Study: El Niño Events in Recent Decades Are The Strongest in 1,000 Years

Study: El Niño NowEvents in Recent Decades Are The Strongest in 1,000 Years

Are stronger El Niño events proof of human-caused climate change or simply the result of natural variability?

Published 3 days ago

Study: El Niño Events in Recent Decades Are The Strongest in 1,000 Years

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Above: A red rock crab in Tortuga Bay at Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos archipelago, Ecuador, on June 26, 2023. Image credit: Ernesto Benavides/AFP/Getty Images

The Spin

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.

Science on X Nature The Conversation

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.

Michael Mann on Bluesky Social PNAS

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Ryan Maue on X

Steve Milloy on X

Metaculus Prediction

There is a 50% chance that the average global surface air temperature in 2026 relative to the pre-industrial baseline will be at least 1.47 °C, according to the Metaculus prediction community.