Journal of Tropical Oceanography ›› 2017, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (6): 39-50.doi: 10.11978/2016097CSTR: 32234.14.2016097

Special Issue: 海上丝绸之路专题

• 海洋地质学 • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Climatic and environmental changes traced in Indian Ocean corals

Tianran CHEN(), Minhang HU   

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Guangzhou 510301, China
  • Received:2016-10-14 Revised:2016-11-16 Online:2017-11-30 Published:2018-01-18
  • About author:

    Author:QIU Chunhua.E-mail: qiuchh3@mail. sysu.edu.cn

  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China (41476038, 41676049);Chinese Academy of Sciences Youth Innovation Promotion Association (2015284)

Abstract:

The Indian Ocean is critical for China's economy and climate changes. Coral-based climatic and environmental changes can effectively prolong recorded time series, longer than instrumental records, because reef corals are widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, their aragonite skeletons have an annual banding structure and are suitable for U/Th dating, and their geochemical records are reliable. In this paper, we first introduced the coral reef distribution in the Indian Ocean, and its current status and importance. Then, we reviewed coral-based past climatic and environmental change reconstructions based on four aspects including environmental pollution, paleo-storms, paleo-sea level variation, and climate changes (such as Asian monsoon, rainfall, atmospheric circulation, sea surface temperature, Indian Ocean Dipole, and ocean currents). We ended the paper with a summary and discussion.

Key words: Indian Ocean, coral, recording, climate change, environmental change

CLC Number: 

  • P736.4