A new 1,100-year-long history of the El Niño-La Niña climate cycle that dominates seasonal weather patterns now and then promises to sharpen the skills of computer models trying to simulate the impacts of global warming.
Climate specialists at the University of Hawaii-Manoa used an archive of tree ring measurements in the Southwestern United States to extend an El Niño historical record previously limited by Pacific Ocean coral data to only a few hundred years.
"Our work revealed that the towering trees on the mountain slopes of the U.S. Southwest and the colorful corals in the tropical Pacific both listen to the music of El Niño," lead scientist Jinbao Li said in a statement released by the university. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Nature Climate Change.
El Niño music is a complex symphony of movements between the equatorial ocean and the atmosphere. Shifts in ocean surface waters are often driven by wind bursts. As warm waters migrate eastward toward the shores of the Americas, the towering cumulus clouds that fuel many of Earth's storms shift along with the warmth into the central Pacific -- bending the jet streams and changing storm tracks. This warm El Niño condition brings wetter winters to the Southwest, and wider growth rings on the trees in the mountains, and cold La Niña waters mean dry winters and thinner tree rings.
