Evidence of Ancient Ocean Upwelling During El Niño Off Peru’s Coast Provides Climate Change Clues – Sandweiss
When the oceanic phenomenon El Niño strikes every four to seven years, it wreaks havoc on the world’s weather patterns, fishing and agriculture. University of Maine anthropologist Dan Sandweiss wants to know how ancient civilizations coped with these blows to their way of life. For the past five years, Sandweiss has been collaborating with researchers at the universities of Alabama and Arizona to study 10,000 years of climate change using seashells from Peruvian archaeological sites. Their work is funded by a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.