No consistent ENSO response to volcanic forcing over the last millennium

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) shapes global climate patterns yet its sensitivity to external climate forcing remains uncertain. Modeling studies suggest that ENSO is sensitive to sulfate aerosol forcing associated with explosive volcanism but observational support for this effect remains a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 367; no. 6485; pp. 1477 - 1481
Main Authors Dee, Sylvia G, Cobb, Kim M, Emile-Geay, Julien, Ault, Toby R, Edwards, R Lawrence, Cheng, Hai, Charles, Christopher D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 27.03.2020
Subjects
Climate models
Corals
Cyclones
El Nino
Fossils
Southern Oscillation
Statistical analysis
Statistical significance
Sulfates
Volcanic activity
Volcanic eruptions
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Summary:The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) shapes global climate patterns yet its sensitivity to external climate forcing remains uncertain. Modeling studies suggest that ENSO is sensitive to sulfate aerosol forcing associated with explosive volcanism but observational support for this effect remains ambiguous. Here, we used absolutely dated fossil corals from the central tropical Pacific to gauge ENSO's response to large volcanic eruptions of the last millennium. Superposed epoch analysis reveals a weak tendency for an El Niño-like response in the year after an eruption, but this response is not statistically significant, nor does it appear after the outsized 1257 Samalas eruption. Our results suggest that those models showing a strong ENSO response to volcanic forcing may overestimate the size of the forced response relative to natural ENSO variability.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.aax2000