Until now, it has been unclear how far back in time the climate phenomenon extends. But in a new study published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), an international team of scientists has established that El Niño and the Southern Oscillation have a history of at least 250 million years.
- Through climate simulations, we found that ENSO has been a leading climate phenomenon long before human history. This was a major discovery for us,’ says Zhengyao Lu, a physical geography researcher and MERGE member at Lund University, who participated in the study.
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The press release was originally published at Duke Today where the corresponding authors of the study are based: Weather-Changing El Niño Oscillation Is at Least 250 Million Years Old | Duke Today
Lund University published a Swedish article about the study: Klimatfenomenet El Niño – gammalt som gatan | Lunds universitet
The study - led from the US Duke University and Peking University - is published in PNAS: ‘Persistently active El Niño-Southern Oscillation since the Mesozoic’
Zhengyao Lu in Lund University research portal
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42488201) and the Swedish Research Council Vetenskapsrådet (2022-03617). Simulations were conducted at the High-performance Computing Platform of Peking University.