【摘要】 星罗棋布的热带珊瑚作为海洋环境的信息载体,具有分辨率高、时间跨度大、记录连续完整、体系封闭性好、蕴涵的信息丰富、可选择的代用指标多、测定简便和易于定年等特点。珊瑚有效地记录了全球环境变化的诸多信息,已成为研究过去(如末次间冰期以来)和近代(如数十至数百年以来)的气候—环境变率和可预测性(PAGES-CLIVAR)领域重要的环境载体。以全球变化为背景,对近年来珊瑚环境代用指标的研究成果进行评述。重点讨论了珊瑚氧同位素和微量元素比值等指标在海表温度(SST)变化、海气交换程度、季风强弱、厄尔尼诺—南方涛动(ENSO)发生的频率和强度,以及它们之间的相互作用等全球变化的核心问题上的研究进展,并展望了南海珊瑚在高分辨率全球变化研究中的地位与方向。更多还原

【Abstract】 Ocean is a part of the Earth’s system.However,people have lack of knowledge of the ocean activity related to the global change because the instrumental data are much limited in the ocean regions.The tropical corals would supply high resolution of the recorders for reconstructing the paleo-environment and revealing global changes from last maximum glacier period to past decades due to their wide distribution,easily dating,and a broad array of geochemical proxies in the skeletons.The variants of the geochemical proxies recording the environment information have been discussed.The Sr/Ca ratios of corals as a proxy have been paid much attention with claims of precision better than 0.5℃ in reconstructing the sea surface temperature（SST） sequences in the tropical oceans.In the equatorial Pacific,coral isotopic records track the variability of ENSO,monsoon,circulation,etc.,which are related to the global changes. The combination of oxygen isotopic composition with Sr/Ca ratios in corals is a robust proxy for salinity.Moreover,the new approaches of coral research in the South China Sea and investigative projects related to globe change have also been commented.A complete database of the coral δ¹⁸O and Sr/Ca ratios in the South China Sea is needed to reveal the interactivity between the tropical seas and middle-high latitude lands,and to establish new models for predicting the near-future climatic variability.The MBER projects are a new direction for China’s research on marine ecosystems included in the tropical corals in the South China Sea.更多还原