The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurs in the Pacific Ocean but plays an important part in the world's climate system. 

 

Researchers have until now been unsure as to how rising temperatures would affect ENSO in the future.

 

But this new study suggests that droughts and floods driven by ENSO will be more intense.

 

The ENSO phenomenon plays a complicated role in the global weather system. 

 

The El Nino part of the equation sees a warming of the eastern and tropical Pacific, while its cooler sister, La Nina, makes things chillier¹ in these same regions. 

 

 

Like water in a bathtub, the warmer or cooler waters slosh back and forth² across the Pacific Ocean. They are responsible for rainfall patterns across Australia and the equatorial（赤道的） region, but their effects are also felt much further away.

 

During the Northern Hemisphere winter, for example, you can get more intense rainfall over the southern part of the US in a warmer El Nino phase.

 

For years, scientists have been concerned about how this sensitive weather system might be changed by rising temperatures from global warming.

 

Now, in this new paper, published in the journal Nature, researchers give their most "robust³" projections⁵ yet.

 

Using the latest generation of climate models, they found a consistent projection⁴ for the future of ENSO.

 

According to the lead author, Dr Scott Power from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, global warming interferes⁶ with the way El Nino temperature patterns affect rainfall.

 

"This interference causes an intensification⁷ of El Nino-driven drying in the western Pacific and rainfall increases in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific," he said.

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