Warming Ups Odds of Extreme La Niñas, Wild Weather

New research published on Monday in Nature Climate Change shows that climate change could nearly double the likelihood of the most intense La Niñas from 1-in-every-23 years to 1-in-every-13 years by the end of this century.  Three-quarters of the increase are projected to come following extreme El Niño years, which are also likely to become more frequent according to previous research.

Back-to-back super El Niño/La Niña have played out before.  For example, the 1998-99 La Niña is the strongest on record and came on the heels of the strongest El Niño on record.  La Niña helped push heavy rains across Australia and contributed to a severe drought in the Southwest U.S., both areas that were dealing with near opposite conditions the year before thanks to an El Niño that has been dubbed the climate event of the century.  The same La Niña also upped the odds of intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic and the 1998 season gave rise to Hurricane Mitch, the seventh-strongest storm to ever form in the basin.

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