AUCKLAND, New Zealand, May 17 (UPI) -- A New Zealand scientist says she's discovered a central Pacific coral reef holds the history of previously unknown fickle weather.
A close examination of the reef reveals that while the rest of the world was experiencing warm weather, the Pacific was cold. And during a period of cold weather elsewhere in the world, the Pacific was warm and stormy.
For more than five decades researchers studying the Pacific Islands have used a model of late Holocene climate change based largely on other regions of the world. But now Melinda Allen of the University of Auckland uses evidence from the long-lived Pacific corals to suggest the Pacific climate diverged from the rest of the world during two major climate periods: the "Little Ice Age" and the "Medieval Warm Period."
"These findings have relevance for both ancient and modern Pacific peoples," said Allen. "The ancient coral studies, in tandem with archaeology, offer an opportunity for investigating the impact of climate change on Pacific environment and Pacific peoples' responses to these changes -- conditions which their successors are again facing in the 21st century."
The study appears in the June issue of Current Anthropology.
