# Great Barrier Reef Coral 200 Year Isotope Data #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder # and # NOAA Paleoclimatology Program #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # NOTE: Please cite Publication, and Online_Resource and date accessed when using these data. # If there is no publication information, please cite Investigators, Title, and Online_Resource and date accessed. # # Online_Resource: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/10425 # # Original_Source_URL: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/coral/west_pacific/great_barrier/arlington2009.txt # # Description/Documentation lines begin with # # Data lines have no # # # Archive: Corals and Sclerosponges #-------------------- # Contribution_Date # Date: 2010-06-01 #-------------------- # Title # Study_Name: Great Barrier Reef Coral 200 Year d11B and pH Reconstruction #-------------------- # Investigators # Investigators: Wei, G.; McCulloch, M.T.; Mortimer, G.; Deng, W.; Xie, L. #-------------------- # Description_and_Notes # Description: 200 year coral geochemical record and ocean pH reconstruction from the central Great Barrier Reef of Australia. The Porites sp. coral core was drilled in Arlington Reef, immediately offshore Cairns in the north-east coast of Australia in November 2004. #-------------------- # Publication # Authors: Wei, G.; McCulloch, M.T.; Mortimer, G.; Deng, W.; Xie, L. # Published_Date_or_Year: 2009 # Published_Title: Evidence for ocean acidification in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia # Journal_Name: Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta # Volume: 73 # Edition: # Issue: # Pages: 2332-2346 # DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2009.02.009 # Online_Resource: # Full_Citation: Wei, G., M.T. McCulloch, G. Mortimer, W. Deng, and L. Xie. 2009. Evidence for ocean acidification in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, vol. 73, pp. 2332-2346. doi:10.1016/j.gca.2009.02.009 # Abstract: Geochemical records preserved in the long-lived carbonate skeleton of corals provide one of the few means to reconstruct changes in seawater pH since the commencement of the industrial era. This information is important in not only determining the response of the surface oceans to ocean acidification from enhanced uptake of CO2, but also to better understand the effects of ocean acidification on carbonate secreting organisms such as corals, whose ability to calcify is highly pH dependent. Here we report an ~200 year d11B isotopic record, extracted from a long-lived Porites coral from the central Great Barrier Reef of Australia. This record covering the period from 1800 to 2004 was sampled at yearly increments from 1940 to the present and 5-year increments prior to 1940. The d11B isotopic compositions reflect variations in seawater pH, and the d13C changes in the carbon composition of surface water due to fossil fuel burning over this period. In addition complementary Ba/Ca, d18O and Mg/Ca data was obtained providing proxies for terrestrial runoff, salinity and temperature changes over the past 200 years in this region. Positive thermal ionization mass spectrometry (PTIMS) method was utilized in order to enable the highest precision and most accurate measurements of d11B values. The internal precision and reproducibility for d11B of our measurements are better than ±0.2 per mil (2 sigma), which