Our planet’s waters are warming, we know that, however scientists have only been tracking them since the turn of the 20th century. However, a single coral found in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Fiji is giving researchers tons of data on ocean temperatures long before that.
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00:00Our planet's waters are warming, we know that.
00:06However scientists have only been tracking them since the turn of the 20th century.
00:10However this single coral found in the Pacific Ocean just off the coast of Fiji is giving
00:14researchers tons of data on ocean temperatures long before that.
00:18But how?
00:19Well, it's more than 600 years old, which they say means that trapped within it is more
00:22than 600 years of climate data that has now been harvested.
00:26They collected a sample from the honeycomb coral which was discovered way back in 1998,
00:31finding that it included markers from some 627 years ago, meaning researchers can actually
00:36tell what Pacific Ocean temperatures were all the way back to the year 1370.
00:40The samples revealed that the sea in which the coral resides was around the same temperature
00:44in 1370 and in 1553 as it is today, due to normal variations and cycles in ocean temperatures.
00:51Though coral and paleo oceanographic measurements over the last century illustrate that our
00:55current ocean temperatures are not part of the normal cycle.
00:59The researchers say this coral data is the longest continuous temperature record of its
01:03kind from anywhere in the tropics.