DAYS after scientists collectively confirmed that Earth was on track for a Godzilla El Nino, another study has emerged warning there will be even more monstrous weather events in the future.

While El Nino and La Ninas are natural phenomena, experts have become increasingly concerned that greenhouse gas emissions are having a profound effect on these cyclic weather events.

Now a new study, published in Nature Climate Change, has warned that we should expect more extreme El Ninos and La Ninas as a result of global warming.

The authors of the report say recent studies into the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) have provided new insights into the links between changes in the weather events and the Pacific region.

They say unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut down, there will be more “ENSO-related catastrophic weather events”.

What does this mean for Australia? According to one of our country’s leading authorities on climate change, it will lead to longer and stronger droughts and more intense flooding.

Professor David Karoly, from the University of Melbourne, told news.com.au that while he had not read the recent report, some of the recent studies he had examined all indicated that we are in store for stronger El Ninos and La Ninas.

The climate change scientist said the current El Nino was still months away from reaching its peak, and while there was no guarantee it would become the Godzilla El Nino as others have predicted, it would still be strong.

“It is likely to be a medium to strong El Nino and what we can expect are very dry conditions over much of eastern Australia, and the late onset of the monsoon season in Northern Australia,” he said.

“Often we will have hotter conditions in spring and summer during El Nino.

“There is also actually some good news too. There will be a reduced frequency of tropical cyclones on the Queensland coast.”

The last monster El Nino took place in 1997/1998.

During this extreme weather pattern, southern California experienced some of the heaviest rainfall on record, causing widespread flooding in the region. Seventeen people died and more than half a billion dollars worth of damage was caused. Downtown LA received almost a year’s worth of rain in a month.

The El Nino in 1997/98 only had a modest impact on Australia but the one in 2006/07 caused one of the worst droughts on record.

Another El Nino, five years ago, triggered monsoons in Southeast Asia, droughts in the Philippines and Ecuador, blizzards in the US, heatwaves in Brazil and killer floods in Mexico.

The current pattern is now being blamed for drought conditions in parts of the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia, just like in 1997/98.

“The strongest prediction isn’t that climate change will necessarily make more El Nino or La Ninas, it’s not expected to change the frequencies of these events, it’s just that some studies have shown that they will be more intense, and particularly that the impacts will be more intense,” Professor Karoly explained. “The wet conditions will become wetter, and dry conditions will be more intense.

“The 2009/10 El Nino was quite weak. Not every recent one has been very strong and 2005 was weak. The 1997/98 El Nino was strong and the 2010/11/12 La Ninas were very strong.

“The really interesting thing is the impact of El Nino on Australia leads to larger year to year variations on rainfall and a more variable climate than any other continent in the world. More variations than America, Europe or Asia.”

Why?

Read more: South Asia faces severe monsoon flooding and transport chaos

“Because we have quite dry conditions to start off with. Australia is very much affected by El Nino, more than La Nina.”

And while recent modelling on the weather patterns fail to predict precisely when they will occur, (the current Godzilla El Nino was meant to hit last year but disappeared after six months only to reemerge this year even stronger), Professor Karoly said the models are showing they will cause more destruction.

“The clearest information is not so much about the actual occurrence of El Ninos but more about the impacts of them,” he explained. “That’s where the information is clearer. During an El Nino Australia has drier conditions and warmer temperatures. You expect the impact to be even drier. What we would expect is longer and stronger droughts because of the warmer background conditions.”

He said we could also expect a similarly high impact from La Ninas, which bring heavier rainfall during our winter months. The devastating floods in Queensland a few years ago were during back-to-back La Ninas.

“We had a very wet period in 2010/11/12 and what we expect in La Nina episodes is stronger heavy rainfall. And it is expected they will become more intense,” he added.

While El Ninos and La Ninas are opposites, they don’t occur in turns. Sometimes, as in the case of the 2010/11/12 La Nina, they can occur back to back. But predicting when they will happen is still difficult.

“It’s a little bit like predicting the weather for tomorrow or the next day,” Professor Karoly said. “All we are trying to do with El Nino is predict these coupled events that effect the tropical oceans and atmosphere and looking at those and how they vary from one year to the next. And they don’t always follow one after each other.”

SO WHAT IS AN EL NINO?

It’s a warming of sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean that disrupts weather patterns across the Pacific and can cause a corresponding cooling of the ocean in the western Pacific and around Northern Australia

Every few years, the winds shift and the water in the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual.

The resulting El Niño changes weather worldwide, mostly affecting the US, Australia and other countries on the Pacific rim. It generally makes Australian weather drier.

A La Nina is the opposite, typically bringing wet weather to northern, eastern and southern Australia. The 2011 La Nina was widely credited with making 2011 the second wettest year in Australia’s history and causing the devastating floods in Queensland.