Climate impacts of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation on Australia

AS Taschetto; S McGregor; D Dommenget; ZE Gillett; N Nicholls; S Sharmila; P van Rensch; D Verdon-Kidd; G Boschat; C Chung; R Lieber; N Abram; R Allan; K Allen; L Ashcroft; JR Brown; W Cai; S Chand; T Cowan; TL Dao; C de Burgh-Day; MB Freund; A Gallant; J Gergis; NJ Holbrook; H Heidemann; C Holgate; P Hope; A King; EP Lim; JL McBride; RC McKay; H Nguyen; A Pepler; S Perkins-Kirkpatrick; S Power; JS Risbey; A Santoso; CC Ummenhofer; G Wang; X Zhang

Journal article

Climate impacts of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation on Australia

AS Taschetto, S McGregor, D Dommenget, ZE Gillett, N Nicholls, S Sharmila, P van Rensch, D Verdon-Kidd, G Boschat, C Chung, R Lieber, N Abram, R Allan, K Allen, L Ashcroft, JR Brown, W Cai, S Chand, T Cowan, TL Dao Show all

Nature Reviews Earth and Environment | Springer Science and Business Media LLC | Published : 2026

DOI: 10.1038/s43017-025-00747-x

Abstract

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) profoundly affects Australian weather, climate, ecosystems and socio-economic sectors. In this Review, we summarize the advances in understanding the ENSO–Australian climate relationship, detailing the complexity beyond the traditional assumptions of El Niño-dry and La Niña-wet patterns, including mechanisms and impacts. The influence of ENSO is most coherent during austral spring, explaining about a quarter of rainfall variability over large parts of eastern Australia. La Niña typically exerts more robust rainfall changes than El Niño, and the Central Pacific El Niño has greater impacts than Eastern Pacific events. These effects are amplified by prolonged..

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