资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Great efforts have been made to understand the impacts of the 1997 Indonesian wildfires on land ecology and human health, yet its influences on marine environments are poorly understood owing to sparse observations. Here we present weekly to monthly resolution coral δ¹³C records across the South China Sea in conjunction with a regional ocean general circulation model to study the effects of these cataclysmic wildfires on nearby oceans. Large and persistent negative δ¹³C excursions were found in corals from the interior South China Sea several months after the wildfires. This delay indicates that the ¹³C‐depleted ash fallout was distributed by ocean currents rather than direct atmospheric transport, which is supported by the results of our numerical model. Thus, the impacts of tropical wildfires on marine ecology may last for one year and extend thousands of kilometers from the burning center.