Enhanced El Niño–Southern Oscillation Variability in Recent Decades

Grothe, Pamela R.; Cobb, Kim M.; Liguori, Giovanni; Di Lorenzo, Emanuele; Capotondi, Antonietta; Lu, Yanbin; Cheng, Hai; Edwards, R. Lawrence; Southon, John R.; Santos, Guaciara M.; Deocampo, Daniel M.; Lynch‐Stieglitz, Jean; Chen, Tianran; Sayani, Hussein R.; Thompson, Diane M.; Conroy, Jessica L.; Moore, Andrea L.; Townsend, Kayla; Hagos, Melat; O'Connor, Gemma; Toth, Lauren T.

doi:10.1029/2019GL083906

i

Enhanced El Niño–Southern Oscillation Variability in Recent Decades

Public Domain

2020
By Grothe, Pamela R. ; Cobb, Kim M. ; Liguori, Giovanni ; ...

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Journal Title:

Geophysical Research Letters
Personal Author:

Grothe, Pamela R. ; Cobb, Kim M. ; Liguori, Giovanni ; Di Lorenzo, Emanuele ; Capotondi, Antonietta ; Lu, Yanbin ; Cheng, Hai ; Edwards, R. Lawrence ; Southon, John R. ; Santos, Guaciara M. ; Deocampo, Daniel M. ; Lynch‐Stieglitz, Jean ; Chen, Tianran ; Sayani, Hussein R. ; Thompson, Diane M. ; Conroy, Jessica L. ; Moore, Andrea L. ; Townsend, Kayla ; Hagos, Melat ; O'Connor, Gemma ; Toth, Lauren T.
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; PSL (Physical Sciences Laboratory)
Description:

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) represents the largest source of year-to-year global climate variability. While Earth system models suggest a range of possible shifts in ENSO properties under continued greenhouse gas forcing, many centuries of preindustrial climate data are required to detect a potential shift in the properties of recent ENSO extremes. Here we reconstruct the strength of ENSO variations over the last 7,000 years with a new ensemble of fossil coral oxygen isotope records from the Line Islands, located in the central equatorial Pacific. The corals document a significant decrease in ENSO variance of ~20% from 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, coinciding with changes in spring/fall precessional insolation. We find that ENSO variability over the last five decades is ~25% stronger than during the preindustrial. Our results provide empirical support for recent climate model projections showing an intensification of ENSO extremes under greenhouse forcing.
Keywords:

Anthropogenic Climate Change Coral Paleoclimate El Niño–Southern Oscillation Holocene Climate Change Anthropogenic Climate Change Coral Paleoclimate Holocene Climate Change
Source:

Geophysical Research Letters, 46, e2019GL083906.
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL083906
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Journal Article
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urn:sha256:71d20be750a4b8e21613fd8312599305dee527dda83e4d159dc1ebdeaec64abc
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https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/31050/noaa_31050_DS1.pdf
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