SPP 2299:  Tropical Climate Variability and Coral Reefs. A Past to Future Perspective on Current Rates of Change at Ultra-High Resolution

• Subject Area: Geosciences
• Term: since 2022
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 441832482

Climate change, in particular the rise in tropical sea surface temperatures, is the greatest threat to coral reef ecosystems today and causes climatic extremes affecting the livelihood of tropical societies. Assessing how future warming will change coral reef ecosystems and tropical climate variability is therefore of extreme urgency. Ultra-high resolution coral geochemistry provides a tool to understand the temporal response of corals and coral reefs to ongoing climate and environmental change, to reconstruct past tropical climate and environmental variability and to use these data in conjunction with advanced statistical methods, earth system modelling and observed ecosystem responses for improved projections of future changes in tropical climate and coral reef ecosystems. The Priority Programme “Tropical Climate Variability and Coral Reefs - A Past to Future Perspective on Current Rates of Change at Ultra-High Resolution” (SPP 2299) aims to enhance our current understanding of tropical marine climate variability and its impact on coral reef ecosystems in a warming world, by quantifying climatic and environmental changes during both the ongoing warming and past warm periods on timescales relevant for society. The programme aims to provide an ultra-high resolution past to future perspective on current rates of change to project how tropical marine climate variability and coral reef ecosystems will change in a warming world.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• International Connection: Australia, Canada, France, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Thailand, United Kingdom, USA

Projects

• Climate and environmental change in the Andaman Sea since the late Little Ice Age: Sea surface temperature, hydroclimate, and coral response to thermal stress in the northeastern Indian Ocean (IndOC-E) (Applicant Felis, Thomas )
• Common Era ENSO variability in the West Central Pacific inferred from isotopic and trace element analysis of Porites microatolls (Applicant Knebel, Oliver )
• Contribution of past and recent climate variability on contemporary patterns of coral bleaching susceptibility (TRACE) (Applicant Voolstra, Ph.D., Christian )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Felis, Thomas )
• Coping with heat stress: Evaluating the effects of repeated bleaching events on coral biomineralization (STRESS) (Applicants von Blanckenburg, Friedhelm ;  Frick, Daniel A. )
• Coral reefs on the tin island of Belitung: ‘reefs of hope’ threatened by pollution and runoff (TINBELT) (Applicants Garbe-Schönberg, Carl-Dieter ;  Pfeiffer, Miriam )
• Disentangling species-, colony-, and symbiont-specific effects on coral skeletal characteristics under future environmental variability scenarios (DiSCoSym) (Applicant Ziegler, Maren )
• Frozen in time: ecology of paleo reefs (Applicants Bejarano, Sonia ;  Wild, Christian )
• Indian Ocean warming from the peak of the Little Ice Age to the 21st century: Zanzibar Island, Western Indian Ocean (IndOC-W) (Applicant Pfeiffer, Miriam )
• Quantifying post Little-Ice-Age freshwater influences and ocean dynamics in the Central American Sea using a novel tracer combination: 234U/238U– (P)SST – 14C (Applicants Frank, Norbert ;  Warken, Sophie )
• Reconstructing ultra-high resolution climate variability and symbiont bleaching in tropical corals: from past to present (EPIBleach) (Applicants Fietzke, Jan ;  Frank, Martin )
• Reef coral calcification and climate dynamics during the Eocene greenhouse (EOCENE) (Applicants Brachert, Thomas ;  Henehan, Michael ;  Mertz, Ph.D., Regina )
• Reef-scale Climate Protection – screening coral skeletal records for proxy Traces of natural bleaching mitigation by internal waves (ReefCPTrace) (Applicant Wall, Marlene )
• Seasonal Extremes and Rates of Change in Past Warm Climates: Insights from Advanced Statistical Estimations on High-Resolution Coral Proxy Records (SEARCH) (Applicant Mudelsee, Manfred )
• Seasonal to decadal tropical Sea Surface Temperature variability from corals: timescale dependent fidelity of δ18O and Sr/Ca records. (Applicant Dolman, Andrew )
• Terrestrial sediment flux and upwelling intensity in the anthropogenic era recorded by stable Ba isotopes and rare earth elements in tropical coral skeletons (Applicant Frank, Martin )
• The marine Nitrogen cycle in a warming world: Evidence from the past, lessons for the Anthropocene (NITROCENE) (Applicant Martinez-Garcia, Ph.D., Alfredo )
• Tropical Atlantic-Pacific hydroclimate, variability and teleconnections during the Last Interglacial and the Holocene - Insights from earth-system modelling and corals (TAPIOLA) (Applicant Merkel, Ute )
• Tropical climate variability and the influence of environmental stressors as recorded in Orbicella and Siderastrea coral skeletons from Belize (Applicant Gischler, Eberhard )

• Spokesperson: Dr. Thomas Felis