Reduced El Niño–Southern Oscillation during the Last Glacial Maximum

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1258437
• Publication Date: 2015-01-15T19:02:44Z
• Authors: Heather L. Ford; A. Christina Ravelo; Pratigya J. Polissar
• Keywords: 550; Atmosphere; FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences; 551; Oceanography; Southern oscillation; 01 natural sciences; Thermoclines (Oceanography); 13. Climate action; 14. Life underwater; Paleoclimatology; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

A new tilt on predicting future ENSO variability A new finding should improve the ability of climate models to predict the behavior of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) in a warmer future. Ford et al. looked at the distribution of surface and subsurface temperatures in the eastern and western equatorial Pacific 19,000 years ago and between 3000 and 6000 years ago. Temperatures fluctuated over a greater range during the older period. ENSO thus depended more on the tilt of the equatorial Pacific thermocline than on the east-to-west temperature gradient, as previously thought.

Science , this issue p. 255