Preindustrial to modern variability of sea surface temperatures and CO2 uptake in the South Pacific

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Todorovic ◽  
Henry C. Wu ◽  
Braddock K. Linsley ◽  
Henning Kuhnert ◽  
Delphine Dissard
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Sea Surface ◽  
Co2 Uptake ◽  
The South ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
Ph Variation ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Instrumental Records

<p>The modern increase in atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> driven by fossil fuel combustion and land-use change is warming our atmosphere and surface oceans. The absorption of this excess CO<sub>2</sub> by the oceans decreases seawater pH in a process known as ocean acidification (OA), which represents a threat to marine ecosystems with adverse impacts on coral health. It is important to understand how modern climate change impacts interannual and interdecadal climatic cycles and atmospheric phenomena which are originating in the Pacific and modulating global climate. There is a scarcity of data necessary to study the impacts of these changes on natural variability on longer timescales. In this study, we present multi-proxy (e.g. Sr/Ca, δ<sup>18</sup>O, δ<sup>13</sup>C, B/Ca) reconstructions of sea surface temperature (SST), surface seawater carbonate chemistry, with implications for pH variability of the South Pacific back to preindustrial times. This region of the Pacific is interesting for tracking the development of OA because of the well-constrained interannual to interdecadal SST and SSS variability from existing coral-based reconstructions. Massive corals (<em>Porites</em> sp.) from Rotuma and Tonga will be analyzed to extend the currently available SST reconstructions and expand the spatio-temporal coverage beyond the instrumental records. New monthly-resolved SST records will provide larger analyses exploring the influence of interannual and decadal-interdecadal climatic fluctuations on CO<sub>2</sub> absorption and pH variation. We aim to quantify the anthropogenic impact on SST, pH and the ocean carbonate system to achieve a better understanding of the status in the South Pacific under open ocean conditions.</p>

IODP Expedition 378 South Pacific Paleogene Climate: New high-resolution high-latitude Cenozoic Section

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Röhl ◽  
Deborah J Thomas ◽  
Laurel Childress ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
High Latitude ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
The South ◽  
Red Clay ◽  
South Pacific Ocean ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
International Ocean Discovery Program

<p>As the world’s largest ocean, the Pacific Ocean is intricately linked to major changes in the global climate system. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 378 is designed to recover Paleogene sedimentary sections in the South Pacific to reconstruct key changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation. These cores will provide an unparalleled opportunity to add crucial new data and geographic coverage to existing reconstructions of Paleogene climate and as part of a major regional slate of expeditions in the Southern Ocean to fill a critical need for high-latitude climate reconstructions. Appropriate high-latitude records are unobtainable in the Northern Hemisphere of the Pacific Ocean.</p><p>The drilling strategy included a transect of sites strategically positioned in the South Pacific to recover Paleogene carbonates buried under red clay sequences at present latitudes of 40°–52°S in 4650 – 5075 meters of water depth. Due to technical issues we no longer will be able to reach the deeper sites. Therefore, the focus of Expedition 378 will be now to obtain a continuous sedimentary record of a previously single hole, rotary-drilled, spot-cored, classic Cenozoic high-latitude DSDP Site 277 and provide a crucial, multiple hole, mostly APC-cored, continuous record of the intermediate-depth Subantarctic South Pacific Ocean from the Latest Cretaceous to late Oligocene.</p>

Tracking the South Pacific convergence zone variability and recent acidification reconstructed from tropical corals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Todorović ◽  
Henry C. Wu ◽  
Braddock Linsley ◽  
Delphine Dissard ◽  
Henning Kuhnert ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
South Pacific Convergence Zone ◽  
Convergence Zone ◽  
Climatic Fluctuations ◽  
Ph Variation ◽  
Enso Events ◽  
Strong Trend ◽  
Tropical Oceans

