A palaeorainfall record from Central Pacific over the last millennia from speleothems: preliminary results

The South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) is a major feature of the South Pacific basin. Its position and activity fluctuate seasonally and at interannual and decadal timescales under the influence of ENSO and the IPO, driving changes in temperature and precipitation in the region. Zonal SPCZ events have also been shown to be associated to cyclogenesis in the Central Pacific, inducing serious hazards for the islands and populations of French Polynesia1. The reconstruction of past SPCZ position and intensity for pre-industrial periods could help to understand its dynamics and improve models aimed at predicting its evolution in a context of global change but long-term, highly resolved and chronologically well-constrained archives of palaeoclimate from the tropical South and Central Pacific are scarce. To address this issue, we collected speleothems from caves located on the uplifted atoll of Rurutu, in the Australes archipelago at the eastern part of the SPCZ. We present preliminary speleothem proxy data of regional palaeohydrology covering the last few millennia.

Keywords

Carbon 14, Southern Oscillation, Pacific Ocean, Atmospheric precipitations, Climatic change, Islands

Citation

Couchoud, I., Drysdale, R. N., Hellstrom, J. C., Hua, Q., Spötl, C., & Etienne, S. (2015). A palaeorainfall record from Central Pacific over the last millennia from speleothems: preliminary results. Poster presented at the XIXth INQUA Congress, Nagoya, Japan, 26 July to 2 August 2014. Retrieved from: https://www.inqua-seqs.org/files/INQUA2015_program_web.pdf

URI

https://www.inqua-seqs.org/files/INQUA2015_program_web.pdf
https://apo.ansto.gov.au/dspace/handle/10238/11212

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