Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/R004528/1
Fingerprinting 'El Nino Costero': a unique opportunity to document the signature of an extreme flood event in northern Peru
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor ACG Henderson, Newcastle University, Sch of Geog, Politics and Sociology
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor N Laurie, University of St Andrews, Geography and Sustainable Development
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr N Ross, Newcastle University, Sch of Geog, Politics and Sociology
- Grant held at:
- Newcastle University, Sch of Geog, Politics and Sociology
- Science Area:
- Earth
- Freshwater
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Science Topics:
- El Nino Southern Oscillation
- Lake sediments
- Palaeoclimatology
- Quaternary climate change
- Quaternary Science
- Sediment coring
- Holocene
- Geohazards
- Flood risk
- Palaeoenvironments
- Climate change
- Abstract:
- The northern coast of Peru has been experiencing anomalously warm (4-5C) sea surface temperatures (SST). These high SSTs have produced intense and prolonged rainfall that has resulted in extensive flooding, and on the 26th March 2017, the Rio Piura in northern Peru burst its banks leading to loss of life, displacement of people and damaged infrastructure. Peru is intimately linked to the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO): fishermen first identified El Ni?o in the late 19th Century off the north coast of Peru. The phenomenon driving this current acute rainfall event has been dubbed 'El Ni?o Costero' or Coastal El Ni?o, but is not El Ni?o per se as it is not being driven by anomalous SSTs in the central Pacific (Ni?o 3.4), which generally defines the onset of El Ni?o. Rather it represents more local (Ni?o1+2) El Ni?o-like conditions last known to have occurred in 1925, which is considered the most intense flooding of the 20th Century. Despite Peru's preparedness for the global El Ni?o in 2016, the country appears to be overwhelmed by the sudden shift from La Ni?a drought to the intense rainfall of El Ni?o Costero, suggesting this type of locally driven El Ni?o event has hitherto been overlooked. It is essential to establish a record of El Ni?o Costero alongside ENSO, especially as the 1925 event was the most extreme on record. If local SSTs cause El Ni?o-like conditions and play an important part in climate dynamics in northern Peru, but have so far been overlooked, then we don't have a full understanding of tropical Pacific climate change. Critical to understanding equatorial Pacific climate change are records of extreme flood events that reflect El Ni?o-type behavior, and in particular how El Ni?o Costero fits within the wider climate picture. This proposal is based on a unique opportunity to quantify and determine the dynamics and evolution of a large magnitude flood, and to use its sedimentary signature, coupled to climatological data over the last 120 years, to unequivocally fingerprint and calibrate past El Ni?o-type events in recent lake sediments. We will (a) undertake a geophysical survey of lakes in the Rio Piura catchment that act as repositories of flood-waters and sediments, and we will identify modern flood sediments and determine their depth and extent; (b) recover and survey surface sediments related to flooding to characterize their flood signature using grain size, geochemistry and mineral magnetics; (c) recover and date short sediment cores from our survey lakes and directly compare the flood signature of the 2017 El Ni?o Costero to the 1925 event, as well as putting it in the context of 20th Century ENSO variability. Our study will provide a framework for reconstructing El Ni?o-related flood events from lake sediments over the recent past in northern Peru, but has the potential to establish a much longer-term (Holocene and older) history of all El Ni?o variability in the region.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/R004528/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grant FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Urgent Grant
This grant award has a total value of £52,394
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £10,116 | £5,995 | £12,469 | £1,104 | £19,735 | £2,973 |
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