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

The 2nd period of SPP 2299 will start in January 2026. As in phase 1, research projects of SPP 2299 will be organized around three major research topics: Topic A: Large-scale ocean, climate and environment reconstructions Topic B: Coral and reef-scale response to current environmental stress Topic C: Climate, reef and proxy modelling – Climate and proxy advanced statistics aiming to successfully address the overall scientific question: Can we understand the interaction between global climate change and modes of tropical climate variability, and their combined impact on coral reef ecosystems and tropical societies in a warming world? The SPP 2299 will continue its work against the backdrop of the unprecedented warming and coral bleaching seen in 2023/2024, which impacted tropical reef countries, fueling heatwaves, drought, storms and floods that forced millions of people from their homes. The longer-term impact of the 2023/24 bleaching event on coral reefs is still unclear. Of particular concern is the current lack of coral monitoring, especially in countries with limited resources. This will be exacerbated by budget cuts to U.S. governmental agencies, which provide critical resources for coral reef monitoring. Field campaigns carried out in the 2nd phase of SPP 2299 will contribute important observational data. New coral cores will include 2023/24, and may show reef-scale SSTs and/or coral stress responses, which can be compared to the previous temperature record of 2015/16. There is an urgent need to use cores drilled from massive corals for retrospective monitoring of stress events. Time series of environmental parameters inferred from coral proxy data may also become an important tool for the evaluation of potential coral refuges in a warming ocean. Historical temperature data has been identified as a primary target for the improvement of coral bleaching models: The thermal history of coral reefs is important for understanding coral acclimatisation and potential community shifts. At many sites, this data can only be inferred from coral proxies. These research efforts benefit greatly from tank and field experiments on coral bleaching performed in SPP 2299 projects, which provide a functional understanding of bleaching susceptibility and species-specific thresholds. In addition, advanced statistical analysis of coral temperature proxies contributes a better understanding of biological noise in the proxy data, demonstrating the strong synergies between all major research topics of SPP 2299. An important field of progress also includes a better understanding of regional climatic anomalies in response to global climatic changes, and how past warm climates operated.

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

Projects

• A ‘Cold Case’: Coral bleaching and reef death off Java and Sumatra driven by the Indian Ocean Dipole (ColdCASE) (Applicants Frick, Daniel A. ;  Pfeiffer, Miriam )
• A Composite coral Approach using a Novel laser-ablation technique: Adaptation strategies in a marginal Reef [CANARY] (Applicant Watanabe, Takaaki )
• Bay of Bengal Replicate Coral Reconstructions and Tropical-Basin Interactions using Coral Data Assimilation: hydroclimate and temperature variability spanning the last centuries (HYDRA) (Applicant Hargreaves, Jessica )
• Climate and environmental change in the Andaman Sea since the late Little Ice Age: History of coral response to thermal stress at a northeastern Indian Ocean heatwave site (IndOC-E II) (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 )
• Coordination Funds (Applicant Pfeiffer, Miriam )
• 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 )
• CORals as archives for EXtreme weather and climate variability (CorEX) (Applicant Rimbu, Norel )
• Defining the late Anthropocene response of the Eastern Tropical Pacific Oxygen Deficient Zone to climate change (ANTHR-ODZ) (Applicant Foreman, Alan )
• 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, Ph.D., Christian )
• Heterotrophy and coral resilience during marine heat waves – from organism responses to its skeletal signature (HeROeS) (Applicant Wall, Marlene )
• 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 )
• INFORMing reef environmental management with coral geochemical records (Applicant Hathorne, Edmund )
• Paleoclimate and Carbonate Chemistry of the Red Sea proper during the Marine Isotope Stage 5e (MIS 5e) reconstructed from massive fossil Porites sp. corals (Applicant Todorovic, Sara )
• 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 Environmental Effects of Freshwater-Seawater Dynamics via Submarine Groundwater Discharge (REEF-SGD) (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 )
• Reconstructing ultra-high resolution climate variability and symbiont bleaching in tropical corals: from past to present (EPIBleach II) (Application renewal) (Applicants Anagnostou, Ph.D., Eleni ;  Santodomingo, Ph.D., Nadia ;  Ziegler, Maren )
• 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 centennial tropical sea surface temperature variability from corals: constraints on tropical climate dynamics. (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 impact of external forcing on tropical climate variability in paleoclimate simulations and paleo-storylines during different periods of the late Quaternary (ExtTroPact) (Applicant Wagner, Sebastian )
• The marine Nitrogen cycle in a warming world: Evidence from the past, lessons for the Anthropocene (NITROCENE-2) (Applicant Martínez García, 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 )
• Using coral skeleton cores to decipher the adaptation trajectories of the coral holobiont through time (CoreAdapt) (Applicant Ziegler, Maren )

• Spokesperson: Professorin Dr. Miriam Pfeiffer
• Participating Person: Dr. Thomas Felis