Long-term stationarity of El Nino-Southern Oscillation teleconnections in southeastern Australia

Abstract

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon plays a large role in the modulation of Aaustralian rainfall, particularly in the highly populated southeast. However, this influence is not stationary over time: weak ENSO teleconnections in Australia have been identified during 1920–1950, and palaeoclimate reconstructions indicate that a breakdown in global ENSO teleconnections may have also occurred in the early to mid-1800s. A lack of long-term instrumental data has prevented detailed examination of this intriguing earlier period. This study uses newly recovered instrumental rainfall observations to determine whether the weakening of ENSO teleconnections in the nineteenth century is appa..