translates to a precision of better than ±0.02 pH units. Our results indicate that the long-term pre-industrial variation of seawater pH in this region is partially related to the decadal-interdecadal variability of atmospheric and oceanic anomalies in the Pacific. In the periods around 1940 and 1998 there are also rapid oscillations in d11B compositions equivalent changes in pH of almost 0.5 U. The 1998 oscillation is co-incident with a major coral bleaching event indicating the sensitivity of skeletal d11B compositions to loss of zooxanthellate symbionts. Importantly, from the 1940s to the present-day, there is a general overall trend of ocean acidification with pH decreasing by about 0.2-0.3 U, the range being dependent on the value assumed for the fractionation factor alpha(B3-B4) of the boric acid and borate species in seawater. Correlations of d11B with d13C during this interval indicate that the increasing trend towards ocean acidification over the past 60 years in this region is the result of enhanced dissolution of CO2 in surface waters from the rapidly increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, mainly from fossil fuel burning. This suggests that the increased levels of anthropogenic CO2 in atmosphere has already caused a significant trend towards acidification in the oceans during the past decades. Observations of surprisingly large decreases in pH across important carbonate producing regions, such as the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, raise serious concerns about the impact of Greenhouse gas emissions on coral calcification. #------------------ # Funding_Agency # Funding_Agency_Name: # Grant: #------------------ # Site_Information # Site_Name: Arlington Reef, Australia # Location: Australia/New Zealand>Australia # Country: Australia # Northernmost_Latitude: -16.7167 # Southernmost_Latitude: -16.7167 # Easternmost_Longitude: 146.0333 # Westernmost_Longitude: 146.0333 # Elevation: #------------------ # Data_Collection # Collection_Name: 09aust01a # Earliest_Year: 1807 # Most_Recent_Year: 2004 # Time_Unit: AD # Core_Length: # Notes: Samples from 1805 to 1939 are in 5-year interval, and the years for these samples are the average of the 5-year. d11B are relative to the long-term average of SRM 951 on this machine of 4.0532. pH values are calculated using the following parameters: a(B3�B4) = 1.0204 (Xiao et al., 2006), pKB = 8.60 (Honisch et al., 2004) and seawater d11B = 40.08& of our measurement for the GBR seawater. #------------------ # Species # Species_Name: Porites sp. # Common_Name: #------------------ # Chronology_Information # Chronology: # #---------------- # Variables # # Data variables follow that are preceded by "##" in columns one and two. # Data line variables format: Variables list, one per line, shortname-tab-longname-tab-longname components (9 components: what, material, error, units, seasonality, archive, detail, method, C or N for Character or Numeric data) # ##samp sample identification, , , , , , , , C ##age age, , ,years AD, , , , ,N ##d18O delta 18O, Porites sp., , permil VPDB, , Corals and Sclerosponges, , ,N ##Sr/Ca Strontium/Calcium, Porites sp., ,mmol/mol, ,Corals and Sclerosponges, , ,N ##d13C delta 13C, Porites sp., , permil VPDB, , Corals and Sclerosponges, , ,N ##Mg/Ca Magnesium/Calcium, Porites sp., ,mmol/mol, ,Corals and Sclerosponges, , ,N ##Ba/Ca Barium/Calcium, Porites sp., ,mmol/mol, ,Corals