14
November 2002
El Niņo: History lessens
A continuous sediment core from a lake in the Andes provides a 12,000-year record of conditions prevailing in a region known to be strongly influenced by the El Niņo/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate event. Characteristic ENSO events, on a 2–8 year timescale, become increasingly frequent until about 1,200 years ago, then begin to decline in frequency. And a previously unknown periodicity of 2,000 years is apparent throughout the period covered by the core.
Variability of El Niņo/Southern Oscillation activity
at millennial timescales during the Holocene epoch
CHRISTOPHER
M. MOY, GEOFFREY O. SELTZER, DONALD T. RODBELL & DAVID M. ANDERSON
Nature
420, 162–165 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature01194
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