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Study: Coral Records Suggest Climate Change Intensifying El Nino

Study: Coral Records Suggest Climate Change Intensifying El Nino

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Coral records from the Galápagos make it clear — El Niño events are stronger now than at any point in the past 1,000 years, and human-caused warming is driving that shift. The intensification of eastern Pacific temperature swings is 36% higher than anything seen in prior centuries, far beyond what natural variability can explain. Stronger El Niños mean more devastating droughts, floods and economic losses, and the world needs to start preparing for that reality.

The Galápagos coral study is interesting data, but the leap to blaming human warming is a stretch the evidence doesn't fully support. The IPCC itself concluded there is no consensus from models on a systematic change in El Niño sea surface temperature variability, and large model ensembles found no historical trends distinguishable from internal variability. Natural volcanic and solar forcing can account for the observed uptick in ENSO amplitude just as plausibly as greenhouse gases.


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All rights reserved.

Version 7.4.1