Stable isotope record of a Bermuda coral

Annual and decadal averages of both sea-surface temperature proxies indicate temperature variabilities of 0.5°C (standard deviation) and 0.3°C, respectively. Both numbers are close to recent instrumental observations.

Approximately 30% of the interannual time series variance of delta18O is concentrated in broad bands centered at periods of ~30, 16, and 7.8 yr, the last two reflecting the influence of the North Atlantic Oscillation. Although this large-scale climate signal is present in the record, there is no correlation with other contemporaneous northern hemisphere proxy data, resulting from spatial differences in climate variability.