Extreme rainfall activity in the Australian tropics reflects changes in the El Niño/Southern Oscillation over the last two millennia

Variations in tropical cyclone (TC) activity are poorly known prior to the twentieth century, complicating our ability to understand how cyclogenesis responds to different climate states. We used stalagmites to develop a near-annual record of cave flooding from the central Australian tropics, where...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Main Authors: Denniston, Rhawn F., Villarini, Gabriele, Gonzales, Angelique N., Wyrwoll, Karl-Heinz, Polyak, Victor J., Ummenhofer, Caroline C., Lachniet, Matthew S., Wanamaker, Alan D., Humphreys, William F., Woods, David, Cugley, John
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: National Academy of Sciences 2015
Subjects:
Physical Sciences
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4403187/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25825740
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1422270112
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Summary:Variations in tropical cyclone (TC) activity are poorly known prior to the twentieth century, complicating our ability to understand how cyclogenesis responds to different climate states. We used stalagmites to develop a near-annual record of cave flooding from the central Australian tropics, where TCs are responsible for the majority of extreme rainfall events. Our 2,200-year time series reveals shifts in the mean number of storms through time, similar to TC variability from the North Atlantic. This finding is consistent with modern relationships between El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and cyclogenesis, as well as with the reconstructed state of ENSO over the past two millennia, suggesting that changes between La Niña- and El Niño-dominated periods drove multicentennial shifts in TC activity in both basins.

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