<p>Massive tropical corals represent one of the most important natural archives of modern climate change. Coral based reconstructions give us the possibility to extend the instrumental oceanographic records and observe hydrographic variability on seasonal to interdecadal scales in tropical oceans. South Pacific convergence zone (SPCZ) variability, Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events are major drivers of global climate and may exert control on regional CO<sub>2</sub> absorption, outgassing and pH variability.</p><p><em>Porites</em> sp. corals from Tonga and Rotuma (Fijian dependency) are being analyzed for multi-proxy (e.g. Sr/Ca, δ<sup>18</sup>O, δ<sup>13</sup>C, δ<sup>11</sup>B, B/Ca) reconstructions of sea surface temperature and salinity (SST, SSS) and carbonate chemistry, on a monthly to annual resolution. Preliminary data of the Rotuma <em>Porites</em> sp. coral shows δ<sup>18</sup>O has been decreasing by 0.004 ‰ per year at the end of the 20th century, suggesting freshening and/or warming of the surface water. In the same period, we observe a δ<sup>13</sup>C decrease of 0.017 ‰ per year in-line with the anthropogenic CO<sub>2</sub> driven Suess effect. Initial results of the δ<sup>11</sup>B Tonga <em>Porites</em> sp. show high interannual variability, and a strong trend of decrease of -0.0626 ‰ per year in the last five decades of the record (1949-2004) suggesting acidification. The results are in agreement with published coral-based reconstructions from the region.</p><p>When completed, the new records will facilitate exploring the effects of modern anthropogenic influence on ocean carbonate system and pH variation, and the relationship between them and interannual and decadal-interdecadal climatic fluctuations.</p>

scholarly journals Corruption in the Pacific - a threat to cultural identity

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-92
Author(s):  
Julie Cleaver
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
News Media ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
The South ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The World

This is an edited transcript of a panel discussion at a Pacific preconference of the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) congress in Auckland in July 2016 that relates to fundamentally crucial issues about development in the region. As the world comes more intensely interested in what is going on in the Pacific. Numerous international treaties have been signed with interest in the Pacific from the European Union, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank in partnership with the South Pacific Forum as well as massive interest from foreign donors. How these resources are being deployed is actually crucial to successful development and many news media are trying to trace where the money goes. This is probably one of the biggest challenges, aside from global climate change and the depleting fishery resources, facing the Pacific and is a threat to cultural identity. ‘Corruption is much like cancer: it’s got to be treated early, otherwise there’s going to be massive expensive interventions, as we see in Africa, as we see in Asia, and as we see in South America,’ says panel convenor Fuimaono Tuiasau of Transparency International New Zealand. Panellists were: Dr Shailendra Singh, coordinator of the University of the South Pacific journalism programme, Alexander Rheeney, editor-in-chief of the PNG Post-Courier, and Kalafi Moala, owner, publisher and editor of Taimi ‘o Tonga.

Transcending the colonial gaze: Empathy, agency and community in the South Pacific photography of John Watt Beattie1

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terry M. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Solomon Islands ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
The South ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Norfolk Island ◽  
The Church

For three months in 1906, John Watt Beattie, the noted Australian photographer – at the invitation of the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia, Cecil Wilson – travelling on the church vessel the Southern Cross, photographed people and sites associated with the Melanesian Mission on Norfolk Island and present-day Vanuatu and Solomon Islands. Beattie reproduced many of the 1500-plus photographs from that trip, which he sold in various formats from his photographic studio in Hobart, Tasmania. The photographs constitute a priceless collection of Pacific images that began to be used very quickly in a variety of publications, with or without attribution. I shall examine some of these photographs in the context of the ethos of the Melanesian Mission, British colonialism in the Solomon Islands, and Beattie’s previous photographic experience. I shall argue that Beattie first exhibited a colonial gaze of objectifying his dehumanized exotic subjects (e.g. as ‘savages’ and ‘cannibals’) but with increased familiarity with them, became empathetic and admiring. In this change of attitude, I argue that he effectively transcended his colonial gaze to produce photographs of great empathy, beauty and longevity. At the same time, he became more critical of the colonial enterprise in the Pacific, whether government, commercial or church.

scholarly journals Migration and Foreign Aid as Factors Restraining Regional Cooperation in the South Pacific

2021 ◽  
Vol 50 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Joanna Siekiera ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Aid ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Regional Cooperation ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
Ocean Basin ◽  
The South ◽  
Legal Personality ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Permanent Migration ◽  
The 1960S