and Sclerosponges, , analytical technique: ICP-OES,N ##d11B delta 11B, Porites sp., ,permil, ,Corals and Sclerosponges, , ,N ##d11B_2s delta 11B, Porites sp., 2 sigma error, unitless, ,Corals and Sclerosponges, , ,N ##pH sea surface pH, , , unitless, , Climate Reconstructions, , coral delta 11B ,N ##pH_2s sea surface pH, , 2 sigma error , unitless, , Climate Reconstructions, , coral delta 11B ,N # #---------------- # Data: # Data lines follow (have no #) # Data line format - tab-delimited text, variable short name as header # Missing Values: NAN # samp age d18O Sr/Ca d13C Mg/Ca Ba/Ca d11B d11B_2s pH pH_2s AREO 4-1805-09 1807 -4.40 7.762 -1.59 4.310 3.53 23.61 0.16 8.02 0.02 AREO 4-1810-14 1812 -4.49 7.910 -2.00 4.139 4.03 24.53 0.15 8.13 0.02 AREO 4-1815-19 1817 -4.56 7.773 -1.47 4.302 3.36 22.74 0.15 7.90 0.02 AREO 4-1820-24 1822 -4.49 7.792 -1.25 4.101 3.71 23.86 0.16 8.05 0.02 AREO 4-1825-29 1827 -4.37 7.745 -1.36 4.249 3.31 24.77 0.12 8.15 0.01 AREO 4-1830-34 1832 -4.49 7.809 -1.22 4.233 3.58 23.60 0.14 8.02 0.02 AREO 4-1835-39 1837 -4.40 7.747 -1.26 4.333 3.44 23.12 0.16 7.95 0.02 AREO 4-1840-44 1842 -5.15 7.756 -1.46 4.330 5.31 22.88 0.16 7.92 0.02 AREO 4-1845-49 1847 -4.51 7.728 -0.99 4.437 2.81 22.94 0.20 7.93 0.03 AREO 4-1850-54 1852 -4.37 7.715 -1.03 4.125 3.22 22.90 0.17 7.92 0.02 AREO 4-1855-59 1857 -4.36 7.705 -0.99 4.065 2.82 25.38 0.08 8.22 0.01 AREO 4-1860-64 1862 -4.49 7.693 -0.98 3.986 4.22 22.63 0.12 7.88 0.02 AREO 4-1865-69 1867 -4.54 7.686 -1.06 3.991 3.21 22.53 0.17 7.87 0.02 AREO 4-1870-74 1872 -4.65 7.642 -1.49 3.929 3.19 22.53 0.20 7.87 0.03 AREO 4-1875-79 1877 -4.59 7.639 -1.08 3.841 4.13 23.14 0.17 7.96 0.02 AREO 4-1880-84 1882 -5.77 7.663 -1.29 4.003 6.78 22.96 0.19 7.93 0.02 AREO 4-1885-89 1887 -4.39 7.730 -1.45 3.968 3.21 23.50 0.16 8.00 0.02 AREO 4-1890-94 1892 -4.60 7.695 -1.41 3.757 2.96 23.17 0.14 7.96 0.02 AREO 4-1895-99 1897 -4.42 7.676 -1.69 3.847 3.60 23.43 0.17 7.99 0.02 AREO 4-1900-04 1902 -4.51 7.643 -1.61 3.758 3.40 23.37 0.14 7.99 0.02 AREO 4-1905-09 1907 -4.84 7.709 -1.65 3.619 3.75 23.95 0.19 8.06 0.02 AREO 4-1910-14 1912 -4.44 7.720 -1.95 3.583 3.07 22.52 0.16 7.86 0.02 AREO 4-1915-19 1917 -4.58 7.726 -1.26 3.747 3.40 24.00 0.13 8.07 0.01 AREO 4-1920-24 1922 -4.34 7.729 -1.59 3.855 2.92 22.62 0.19 7.88 0.03 AREO 4-1925-29 1927 -4.99 7.732 -1.90 3.672 3.12 23.98 0.12 8.06 0.01 AREO 4-1930-34 1932 -4.81 7.708 -2.15 3.785 2.82 22.02 0.14 7.78 0.02 AREO 4-1935-39 1937 -4.68 7.699 -1.63 3.787 2.61 21.63 0.19 7.70 0.04 AREO 4-1940 1940 -4.89 7.786 -1.77 3.805 4.03 21.65 0.17 7.71 0.03 AREO 4-1941 1941 -4.39 7.688 -1.44 3.837 2.68 23.90 0.16 8.05 0.02 AREO 4-1942 1942 -4.69 7.758 -1.37 3.616 4.26 24.24 0.14 8.09 0.02 AREO 4-1943 1943 -5.32 7.747 -1.85 3.667 2.80 24.09 0.15 8.08 0.02 AREO 4-1944 1944 -4.70 7.746 -1.40 3.637 3.53 24.22 0.28 8.09 0.03 AREO 4-1945 1945 -4.83 7.705 -1.91 3.746 3.52 24.05 0.24 8.07 0.03 AREO 4-1946 1946 -4.97 7.665 -1.28 3.671 2.85 24.73 0.15 8.15 0.02 AREO 4-1947 1947 -4.77 7.762 -1.64 3.676 3.76 25.14 0.10 8.19 0.01 AREO 4-1948 1948 -4.49 7.741 -1.74 3.590 3.60 24.64 0.13 8.14 0.01 AREO 4-1949 1949 -4.81 7.687 -1.72 3.625 3.43 23.80 0.17 8.04 0.02 AREO 4-1950 1950 -4.74 7.722 -1.65 3.673 4.18 23.99 0.21 8.06 0.02 AREO 4-1951 1951 -4.83 7.736 -1.54 3.811 3.56 24.08 0.14 8.08 0.02 AREO 4-1952 1952 -4.70 7.735 -1.69 3.786 2.81 23.46 0.16 8.00 0.02 AREO 4-1953 1953 -5.64 8.036 -2.12 4.104 7.22 23.32 