Climate and Environmental Change

The Quaternary climate records of coral reef in the tropical zone of China

Expand
  • 1. Guangzhou Institute of Geography, Guangzhou 510070, China|
    2. Guangdong Business College, Guangzhou 510320, China

Received date: 2005-08-14

  Revised date: 2005-11-08

  Online published: 2006-06-25

Supported by

National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40371015

Abstract

The analysis results of oxygen isotopes, carbon isotopes, geochemistry and the growth belt of reef coral etc. for some profiles of coral reef show that the basic pattern of climatic fluctuation during the Quaternary period can be reflected by coral reef. The trend of climate change was from cooling to warming during the Early Pleistocene with at least four cycles, and from warming to cooling with at least seven cycles during the Middle Pleistocene. The late Pleistocene is a period of the Quaternary which shows the most frequent variation of climate but generally two main cycles of warming–cooling can be seen. During the Holocene the climate went through a process of warming-rise in temperature-drop in temperature. During the historical period there were four cycles of cooling-warming at 1700 a BP. During the last 200 years climate change is characterized by two stages; a positive deviation in the former 100 years, and a negative deviation in the latter 100 years with general warming trend.

Cite this article

HUANG Zhenguo, ZHANG Weiqiang . The Quaternary climate records of coral reef in the tropical zone of China[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2006 , 16(2) : 209 -214 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-006-0209-9

Outlines

/