Wire-line Drilling Drowned Reefs Offshore Christmas and Kanton Atolls

OCE-9416971 Funding is provided for wireline drilling on drowned reefs in the tropical Pacific atolls (Christmas and Kanton) to determine whether tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures were significantly cooler in the past, as well as provide information about the behavior El Nino Southern Oscillation. In global change framework, the response of tropical sea surface temperatures to increasing atmospheric CO2 and other radiatively important trace gases is hard to predict accurately. Fundamental to these predictions is an understanding of whether tropical sea surface temperatures have been constant throughout the past or varied up to 5 degrees C in less than 5000 years.