Galapagos Coral Records Indicate Intensifying El Niño Events
Coral records from the Galapagos Islands suggest that El Niño events have intensified over the past 40 years, corresponding with rising global temperatures. This conclusion is supported by a study published in Science, which reconstructs a 1,000-year record of eastern Pacific sea surface temperatures using coral skeletons.
The study, led by Julia Cole, found that strong El Niño events have become more frequent in the last century compared to the previous millennium. These findings imply that human-induced climate change is amplifying and increasing the frequency of such events.
Further analysis by Tripp et al., published in Geophysical Research Letters, examined ancient Galapagos coral colonies, revealing that mid-Holocene ENSO variability was significantly weaker than the variability observed between 1986 and 2016. This modern period shows a positive skewness, dominated by warm El Niño events, contrasting with the colder La Niña-type events of the mid-Holocene.
Scientific American highlights that the Galapagos Islands, located in a region where El Niño has significant impacts, provide a crucial perspective on the changing dynamics of these climatic phenomena.