Big El Nino events will increase in intensity and frequency as the planet warms, worsening their related extreme weather impacts, new Australian-led research has found.

The study used 17 climate models to examine how sea surface temperatures by this century's end will change assuming greenhouse gas emission increases remain on their current trajectory.

Extreme El Ninos, such as 1997-98 (left) and 2015-16, are likely to become more common in the future because of climate change. Credit:NASA

The team found a 15 per cent increase in temperature variance in a key region of the Pacific, which translates into 50 per cent more extreme El Ninos, said Dr Wenju Cai, a senior climate scientist at the CSIRO and lead author of the paper published on Thursday in Nature.

"They are stronger and more frequent," Dr Cai said, adding the likelihood of intense El Nino events as measured by sea-surface temperatures will increase from about one every 15 years now to every 10 years on average during this century.