A Review of Paleo El Niño-Southern Oscillation

The Earth has seen El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)—the leading mode of interannual climate variability—for at least millennia and likely over millions of years. This paper reviews previous studies from perspectives of both paleoclimate proxy data (from traditional sediment records to the latest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAtmosphere Vol. 9; no. 4; p. 130
Main Authors Lu, Zhengyao, Liu, Zhengyu, Zhu, Jiang, Cobb, Kim M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 30.03.2018
Subjects
Climate
Climate change
Climate model
Climate models
Climate Research
Climate Science
Climate variability
Computer simulation
Data
Earth
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
El Nino
El Nino phenomena
El Nino-Southern Oscillation event
ENSO
Evolution
Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap
Geovetenskap och relaterad miljövetenskap
Glacial periods
Global warming
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Ice ages
Ice sheets
Interglacial periods
Klimatforskning
Klimatvetenskap
Natural Sciences
Naturvetenskap
Ocean currents
open climate campaign
Oxygen
Oxygen isotopes
Paleoclimate
Proxy data
Records
Simulation
Southern Oscillation
Statistical methods
Variability
Volcanic gases
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Summary:The Earth has seen El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)—the leading mode of interannual climate variability—for at least millennia and likely over millions of years. This paper reviews previous studies from perspectives of both paleoclimate proxy data (from traditional sediment records to the latest high-resolution oxygen isotope records) and model simulations (including earlier intermediate models to the latest isotope-enabled coupled models). It summarizes current understanding of ENSO’s past evolution during both interglacial and glacial periods and its response to external climatic forcings such as volcanic, orbital, ice-sheet and greenhouse gas forcings. Due to the intrinsic irregularity of ENSO and its complicated relationship with other climate phenomena, reconstructions and model simulations of ENSO variability are subject to inherent difficulties in interpretations and biases. Resolving these challenges through new data syntheses, new statistical methods, more complex climate model simulations as well as direct model-data comparisons can potentially better constrain uncertainty regarding ENSO’s response to future global warming.
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ISSN:2073-4433
2073-4433
DOI:10.3390/atmos9040130