Tropical Pacific Variability

Overview

Centered in the tropical Pacific Ocean, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the world’s most important phenomena of Earth's climate system. Interannual variations in ENSO have been linked to regional climate variability around the world and have societal consequences that include massive loss of life as well as damages that can reach into tens of billions of dollars for a single, one- to two-year El Niño event. Moreover, late 20th century changes in tropical Pacific sea-surface temperature have been implicated in recent global warming. For all these reasons the climate dynamics research community is committed to understanding how ENSO works, how it will change in the future, and how human and economic loss can be reduced. Central to this effort is gaining an understanding of the extent to which the ENSO variability observed over the last 100+ years, including a step change in the mid-1970s and record subsequent warmth, is natural and/or anthropogenic in origin. A major limitation to obtaining this understanding, however, is imposed by the shortness of satellite and instrumental climate records used to study ENSO and its global interactions. With collaborators, we are interested in overcoming this limitation through the use of coral and lake sediment records. Our goal is to provide an improved understanding of past ENSO variability and how it may vary in the future.

Graduate student Jessica Conroy is leading efforts to use lake sediments in the Galapagos Islands to develop a new continuous record of ENSO variability for approximately over the last 8000 years.

Related Research Focus Links

Abrupt Climate Change
North American Drought Variability
Regional Climate Science and Assessment

Present and Recent Collaborators

J. Cole, P. Colinvaux, J. Conroy

Funding Agencies

National Science Foundation

References

Cole, J.E., J.T. Overpeck, and E.R. Cook. 2002. Multiyear La Niña events and persistent drought in the contiguous United States. Geophysical Research Letters 29: 10.1029/2001GL013561.

abstract | request reprint (200 KB)

Urban, F.E., J.E. Cole, and J.T. Overpeck. 2000. Influence of mean climate change on climate variability from a 155-year tropical Pacific coral record. Nature 407, 989-993.

abstract | request reprint (232 KB)

Mailing Address
1040 E. Fourth St.
Department of Geosciences
University of Arizona
Gould-Simpson Room 208
Tucson, AZ 85721-0077

Telephone Number
1.520.621.8025

Facsimile Number
1.520.621.2672

Corals and Climate Variability

Coral Drilling

ENSO Variability

ENSO Records from the Galapagos Islands

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Environmental Studies Laboratory, Department of Geosciences, The University of Arizona
All contents © 2003 Arizona Board of Regents
Send comments or questions to Jeremy Weiss, jlweiss@email.arizona.edu

Earth image retreived from http://www.osei.noaa.gov/Events/Unique/ on 14 January 2003

Last updated June 7, 2005
Document located at http://www.geo.arizona.edu/dgesl/research/regional/tropical_pacific_variability/tropical_pacific_variability.htm