Tuesday 15 November 2022 11:11 PM Weather: Australia warned it needs to prepare for extreme flooding and drought ... trends now
As parts of the country battle yet more devastating floods, Australia has been warned it faces more extreme weather events before the end of this decade - much sooner than was first predicted.
A new scientific paper published in Nature Communications finds that El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events which directly affect Australia's weather are likely to be more 'detectable' by 2030 due to climate change.
ENSO includes the El Nino and La Nina phenomena, the first producing drought in parts of Australia and the second producing above-average rainfall.
Local residents seen walking through floodwater in Lismore, NSW in March, 2022
Children are seen on kayaks in floodwaters which inundated the town of Yarramalong on the Central Coast, NSW in July, 2022
An aerial shot shows the impact of floodwaters on the northern NSW town of Lismore in March, 2022
Australia is currently in the grip of a third straight La Nina event where warmer waters to the north-east of the country and colder waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean combine to produce increased rainfall and record-breaking flooding across our east coast.
By 2030 climate change is expected to have changed the ENSO pattern, making it more severe, particularly in Australia,
'Australia is one of the most affected countries in the world when it comes to extreme weather,' Dr Wenju Cai, a climate scientist with the CSIRO, told 9news.com.au.
'(We can expect) more frequent, longer and
