The time series of annual and seasonal growth rate of two coral Porites, collected at different sites of fringe reef in the Sanya Bay, Hainan Island have been obtained by analyzing X-radiograph of skeletal band. There are obvious seasonal variations of the growth rate in two corals, the average low rate in winter and the average high rate from spring to autumn. Compared with the time series of environmental variables, the coral growth rate is only correlated statistically with seawater temperature and not related to rainfall and sunshine. Furthermore, the growth rate in spring and summer is correlated directly with seawater temperature of the winter-early spring ( between December and March ) and the other seasonal growth rate has no relationship with seasonal variations of seawater temperature. We propose that seawater temperature is one of the factors affecting the coral growth rate in the area and the low seawater temperature is a primary control of the seasonal growth rate.
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