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Originally published in Science Express on 25 January 2001
Science 23 February 2001:
Vol. 291. no. 5508, pp. 1511 - 1517
DOI: 10.1126/science.1057969
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Research Articles

Variability in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation Through a Glacial-Interglacial Cycle

Alexander W. Tudhope,12* Colin P. Chilcott,1 Malcolm T. McCulloch,3 Edward R. Cook,4 John Chappell,3 Robert M. Ellam,5 David W. Lea,6 Janice M. Lough,2 Graham B. Shimmield7

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the most potent source of interannual climate variability. Uncertainty surrounding the impact of greenhouse warming on ENSO strength and frequency has stimulated efforts to develop a better understanding of the sensitivity of ENSO to climate change. Here we use annually banded corals from Papua New Guinea to show that ENSO has existed for the past 130,000 years, operating even during "glacial" times of substantially reduced regional and global temperature and changed solar forcing. However, we also find that during the 20th century ENSO has been strong compared with ENSO of previous cool (glacial) and warm (interglacial) times. The observed pattern of change in amplitude may be due to the combined effects of ENSO dampening during cool glacial conditions and ENSO forcing by precessional orbital variations.

1 Department of Geology & Geophysics, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, EH9 3JW, UK.
2 Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland 4810, Australia.
3 Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
4 Tree-Ring Laboratory, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, New York 10964, USA.
5 Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride, Glasgow G75 0QF, UK.
6 Department of Geological Sciences and Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
7 Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory, Oban, Argyll, PA34 4AD, UK.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sandy.tudhope{at}ed.ac.uk

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