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Reconstructions of past climate are important for providing a historical context for evaluating the nature of 20th century climate change. Here, a number of percentile-based palaeoclimate reconstructions were used to isolate signals of both phases of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). A total of 92 (82) El Niño (La Niña) events were reconstructed since A.D. 1525. Significantly, we introduce the most comprehensive La Niña event record compiled to date. This annual record of ENSO events can now be used for independent verification of climate model simulations, reconstructions of ENSO indices and as a chronological control for archaeologists/social scientists interested in human responses to past climate events. Although extreme ENSO events are seen throughout the 478-year ENSO reconstruction, approximately 43% of extreme and 28% of all protracted ENSO events (i.e. both El Niño and La Niña phase) occur in the 20th century. The post-1940 period alone accounts for 30% of extreme ENSO years observed since A.D. 1525. These results suggest that ENSO may operate differently under natural (pre-industrial) and anthropogenic background states. As evidence of stresses on water supply, agriculture and natural ecosystems caused by climate change strengthens, studies into how ENSO will operate under global warming should be a global research priority.

Though tree-ring chronologies are annually resolved, their dating has never been independently validated at the global scale. Moreover, it is unknown if atmospheric radiocarbon enrichment events of cosmogenic origin leave spatiotemporally consistent fingerprints. Here we measure the 14C content in 484 individual tree rings formed in the periods 770–780 and 990–1000 CE. Distinct 14C excursions starting in the boreal summer of 774 and the boreal spring of 993 ensure the precise dating of 44 tree-ring records from five continents. We also identify a meridional decline of 11-year mean atmospheric radiocarbon concentrations across both hemispheres. Corroborated by historical eye-witness accounts of red auroras, our results suggest a global exposure to strong solar proton radiation. To improve understanding of the return frequency and intensity of past cosmic events, which is particularly important for assessing the potential threat of space weather on our society, further annually resolved 14C measurements are needed.

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[1] An understanding of past variability in the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), on interannual, interdecadal, and longer time scales, would be useful in assessing recent observed changes to ENSO and in determining the realism of climate model simulations. Using tree ring, coral, and ice core data, we reconstruct a proxy-based ENSO index between A.D. 1525 and 1982. Unlike most previous studies, which have drawn climate proxies from limited geographic regions, our network is Pacific basin-wide, using ENSO sensitive proxies from the western equatorial Pacific, New Zealand, the central Pacific, and subtropical North America. By considering multiple teleconnection regions, this network provides a more robust proxy ENSO signal. The common signal recorded in the multiproxy network has a high correlation with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature (Niño3.4 SST), and a combined ocean-atmosphere ENSO index (CEI). The proportion of instrumental variance explained is 47% for the SOI, 48% for Niño3.4 SST, and 52% for the CEI. The proxy ENSO index also displays skill in reproducing warm and cold extremes of the SOI. The proxy ENSO index over the last 450 years shows considerable amplitude and frequency modulation in the 3-10 year band on multidecadal time scales. There is a relative reduction in the amplitude of high-frequency variability during the sixteenth, early seventeenth, and mid-eighteenth centuries. In contrast, high-frequency ENSO variability has increased over the last 200 years. Variability during the first half of the twentieth century is similar to that evident in the nineteenth century.