This new weather phase could kick climate change into overdrive.

Move over El Niño and La Niña – your cranky uncle is starting to blow into town, with some serious implications for climate change. 

Move over El Niño and La Niña – your
 cranky uncle is starting to blow into town.

Many are familiar with El Niño – “the boy” – which brings hot and dry summers to Australia on a two- to seven-year cycle. El Niño’s opposite phase, La Niña – “the girl” – brings higher rainfall and can produce widespread flooding such as that experienced in 2010 to 2011. Collectively, they are known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).

Its movements are erratic at best, but one thing that’s certain is ENSO is driven by changes in the Pacific Ocean, and now researchers are getting closer to slotting one more piece of the puzzle in place.

Read the Australian Water Association story - “This new weather phase could kick climate change into overdrive.”