Indian Ocean corals reveal crucial role of World War II bias for twentieth century warming estimates.

ABSTRACT: The western Indian Ocean has been warming faster than any other tropical ocean during the 20^th century, and is the largest contributor to the global mean sea surface temperature (SST) rise. However, the temporal pattern of Indian Ocean warming is poorly constrained and depends on the historical SST product. As all SST products are derived from the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere dataset (ICOADS), it is challenging to evaluate which product is superior. Here, we present a new, independent SST reconstruction from a set of Porites coral geochemical records from the western Indian Ocean. Our coral reconstruction shows that the World War II bias in the historical sea surface temperature record is the main reason for the differences between the SST products, and affects w

SUBMITTER: Pfeiffer M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5663710 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature