skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Evolution and forcing mechanisms of El Niño over the past 21,000 years

Journal Article · · Nature (London)
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13963· OSTI ID:1565324
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
  2. Peking Univ., Beijing (China)
  3. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  4. Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States)
  5. Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)

The El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is Earth’s dominant source of interannual climate variability, but its response to global warming remains highly uncertain1. To improve our understanding of ENSO’s sensitivity to external climate forcing, it is paramount to determine its past behaviour by using palaeoclimate data and model simulations. Palaeoclimate records show that ENSO has varied considerably since the Last Glacial Maximum (21,000 years ago), and some data sets predict a gradual intensification of ENSO over the past ~6,000 years. Other attempts to simulate the transient evolution of ENSO have relied on simplified models or snapshot experiments. In this work, we assess a series of transient Coupled General Circulation Model simulations forced by changes in greenhouse gasses, orbital forcing, the meltwater discharge and the ice-sheet history throughout the past 21,000 years. Consistent with most palaeo-ENSO reconstructions, our model simulates an orbitally induced strengthening of ENSO during the Holocene epoch, which is caused by increasing positive ocean–atmosphere feedbacks. During the early deglaciation, ENSO characteristics change drastically in response to meltwater discharges and the resulting changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and equatorial annual cycle. Increasing deglacial atmospheric CO2 concentrations tend to weaken ENSO, whereas retreating glacial ice sheets intensify ENSO. The complex evolution of forcings and ENSO feedbacks and the uncertainties in the reconstruction further highlight the challenge and opportunity for constraining future ENSO responses.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI ID:
1565324
Journal Information:
Nature (London), Vol. 515, Issue 7528; ISSN 0028-0836
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 206 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (38)

Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation journal April 2012
Pacific Climate Change and ENSO Activity in the Mid-Holocene journal February 2009
Long-Term Variations of Daily Insolation and Quaternary Climatic Changes journal December 1978
Northern Hemisphere forcing of Southern Hemisphere climate during the last deglaciation journal February 2013
Are historical records sufficient to constrain ENSO simulations? journal January 2009
An ENSO stability analysis. Part I: results from a hybrid coupled model journal April 2010
The Effect of Orbital Forcing on the Mean Climate and Variability of the Tropical Pacific journal August 2007
Variability in the El Nino-Southern Oscillation Through a Glacial-Interglacial Cycle journal January 2001
The Community Climate System Model Version 3 (CCSM3) journal June 2006
Pronounced interannual variability in tropical South Pacific temperatures during Heinrich Stadial 1 journal January 2012
A Simple Model Study of ENSO Suppression by External Periodic Forcing* journal May 2002
The Influence of a Weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation on ENSO journal October 2007
Palaeoclimate reconstructions reveal a strong link between El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Tropical Pacific mean state journal November 2013
Highly Variable El Niño–Southern Oscillation Throughout the Holocene journal January 2013
Rates of change in natural and anthropogenic radiative forcing over the past 20,000 years journal February 2008
Inferred changes in El Niño–Southern Oscillation variance over the past six centuries journal January 2013
El Niño-Southern Oscillation extrema in the Holocene and Last Glacial Maximum: ENSO EXTREMA IN THE HOLOCENE AND LGM journal December 2012
El Niño variability off Peru during the last 20,000 years: EL NIÑO VARIABILITY OFF PERU, 0-20 KYR journal October 2005
The Optimal Growth of Tropical Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies journal August 1995
Variability of El Niño/Southern Oscillation activity at millennial timescales during the Holocene epoch journal November 2002
Modeling climate shift of El Nino variability in the Holocene journal August 2000
Mid-Holocene ENSO: Issues in quantitative model-proxy data comparisons: MID-HOLOCENE ENSO journal July 2008
Reduced Interannual Rainfall Variability in East Africa During the Last Ice Age journal August 2011
Suppression of El Niño during the Mid-Holocene by changes in the Earth's orbit journal December 2000
Modeling El Niño and its tropical teleconnections during the last glacial-interglacial cycle: HOLOCENE AND GLACIAL EL NIÑO journal December 2003
The impact of global warming on the tropical Pacific Ocean and El Niño journal May 2010
Future changes of El Niño in two global coupled climate models journal January 2006
An ENSO stability analysis. Part II: results from the twentieth and twenty-first century simulations of the CMIP3 models journal June 2010
Holocene history of ENSO variance and asymmetry in the eastern tropical Pacific journal August 2014
Transient Simulation of Last Deglaciation with a New Mechanism for Bolling-Allerod Warming journal July 2009
GLOBAL GLACIAL ISOSTASY AND THE SURFACE OF THE ICE-AGE EARTH: The ICE-5G (VM2) Model and GRACE journal May 2004
El Niño-Like Climate Teleconnections in New England During the Late Pleistocene journal May 2000
Tropical Pacific and Atlantic Climate Variability in CCSM3 journal June 2006
Global ocean response to orbital forcing in the Holocene: GLOBAL OCEAN RESPONSE TO ORBITAL FORCING journal May 2003
Equatorward Propagation of Coupled Air–Sea Disturbances with Application to the Annual Cycle of the Eastern Tropical Pacific journal December 1994
Collapse and rapid resumption of Atlantic meridional circulation linked to deglacial climate changes journal April 2004
Holocene changes in eastern tropical Pacific climate inferred from a Galápagos lake sediment record journal June 2008
The influence of a weakening of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation on ENSO text January 2007

