Coral climate proxy data from a marginal reef area, Kuwait, northern Arabian–Persian Gulf

We present the first coral climate proxy data (Sr / Ca, δ18O, δ13C) from the Persian–Arabian Gulf using a Porites lutea coral collected offshore Kuwait. Both oxygen isotope- and Sr / Ca-ratios of the coral core investigated are statistically correlated with instrumental sea surface temperatures (SST) for the area from 1980–2002. However, the temperature calibration curve for Sr / Ca differs from other published curves in that its slope is much lower. The correlation coefficient between δ18Ocoral and instrumental SST is at the lower limit as compared to other sites. These differences most likely relate to insufficient data representation of cold winters and hot summers, and indicates that much higher sampling resolution is needed in marginal reef areas such as Kuwait with extreme environmental fluctuations, i.e., intra-annual SST-variation of 16–34 °C, as compared to low latitude locations with relatively low SST variation. Variations of carbon isotopes of the coral skeleton do not exhibit climate control, however, a negative excursion in 1991 might be attributed to the massive oil field fires of the II. Gulf War.