ABRUPT CHANGES IN EARLY HOLOCENE TROPICAL SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURE DERIVED FROM CORAL RECORDS

For many high-latitude regions of the globe, it is now clear that the transition to modern climate following the Last Glacial Maximum was pu nctuated by a number of rapid and substantial climate oscillations(1,2 ). In contrast, relatively little is known about how the tropics respo nded to the deglaciation, because few high-resolution records are avai lable from lower latitudes. Corals have recently been shown to provide an important source of tropical climate records because they can be e asily and accurately dated, using either C-14 or Th-230, and because p ast sea surface temperatures can be recovered from the Sr/Ca ratios in coral skeletons. Here we use this technique to derive several early H olocene sea surface temperature records from a coral drill core recove red from Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu in the tropical southwest Pacific Oce an. These records indicate that sea surface temperatures in this regio n were depressed by as much as 6.5 degrees C below modern values at si milar to 10,350 calendar years BP, but rose very abruptly during the f ollowing 1,500 years. This temperature increase lags the post-Younger Dryas increase observed in a coral record from the tropical Atlantic O cean(3) by about 3,000 years, an unexpected phase-shift that may ultim ately shed light on the mechanisms of deglacial climate change.