THE El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) – a climate mechanism that brings extreme weather – is likely to continue in a warmer world. That could be good news, though.
At the moment the Pacific Ocean oscillates between two extreme states, El Niño and La Niña, every few years. Floods and droughts follow both; the recent floods in Australia were a result of La Niña. There have been fears that as global temperatures rise, the ENSO may shut down and send the Pacific into a permanent El Niño. Without La Niña’s upwelling of cold water, warm water would cover most of the…
