Permanent El Niño-Like Conditions During the Pliocene Warm Period
Top Cited Papers
- 29 July 2005
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 309 (5735) , 758-761
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1112596
Abstract
During the warm early Pliocene (∼4.5 to 3.0 million years ago), the most recent interval with a climate warmer than today, the eastern Pacific thermocline was deep and the average west-to-east sea surface temperature difference across the equatorial Pacific was only 1.5 ± 0.9°C, much like it is during a modern El Niño event. Thus, the modern strong sea surface temperature gradient across the equatorial Pacific is not a stable and permanent feature. Sustained El Niño-like conditions, including relatively weak zonal atmospheric (Walker) circulation, could be a consequence of, and play an important role in determining, global warmth.Keywords
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