Ancient Corals Reveal Today's El Niños Are the Strongest in 1,000 Years
Learn how El Niño events have been significantly stronger over the past four decades than during the previous millennium, as shown by corals from the Galápagos and climate models.
A potentially historic "Super" El Niño event is underway in the Pacific Ocean, forecasted to reach its peak during the Northern Hemisphere's fall and winter. In an attempt to place this event within a broader context, researchers from the University of Michigan utilized corals found in the Galápagos Islands and climate models to examine past El Niño occurrences.
Their findings, published in the journal Science, reveal that El Niño events over the past 40 years have been more intense than any in the preceding 1,000 years. This was demonstrated by the near 40% increase in El Niño intensity observed over the last four decades. The study's lead author, Julia Cole, a professor at UM's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, stated that "we see a time in the past where El Niños have been as strong as today, and we show that the strength of El Niño changes in parallel with the warming of global temperature."
The researchers concluded that the intensity of the big El Niño events over the past 40 years is not normal in the context of the past thousand years.
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