Cooperation in the South Pacific region is unique due to the characteristics of its participants. Following the period of decolonization (1962-1980), countries in Oceania have radically changed. Achieving independence gave those nations international legal personality, yet complete independence from their former colonial powers. The following consequence was gaining an opportunity to draft, adopt and execute own laws in national and foreign policy. PICT (Pacific island countries and territories) have been expanding connections, political and trade ones, within the region since the 1960s when permanent migration of islanders and intra-regional transactions began. Migrations along with foreign aid are considered as the distinctive characteristics of the Pacific Ocean basin. Since the 1980s, the regional integration in Oceania, through establishing regional groupings and increasing the regional trade agreements number, took on pace and scope. The MIRAB synthetic measure (migration, remittances, aid, bureaucracy) has been used in analyzing the Oceania developing microeconomies. Last but not least, migration and foreign aid have been retaining the region from a deeper and more effective stage of regionalism.

scholarly journals Genetic structure of the Coconut Rhinoceros Beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros) population and the incidence of its biocontrol agent (Oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus) in the South Pacific Islands

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kayvan Etebari ◽  
James Hereward ◽  
Apenisa Sailo ◽  
Emeline M Ahoafi ◽  
Robert Tautua ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Biocontrol Agent ◽  
New Caledonia ◽  
Solomon Islands ◽  
South Pacific ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Mitochondrial Lineage ◽  
The South ◽  
Oryctes Rhinoceros ◽  
Rhinoceros Beetle ◽  
The Pacific

Incursions of the Coconut rhinoceros beetle (CRB), Oryctes rhinoceros, have been detected in several countries of the south-west Pacific in recent years, resulting in an expansion of the pest's geographic range. It has been suggested that this resurgence is related to an O. rhinoceros mitochondrial lineage (previously referred to as the CRB-G biotype) that is reported to show reduced susceptibility to the well-established classical biocontrol agent, Oryctes rhinoceros nudivirus (OrNV). We investigated O. rhinoceros population genetics and the OrNV status of adult specimens collected in the Philippines and seven different South Pacific island countries (Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu). Based on the presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (snps) in the mitochondrial Cytochrome C Oxidase subunit I (CoxI) gene, we found three major mitochondrial lineages (CRB-G, a PNG lineage (CRB-PNG) and the South Pacific lineage (CRB-S)) across the region. Haplotype diversity varied considerably between and within countries. The O. rhinoceros population in most countries was monotypic and all individuals tested belonged to a single mitochondrial lineage (Fiji, CRB-S; Tonga, CRB-S; Vanuatu, CRB-PNG; PNG (Kimbe), CRB-PNG; New Caledonia CRB-G; Philippines, CRB-G). However, in Samoa we detected CRB-S and CRB-PNG and in Solomon Islands we detected all three haplotype groups. Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS) methods were used to genotype 10,000 snps from 230 insects across the Pacific and showed genetic differentiation in the O. rhinoceros nuclear genome among different geographical populations. The GBS data also provided evidence for gene flow and admixture between different haplotypes in Solomon Islands. Therefore, contrary to earlier reports, CRB-G is not solely responsible for damage to the coconut palms reported since the pest was first recorded in Solomon Islands in 2015. We also PCR-screened a fragment of OrNV from 260 insects and detected an extremely high prevalence of viral infection in all three haplotypes in the region. We conclude that the haplotype groups CRB-G, CRB-S, and PNG, do not represent biotypes, subspecies, or cryptic species, but simply represent different invasions of O. rhinoceros across the Pacific. This has important implications for management, especially biological control, of Coconut rhinoceros beetle in the region.

Sailing into the Anthropocene

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
South Pacific ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pacific Island ◽  
The South ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Starting Date ◽  
History Of The South

Chapters 2–6 survey the political and socioeconomic forces underlying the global sustainability crisis. Understanding the scale and depth of contemporary forces of capitalism and consumerism requires a close look at the consequences of imperialism and colonialism on patterns of violence and exploitation. This chapter begins this process of understanding by sketching the history of ecological imperialism after 1600, seeing this as a reasonable starting date for the beginning of what many scholars are now calling the Anthropocene Epoch (or the age of humans, replacing the geologic epoch of the Holocene beginning 12,000 years ago). It opens with Captain Pedro Fernandes de Queirós’s voyage across the Pacific Ocean in 1605–06 to “discover” modern-day Vanuatu, before turning to look more globally at the devastation of imperialism – and later colonialism – for the South Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Over this time conquerors enslaved and murdered large numbers of indigenous people; cataclysmic change came as well, however, from the introduction of European diseases, plants, and animals. This chapter’s survey of imperialism, colonialism, and globalization sets the stage for Chapter 3, which explores the devastating history of the South Pacific island of Nauru after 1798.

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