0.17 7.98 0.02 AREO 4-1954 1954 -5.28 7.671 -1.75 3.780 3.80 23.45 0.18 8.00 0.02 AREO 4-1955 1955 -4.90 7.914 -1.44 3.943 3.54 23.14 0.18 7.96 0.02 AREO 4-1956 1956 -5.01 7.760 -1.62 3.810 2.74 22.96 0.23 7.93 0.03 AREO 4-1957 1957 -4.93 7.992 -1.86 3.938 2.87 23.25 0.13 7.97 0.02 AREO 4-1958 1958 -4.52 7.762 -1.79 3.988 2.91 23.67 0.17 8.02 0.02 AREO 4-1959 1959 -4.81 8.006 -1.77 4.123 3.48 23.06 0.21 7.94 0.03 AREO 4-1960 1960 -4.51 8.073 -1.64 3.980 3.34 23.55 0.24 8.01 0.03 AREO 4-1961 1961 -4.66 7.673 -1.83 3.761 2.37 23.04 0.18 7.94 0.02 AREO 4-1962 1962 -4.69 7.749 -1.73 4.004 3.34 22.76 0.15 7.90 0.02 AREO 4-1963 1963 -5.42 7.653 -1.86 3.828 2.68 23.09 0.13 7.95 0.02 AREO 4-1964 1964 -4.90 7.663 -1.78 3.890 3.04 23.30 0.17 7.98 0.02 AREO 4-1965 1965 -4.73 7.686 -1.83 3.827 2.69 23.74 0.11 8.03 0.01 AREO 4-1966 1966 -4.95 7.734 -1.92 3.850 3.51 24.08 0.11 8.08 0.01 AREO 4-1967 1967 -4.63 7.685 -1.68 3.790 2.93 23.61 0.15 8.02 0.02 AREO 4-1968 1968 -4.94 7.695 -1.81 3.836 3.33 23.96 0.15 8.06 0.02 AREO 4-1969 1969 -5.40 7.670 -1.76 3.756 3.20 23.90 0.18 8.05 0.02 AREO 4-1970 1970 -4.52 7.661 -1.77 3.892 3.05 23.52 0.29 8.01 0.04 AREO 4-1971 1971 -4.85 7.968 -1.65 3.899 3.49 23.57 0.18 8.01 0.02 AREO 4-1972 1972 -5.37 7.674 -2.00 3.926 4.22 23.90 0.19 8.05 0.02 AREO 4-1973 1973 -4.75 7.926 -1.72 4.011 4.47 23.19 0.14 7.96 0.02 AREO 4-1974 1974 -4.62 7.579 -1.71 3.728 2.68 23.83 0.15 8.04 0.02 AREO 4-1975 1975 -5.17 7.674 -1.96 3.791 3.66 23.77 0.11 8.04 0.01 AREO 4-1976 1976 -4.64 7.824 -1.76 3.961 2.85 23.34 0.16 7.98 0.02 AREO 4-1977 1977 -5.36 7.597 -2.23 3.855 3.00 22.96 0.17 7.93 0.02 AREO 4-1978 1978 -5.24 7.695 -2.25 3.765 3.47 23.37 0.16 7.99 0.02 AREO 4-1979 1979 -4.66 7.655 -1.87 4.005 2.72 23.45 0.20 8.00 0.02 AREO 4-1980 1980 -5.20 7.703 -2.10 4.038 3.17 22.29 0.22 7.83 0.03 AREO 4-1981 1981 -4.79 7.906 -1.94 4.031 3.46 23.26 0.16 7.97 0.02 AREO 4-1982 1982 -4.89 7.618 -1.85 4.186 3.25 23.32 0.16 7.98 0.02 AREO 4-1983 1983 -4.70 7.685 -1.72 3.896 2.63 23.61 0.16 8.02 0.02 AREO 4-1984 1984 -4.96 7.648 -1.96 3.775 3.23 23.82 0.20 8.04 0.02 AREO 4-1985 1985 -5.37 7.601 -2.28 3.832 3.83 23.38 0.25 7.99 0.03 AREO 4-1986 1986 -5.53 7.693 -2.46 3.837 2.38 22.42 0.23 7.85 0.04 AREO 4-1987 1987 -5.41 7.675 -2.35 3.886 2.95 22.71 0.28 7.89 0.04 AREO 4-1988 1988 -5.42 7.487 -2.77 4.033 4.12 22.70 0.18 7.89 0.03 AREO 4-1989 1989 -5.45 7.722 -3.08 4.133 3.76 22.97 0.14 7.93 0.02 AREO 4-1990 1990 -5.26 7.707 -2.60 3.896 3.33 22.86 0.20 7.92 0.03 AREO 4-1991 1991 -4.84 7.694 -2.22 4.093 2.99 22.88 0.18 7.92 0.02 AREO 4-1992 1992 -5.54 7.698 -2.89 4.078 2.58 23.40 0.11 7.99 0.01 AREO 4-1993 1993 -4.98 7.727 -2.55 3.888 2.64 24.61 0.13 8.14 0.02 AREO 4-1994 1994 -4.59 7.690 -2.42 3.966 2.86 24.19 0.17 8.09 0.02 AREO 4-1995 1995 -4.87 7.619 -2.50 4.111 4.12 24.16 0.13 8.08 0.01 AREO 4-1996 1996 -4.98 7.606 -2.75 4.311 2.88 22.62 0.16 7.88 0.02 AREO 4-1997 1997 -4.70 7.713 -2.65 3.998 3.22 21.65 0.18 7.71 0.03 AREO 4-1998 1998 -5.21 7.610 -2.82 4.351 2.92 21.06 0.21 7.57 0.05 AREO 4-1999 1999 -4.80 7.722 -3.33 4.061 3.60 21.97 0.20 7.77 0.03 AREO 4-2000 2000 -5.29 7.628 -3.14 4.120 3.48 22.22 0.14 7.81 0.02 AREO 4-2001 2001 -4.97 7.653 -3.12 4.160 3.46 21.93 0.16 7.76 0.03 AREO 4-2002 2002 -5.32 7.663 -2.69 4.238 3.10 23.82 0.16 8.04 0.02 AREO 4-2003 2003 -5.96 7.752 -2.72 4.196 4.40 23.74 0.16 8.03 0.02 AREO 4-2004 2004 -5.25 7.691 -3.56 4.108 NAN 21.45 0.28 7.66 0.05