Validation of coral temperature calibrations

Geochemical analyses of coral skeletons are increasingly used to estimate p ast sea surface temperatures (SSTs). In this paper we suggest that the stan dard method of calibrating geochemical time series against a (usually short ) local time series requires modification. In order to draw large-scale inf erences about climate from coral proxy data it is also necessary to (1) cal ibrate against larger fields such as the local gridded data sets and (2) va lidate results against an independent data set (e.g., early 20th century). This approach has been applied in a pilot study to a coral record from New Caledonia, Despite a high delta(18)O correlation (r = -0.88) with the in si tu and gridded SST data sets, estimated early 20th-century temperatures are more than 1.5 degrees C colder than observed if the standard seasonal cali bration is used. Regression against mean annual temperatures, which has a d ifferent slope relation, yields better estimates of early 20th-century SSTs . However, testing of a Sr/Ca record from New Caledonia yields better agree ment with early 20th century SSTs. Routine validation exercises for other c oral sites are necessary to clarify the robustness of geochemical coral pro xies as estimators of past environmental change.