region. Comparisons of coral δ18O and δ18Osw at Rarotonga with the Pacific decadal oscillation index suggest that the decadal and interdecadal salinity and SST variability at Rarotonga appears to be related to basin-scale decadal variability in the Pacific. |
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