El Niños are among the most influential events affecting weather weather , driving devastating drouth in some regions and flood elsewhere that can stamp out century of one thousand combined . They also seem to be becoming more unwashed , but only now do we have the long - term data to confirm this .
Every credible climate model agree that supernumerary greenhouse gasses warm the world . However , there are other matters where their results conflict . “ Most models predict an increase in El Niño frequency with global thaw , but not all harmonize , ” University of Melbourne PhD student and go authorMandy Freundtold IFLScience . Adding to the discombobulation , clime scientists now recognize two case of El Ninos , beginning in the Eastern and Central Pacific respectively , that can affect many regions other than .
Confronted with this disagreement , the obvious thing to do is to see whether the last 30 years have had more El Niños than normal . Unfortunately , we miss the long - term criminal record to know what normal is . Some atmospheric condition events can be traced through their effect on tree growth , but it is difficult to distinguish past El Niños in this way and nearly insufferable to describe the Central Pacific effect from easterly one . The Pacific Ocean has no trees and , as Freund explained to IFLScience , nearby tropic forests most affect by these effect do n’t have mintage that reveal seasonal variant through tree closed chain well .
So Freund turned to the Pacific ’s groovy resource : precious coral . Corals have growing rings like trees , with the isotopes deposited in them discover selective information about sea temperatures and salinity in the area where they grow . Using data collect from coral substance at 27 sites around the great sea , she develop an algorithm to make out patterns that not only signify El Niños but to tell apart between the types based on the locations where anomaly seem first .
Once the algorithm could discover known El Niños , it was turned loose on earlier information to recover earlier consequence . The cores Freund relied on go back 400 class . Although even sr. core exist , Freund regards the coverage as too patchy to be authentic .
Freund ’s approaching was considered unfeasible by many scientist since the two El Niño types create such subtle divergence in coral piece . She had to wreak hard to get a team of climate and coral scientist on board to support her giving it a try .
Not only was Freund able to distinguish El Niños by eccentric but she found that the last 30 years were unprecedented , with Central Pacific El Niños almost triple in frequency , while few but more vivid Eastern Pacific events occurred , Freund report inNature Geoscience .
" By understanding the past , we are better fitted out to realise the future , especially in the context of clime change , " Freund enounce in astatement .
