Ancient corals and modern climate models to expose secrets of El Niño’s past

El Niño tends to be a bit coy when it comes to uncovering the truth behind its past. The dynamic duo of climate models coupled with field measurements can give a good picture of the modern nature of El Niño, but to understand the way it reacts to climate change, scientists need to dig back thousands of years, something that has so far proven difficult. Turns out ancient corals may offer the key to extending the timeline of El Niño’s history from decades to millenium. Baylor Fox-Kemper and Samantha Stevenson of CIRES are teaming up with researchers from the Universities of Wollongong and New South Wales in Australia to look at how the information collected from fossilized corals combined with modeling can shed light on El Niño’s past. Doing so would help put modern observations into context, and provide important comparisons between past and present El Niño cycles.