Inshore massive corals often display bright luminescent lines that have been linked to river flood plumes into coastal catchments and hence have the potential to provide a long-term record of hinterland precipitation. Coral luminescence is thought to result from the incorporation of soil-derived humic acids transported to the reef during major flood events. Corals far from terrestrial sources generally only exhibit dull relatively broad luminescence bands, which are attributed to seasonal changes in coral density. We therefore tested the hypothesis that spectral ratios rather than conventional luminescence intensity provide a quantitative proxy record of river runoff without the confounding effects of seasonal density changes. For this purpose, we have developed a new, rapid spectral luminescence scanning (SLS) technique that splits emission intensities into red, green and blue domains (RGB) for entire cores with an unprecedented linear resolution of 71.4 lm. Since humic acids have longer emission wavelength than the coral aragonite, normalisation of spectral emissions should yield a sensitive optical humic acid/aragonite ratio for humic acid runoff, i.e., G/B ratio. Indeed, G/B ratios rather than intensities are well correlated with Ba/Ca, a geochemical coral proxy for sediment runoff, and with rainfall data, as exemplified for coral records from Madagascar. Coral cores also display recent declining trends in luminescence intensity, which are also reported in corals elsewhere. Such trends appear to be associated with a modern decline in skeletal densities. By contrast, G/B spectral ratios not only mark the impact of individual cyclones but also imply that humic acid runoff 123Coral Reefs (2010) 29:579-591 DOI 10.1007/s00338-010-0629-y increased in Madagascar over the past few decades while coral skeletal densities decreased. Consequently, the SLS technique deconvolves the long-term interplay between humic acid incorporation and coral density that have confounded earlier attempts to use luminescence intensities as a proxy for river runoff.

This study presents the first consolidation of palaeoclimate proxy records from multiple archives to develop statistical rainfall reconstructions for southern Africa covering the last two centuries. State-of-the-art ensemble reconstructions reveal multi-decadal rainfall variability in the summer and winter rainfall zones. A decrease in precipitation amount over time is identified in the summer rainfall zone. No significant change in precipitation amount occurred in the winter rainfall zone, but rainfall variability has increased over time. Generally synchronous rainfall fluctuations between the two zones are identified on decadal scales, with common wet (dry) periods reconstructed around 1890 (1930). A strong relationship between seasonal rainfall and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the surrounding oceans is confirmed. Coherence among decadal-scale fluctuations of southern African rainfall, regional SST, SSTs in the Pacific Ocean and rainfall in south-eastern Australia suggest SST-rainfall teleconnections across the Southern Hemisphere. Temporal breakdowns of the SST-rainfall relationship in the southern African regions and the connection between the two rainfall zones are observed, for example during the 1950s. Our results confirm the complex interplay between large-scale teleconnections, regional SSTs and local effects in modulating multi-decadal southern African rainfall variability over long timescales

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[1] Massive corals offer continuous records of climate locked within their skeleton, with the most commonly applied paleo-thermometer being Sr/Ca. Recently, however, problems with Sr/Ca thermometry indicate that the intrinsic variance of single-core Sr/Ca time series differs between cores. Here, we compare the Sr/Ca records and growth parameters of two Porites lutea colonies sampled from the same reef zone, 0.72 km apart, with two gridded SST datasets, ERSST and HadISST, off NE Madagascar. Specifically, we address seasonal and interannual variability as well as trend differences between records over the same 43 year period. The two gridded SST datasets showed strong seasonality and weak positive ENSO anomalies on a slow 43 year warming trend at significantly different rates. Both the coral Sr/Ca records showed the same clear seasonality and similar amplitudes in SST. However, on interannual timescales, they displayed diverging 43 year Sr/Ca trends and opposite responses to weak ENSO anomalies. Moreover, their growth response also differed as one coral showed increasing extension/calcification rates and Sr/Ca ratios (cooling) over the 43 years, while the other coral showed decreasing extension/calcification rates and Sr/Ca ratios (warming). Further, during positive ENSO events, the calcification rates of the two corals were negatively correlated, while skeletal density anomalies were opposite. Possible explanations to why these corals are so different may be related to the corals growth response to SST changes. The growth response of individual corals to increasing SST seems to be opposite, which in turn are likely related to biological factors. Consequently, coral growth responses explain much of the inter-colony Sr/Ca variability.

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