Open AccessResearch Spotlight: Rainfall variability increasing in northern Australia
Author(s) -
Tretkoff Ernie
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2011eo150009
Subject(s) - coral , flood myth , el niño southern oscillation , proxy (statistics) , paleoceanography , oceanography , physical geography , dendrochronology , climatology , southern oscillation , geology , geography , environmental science , archaeology , machine learning , computer science
Rainfall variability, including the frequency of extreme floods and droughts, is increasing in northeastern Australia, a new study shows. Rainfall in Queensland is variable from year to year, partly due to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. As massive corals grow, their skeletons create yearly growth patterns, similar to tree rings, and record a wealth of proxy information about the corals' environment over several centuries. Flood events show up in nearshore annually banded coral skeletons as luminescent lines. ( Paleoceanography , doi:10.1029/2010PA002050, 2011)