The El Niño event, a huge blob of warm ocean water in the tropical Pacific Ocean that can change rainfall patterns around the globe, isn't just a modern phenomenon.

New modeling research has shown that the natural global climate phenomena known as El Niño and its cold counterpart, La Niña, have been occurring for the last 250 million years. Although these complex weather patterns are the drivers of extreme weather changes today,

Two main factors seem to determine El Niño intensity: thermal structure of the ocean and atmospheric noise—the variability of surface winds.

The differences between the two common weather systems create the conditions that cause the disastrous hurricanes that have been seen in 2024.

A new modeling study from a pair of Duke University researchers and their colleagues shows that the oscillation between El Niño and its cold counterpart, La Niña, was present at least 250 million years in the past, and was often of greater magnitude than the oscillations we see today.