PP53C-2357
Sea Surface Temperature Records Using Sr/Ca Ratios in a Siderastrea siderea Coral from SE Cuba
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Hazel Anne Fargher1, Konrad A Hughen1, Justin E Ossolinski1, Fernando Bretos2, Daria Siciliano3 and Patricia Gonzalez4, (1)Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole, MA, United States, (2)The Ocean Foundation, Cuba Marine Research and Conservation Program, Miami, FL, United States, (3)University of California Santa Cruz, Institute of Marine Sciences, Santa Cruz, CA, United States, (4)Universidad de la Habana, Centro de Investigaciones Marines, La Habana, Cuba
Abstract:
Sea surface temperature (SST) variability from Cuba remains relatively unknown compared to the rest of the Caribbean. Cuba sits near an inflection point in the spatial pattern of SST from the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and long SST records from the region could reveal changes in the influence of this climate system through time. A Siderastrea siderea coral from the Jardínes de la Reina in southern Cuba was drilled to obtain a 220 year long archive of environmental change. The genus Siderastrea has not been extensively studied as an SST archive, yet Sr/Ca ratios in the Cuban core show a clear seasonal signal and strong correlation to instrumental SST data (r2 = 0.86 and 0.36 for monthly and interannual (winter season) timescales, respectively). Annual growth rates (linear extension) of the coral are observed to have a minor influence on Sr/Ca variability, but do not show a direct correlation to SST on timescales from annual to multidecadal. Sr/Ca measurements from the Cuban coral are used to reconstruct monthly and seasonal (winter, summer) SST extending back more than two centuries. Wintertime SST in southern Cuba is compared to other coral Sr/Ca records of winter-season SST from locations sensitive to the NAO in order to investigate the stationarity of the NAO SST ‘fingerprint’ through time.
