Cloudiness regime shift during 1946-1992 recorded by coral in the South China Sea

By extracting and comparing long-term trend components of coral gray value, sea surface temperature, cloudiness, and net heat flux for the period of 1946-1992, the relationships among them are addressed. There exists a prominent regime shift in the cloudiness associated with the corresponding variabilities of sea surface temperature and net heat flux occurred in the mid-1960s, which can be successfully recorded by coral gray value, a climatic proxy. Long-term cloudiness variations in the South China Sea are completely opposite to the equatorial western Pacific in the past five decades, whereas they share a similar trend to that over Asian monsoon prevailing waters. The fact that the coral gray value is highly correlated to cloudiness provides a unique perspective on utilizing this coral to study cloudiness variations in the pre-instrumental period.