Research suggests global warming has increased its punch

For decades, scientists have struggled to determine whether global warming is intensifying El Niño, one of the climate system’s most powerful and disruptive phenomena. Its natural variability has made long-term changes difficult to distinguish from normal fluctuations.

A study published in Science now offers new evidence. Researchers examined more than 900 years of temperature data preserved in coral records from the Galápagos and found that El Niños appear to have become much stronger since human fossil-fuel emissions began warming the planet.

The research comes as this year’s “super” El Niño gains strength. Scientists say the event is providing a chance to examine a phenomenon whose connection to human activity has remained difficult to establish.

“Prior to the Industrial era, we don’t see evidence for periods where the El Niño system is as strong as it is in the most recent decades,” said Julia Cole, a paleoclimatologist at the University of Michigan. The study’s findings suggest that global warming may have increased the force of El Niño, although the article presents the result as evidence in an ongoing effort to resolve the link.

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Prior to the Industrial era, we don’t see evidence for periods where the El Niño system is as strong as it is in the most recent decades