Here we assess the response of dust activities to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) over the 1850–2014 period using climate model outputs. Our results show that ENSO is an important driver of dust deposition and dust transportation with high consensus across models. However, the results indicate that ENSO is unlikely to show causal impacts on dust emissions of major dust sources. This study allows us to obtain further understanding of the linkages between ENSO and dust cycle at a global scale.