Say goodbye to the classic Kiwi summer

CO Bob,

As I said on another thread, if that research is accurate, it's huge.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has linked ENSO cycle frequency to climate change yet - for example, see this from just last year.

I went to Nature to get the study's Abstract. It says, in part:

Our results indicate that the twentieth century was the most ‘ENSO-active’ century of the past 500 years, but may not be unique in the context of the past 700 years, and that ENSO activity comparable to or elevated above that experienced during the late twentieth century is plausible under warmer-than-present conditions.

We also find evidence that there may have been significant changes in the ENSO teleconnection to the New Zealand region during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and of multi-decadal fluctuations in ENSO-related activity building up to the present day.

Although these two features may delay the expression of increased ENSO activity in the New Zealand region, our results indicate that New Zealand climate is likely to be more dominated by ENSO-related inter-annual variability as the world continues to warm.

The linked article here seems more conclusive than the Abstract. I'm quite sure that the good folks at RealClimate and SkepticalScience (not to mention Joe Romm) will have a more complete analysis in the coming days.

If you have a moment, take a look at the 3rd graph below the Abstract at the link. It certainly looks like something is going on.