Why are El Niños getting stronger? 1,000-year-coral record points to climate change
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-02717-9
El Niño is a natural climate cycle, but new research suggests something is changing. Scientists have used coral skeletons from the Galápagos Islands to reconstruct Pacific Ocean temperatures over the past 1,000 years. Their findings show that strong El Niño events have become more frequent during the past century, as human-caused climate change has warmed the planet.
The study found that the average swing between cool and warm conditions in the eastern Pacific was 36.5% stronger from 1990 to 2010 than during the millennium before 1850. The researchers say the evidence adds weight to the idea that climate change is affecting El Niño, although they caution that the relationship between the ocean, atmosphere and climate is complex. Stronger El Niños can temporarily raise global temperatures and disrupt weather, ecosystems and economies around the world. The past may give us clues about what’s happening—but it can’t tell us exactly what comes next.