Previous research has linked the 1877–78 El Niño to major famine events around the world. However, the strength and statistical significance of this event have not been fully established, largely because of the lack of in situ sea surface temperature observations at the time.
An analysis using NOAA’s operational Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature version 5 (ERSSTv5) indicates that the 1877–78 El Niño was exceptionally strong, with a peak monthly Niño-3 index value of 3.58°C, which was stronger than the peak values recorded during 1982–83, 1997–98, and 2015–16 El Niño events.
However, analysis of a 1000-member ERSSTv5 ensemble indicates that the estimates of the event’s strength and statistical significance depend on how the ensemble is constructed. The ensemble mean produces a much weaker peak Niño-3 index value of 1.88°C, with substantially greater uncertainty during 1877–78 (2.88°C) than during 1982–83 (0.38°C), 1997–98 (0.28°C), and 2015–16 (0.18°C).
Furthermore, the large uncertainty during the 1877–78 estimate is associated with the selection of the internal parameters used in the ERSSTv5. After adjusting these parameters, the uncertainty during 1877–78 decreases to 0.58°C, while the peak monthly Niño-3 index value in the ensemble mean increases to 2.88°C. These results suggest that the 1877–78 El Niño event was both strong and statistically significant.
The parameter adjustments were validated by reconstructing the modern observations from 1981–2017 as if they had been observed from 1861–1897.
Presenter
Dr. Boyin Huang
Dr. Boyin Huang is an oceanographer at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). He has contributed to the development of the Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature (ERSST), Optimum Interpolation Sea Surface Temperature (OISST), and NOAA Global Surface Temperature (NOAAGlobalTemp) data sets, as well as research on marine heatwaves and applications of AI/machine learning techniques to ERSST and NOAAGlobalTemp.
Dr. Huang joined NOAA/NCEI in 2011. His honors include the NOAA Employee of the Month in September 2015, DOC Employee of the Year in 2017, the DOC Gold Medal in 2016, NOAA Bronze Medals in 2016, 2019, 2022, and the DOC Silver Medal in 2023. He has published more than 95 papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Previously, Dr. Huang was an oceanographer at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center from 2004 to 2010. He did his post-doctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2000 to 2002. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2000, his M.S. from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Science in 1987, and his B.S. from Nanjing University in 1984.
Presentation
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