ALBERT

Description: We report fossil coral records from the Seychelles comprising individual time slices of 14–20 sclerochronological years between 2 and 6.2 kyr BP to reconstruct changes in the seasonal cycle of western Indian Ocean sea surface temperature (SST) compared to the present (1990–2003). These reconstructions allowed us to link changes in the SST bimodality to orbital changes, which were causing a reorganization of the seasonal insolation pattern. Our results reveal the lowest seasonal SST range in the Mid-Holocene (6.2–5.2 kyr BP) and around 2 kyr BP, while the highest range is observed around 4.6 kyr BP and between 1990 and 2003. The season of maximum temperature shifts from austral spring (September to November) to austral autumn (March to May), following changes in seasonal insolation over the past 6 kyr. However, the changes in SST bimodality do not linearly follow the insolation seasonality. For example, the 5.2 and 6.2 kyr BP corals show only subtle SST differences in austral spring and autumn. We use paleoclimate simulations of a fully coupled atmosphere–ocean general circulation model to compare with proxy data for the Mid-Holocene around 6 kyr BP. The model results show that in the Mid-Holocene the austral winter and spring seasons in the western Indian Ocean were warmer while austral summer was cooler. This is qualitatively consistent with the coral data from 6.2 to 5.2 kyr BP, which shows a similar reduction in the seasonal amplitude compared to the present day. However, the pattern of the seasonal SST cycle in the model appears to follow the changes in insolation more directly than indicated by the corals. Our results highlight the importance of ocean–atmosphere interactions for Indian Ocean SST seasonality throughout the Holocene. In order to understand Holocene climate variability in the countries surrounding the Indian Ocean, we need a much more comprehensive analysis of seasonally resolved archives from the tropical Indian Ocean. Insolation data alone only provides an incomplete picture.

Description: Sea surface salinity (SSS) is an important variable in the global ocean circulation. However, decadal to interdecadal changes in SSS are not well understood due to the lack of instrumental data. Here we reconstruct SSS from a paired, bimonthly resolved coral δ18O and Sr/Ca record from La Reunion Island that extends from 1913 to 1995. Coral Sr/Ca correlates with regional sea surface temperature (SST) back to 1966, when instrumental coverage is good, while coral δ18O does not. The slope of the monthly (annual mean) coral Sr/Ca-SST regression is −0.040 mmol/mol per 1 °C (−0.068 mmol/mol per 1 °C) consistent with published estimates of the Sr/Ca-SST relationship. Coral Sr/Ca suggest a warming of 0.39 °C since 1913. δ18O seawater is calculated by subtracting the temperature component from measured coral δ18O, using coral Sr/Ca as well as historical SST products. The derived δ18O seawater reconstructions are correlated (r 〉 0.6), and all show a significant shift in the midtwentieth century (−0.17‰ to −0.19‰), indicating a freshening of SSS by 0.7 psu. However, the timing of this shift depends on the temperature component and varies from 1947 (δ18O seawater calculated with historical SST) to the late 1950s (δ18O seawater calculated with coral Sr/Ca). Coral Sr/Ca shows warm temperature anomalies in the mid-1950s, while historical SST products show warm anomalies from 1940 to 1945 followed by cooling in the 1950s, a pattern typical for the World War II bias. This suggests that historical SST may bias reconstructions of δ18O seawater and SSS from corals.