Cited By (40)

Sea surface and subsurface circulation dynamics off equatorial Peru during the last ~17 kyr: DEGLACIAL UPPER OCEAN DYNAMICS OFF PERU journal July 2015
Modulation of Bjerknes feedback on the decadal variations in ENSO predictability: Cause of Decadal ENSO Predictability journal December 2016
Changes in ENSO Activity During the Last 6,000 Years Modulated by Background Climate State journal March 2018
Linking atmospheric circulation patterns with hydro-geomorphic disasters in Peru journal April 2018
A 7000-year high-resolution lake sediment record from coastal central Chile (Lago Vichuquén, 34°S): implications for past sea level and environmental variability: HIGH-RESOLUTION LAKE SEDIMENT RECORD FROM CENTRAL CHILE journal March 2017
Holocene evolution of the Indian Summer Monsoon inferred from a lacustrine record of Lake Wuxu, south‐east Tibetan Plateau journal July 2019
Variability of East Asian summer monsoon precipitation during the Holocene and possible forcing mechanisms journal March 2018
Orbital modulation of ENSO seasonal phase locking journal August 2018
Drivers of reduced ENSO variability in mid-Holocene in a coupled model journal December 2018
Towards understanding the suppressed ENSO activity during mid-Holocene in PMIP2 and PMIP3 simulations journal February 2019
Orbital and millennial northern mid-latitude westerlies over the last glacial period journal March 2019
Evolution of Eastern Equatorial Pacific Seasonal and Interannual Variability in Response to Orbital Forcing During the Holocene and Eemian From Model Simulations journal September 2018
Prolonged Heavy Snowfall During the Younger Dryas journal December 2018
Temperature Evolution of the Indo‐Pacific Warm Pool Over the Holocene and the Last Deglaciation journal July 2019
Decadal Modulation of ENSO Spring Persistence Barrier by Thermal Damping Processes in the Observation journal June 2019
Prominent Precession Band Variance in ENSO Intensity Over the Last 300,000 Years journal August 2019
Correlation and anti-correlation of the East Asian summer and winter monsoons during the last 21,000 years journal June 2016
Links between tropical Pacific seasonal, interannual and orbital variability during the Holocene journal December 2015
Synchronous 500-year oscillations of monsoon climate and human activity in Northeast Asia journal September 2019
Modulation of Indian monsoon by water vapor and cloud feedback over the past 22,000 years journal December 2019
Runoff events and related rainfall variability in the Southern Carpathians during the last 2000 years journal March 2019
Equatorial Pacific forcing of western Amazonian precipitation during Heinrich Stadial 1 journal October 2016
Holocene ENSO-related cyclic storms recorded by magnetic minerals in speleothems of central China journal January 2017
Using seafaring simulations and shortest-hop trajectories to model the prehistoric colonization of Remote Oceania journal October 2016
Coherent signature of warming-induced extreme sub-continental boreal wildfire activity 4800 and 1100 years BP journal December 2019
Examining El Niño in the Holocene: implications and challenges journal October 2018
A geostatistical approach to modelling human Holocene migrations in Europe using ancient DNA preprint October 2019
PaleoView: a tool for generating continuous climate projections spanning the last 21 000 years at regional and global scales journal May 2017
Holocene land–sea climatic links on the equatorial Pacific coast (Bay of Guayaquil, Ecuador) journal October 2015
A first empirical analysis of population stability in North America using radiocarbon records journal May 2020
Recent Shift in Climate Relationship Enables Prediction of the Timing of Bird Breeding journal May 2016
A Review of Paleo El Niño-Southern Oscillation journal March 2018
The Asian Summer Monsoon: Teleconnections and Forcing Mechanisms—A Review from Chinese Speleothem δ18O Records journal July 2019
Modeling precipitation δ 18 O variability in East Asia since the Last Glacial Maximum: temperature and amount effects across different timescales journal January 2016
The 4.2 ka event, ENSO, and coral reef development journal January 2019
Distorted Pacific–North American teleconnection at the Last Glacial Maximum journal January 2020
The PMIP4 contribution to CMIP6 – Part 1: Overview and over-arching analysis plan journal January 2018
The PMIP4 contribution to CMIP6 – Part 1: Overview and over-arching analysis plan text January 2018
Deterministic Chaos, El Niño Southern Oscillation, and Seasonal Influenza Epidemics journal March 2017
Dynamic Regimes of El Niño Southern Oscillation and Influenza Pandemic Timing journal November 2017

Similar Records

Simulated precipitation changes in Central Asia since the Last Glacial Maximum
Journal Article · Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Quaternary International · OSTI ID:1565324

A multi-model assessment of the early last deglaciation (PMIP4 LDv1): a meltwater perspective
Journal Article · Fri Apr 05 00:00:00 EDT 2024 · Climate of the Past (Online) · OSTI ID:1565324

Transient Climate Simulation of the last deglaciation in CCSM3
Conference · Tue Dec 01 00:00:00 EST 2009 · OSTI ID:1565324

Related Subjects