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Multi-centennial tree-ring record of ENSO-related activity in New Zealand

Nature Climate Change volume 2, pages 172–176 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

It is not known how global warming will affect the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The instrumental record is too short to discern centennial-scale trends and modelling results are inconclusive1,2,3,4,5. Proxy reconstructions indicate that ENSO activity was relatively high during the late twentieth century6,7,8,9,10, but whether this was unusual in the millennial context remains uncertain. Here we present insights into these issues derived from rings of the kauri tree (Agathis australis), a rare long-lived conifer endemic to the forests of northern New Zealand. Our results indicate that the twentieth century was the most ‘ENSO-active’ century of the past 500 years, but may not be unique in the context of the past 700 years, and that ENSO activity comparable to or elevated above that experienced during the late twentieth century is plausible under warmer-than-present conditions. We also find evidence that there may have been significant changes in the ENSO teleconnection to the New Zealand region during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and of multi-decadal fluctuations in ENSO-related activity building up to the present day. Although these two features may delay the expression of increased ENSO activity in the New Zealand region, our results indicate that New Zealand climate is likely to be more dominated by ENSO-related inter-annual variability as the world continues to warm.

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Figure 1: Correspondence between the timing of kauri growth and the characteristic life cycle of ENSO events.
Figure 2: Kauri master chronology AGAUc10c composition, statistical quality, spectral character, and evolutive variance and correlation structures.
Figure 3: Variance structure of the SOI and selected ENSO proxies, and coincident warming (global and Niño 3 region).

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Acknowledgements

Financial support for this research was provided by the New Zealand Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST contract UOAX0714) and by the Royal Society of New Zealand (Marsden Fund grants UOA108 and UOA415). We thank the United Kingdom Meteorological Office, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and NOAA for various public domain data sets, and P. Crossley for invaluable technical assistance. J.W. acknowledges financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation (postdoctoral fellowship PBEZ2-118902). We thank M. Therrell for useful commentaries and suggestions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment, The University of Auckland, Auckland 1020, New Zealand

    Anthony M. Fowler, Gretel Boswijk, Maryann Pirie & Jan Wunder

  2. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Auckland 1010, New Zealand

    Andrew M. Lorrey

  3. School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia

    Joelle Gergis

  4. Centre de Bio-Archéologie et d’Écologie (UNR 5059), Institute de Botanique, Montpellier 34090, France

    Shane P. J. McCloskey

  5. Gondwana Tree-Ring Laboratory, Canterbury 7546, New Zealand

    Jonathan G. Palmer

  6. Department of Environmental Systems Science, Forest Ecology, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, ETH Zurich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland

    Jan Wunder

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  1. Anthony M. Fowler
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Contributions

G.B. led the dendrochronology and was responsible for developing most of the archaeological data set. A.M.L., J.G., S.P.J.M., J.G.P. and J.W. contributed to one or both tree-ring data sets. A.M.L. and J.W. contributed to the kauri seasonal growth study work. M.P. provided pith meta-data for the near-pith truncation resampling experiment. A.M.F. undertook all analyses and wrote the paper (with input from G.B., A.M.L. and J.W.).

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Correspondence to Anthony M. Fowler.

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Fowler, A., Boswijk, G., Lorrey, A. et al. Multi-centennial tree-ring record of ENSO-related activity in New Zealand. Nature Clim Change 2, 172–176 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1374

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