New Kid on the Block: El Niño-Modoki in Peru—Past, Present, and Future

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the climatological phenomenon referred to as El Nino Modoki, warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the central Pacific are flanked on the east and west by cooler SSTs. Over the last century, El Niño-Modoki has increased in frequency, but a long-term sequence has yet to be established prior to the last four centuries. At least on the north coast of Peru, El Niño-Modoki is associated with reduced river discharge resulting from lower precipitation and/or temperature in the adjacent Andes mountains. Much paleoclimatological and archaeological research has focused on the effects of canonical El Niño along the Peruvian coast; however, almost no attention has been paid to El Niño-Modoki in this region even though the associated reduction in water flow must have a major, recurring effect on the irrigation-based societies that inhabit the area. Considering the societal and environmental gravity of ENSO phenomena, improving our understanding of previous events is essential not only to anticipating them, but also to mitigating their effects on human populations. In this poster we present the paleoclimatological research potential of El Nino Modoki on the northern coast of Peru with specific focus on potential proxy sources, prehistoric adaptive strategies, and modern applications.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 30915