Droughts, bushfires and floods in Australia: The impacts of el niño and la niña

Australia's climate is highly variable, especially with respect to rainfall. Years of drought alter-nate with years of flooding rains, as happened for example in the summer of 2010/11. Despite this temporal variability spatial rainfall pattern across the continent are highly variable, too. These cli-mate fluctuations, are connected to the El Niño Southern Oscillation climate phenomenon. This ENSO-system describes a sequence of changes in the ocean-atmosphere circulation across the Pacific Ocean and the Indonesian-Australian archipelago, which knows two extreme states: El Niño and La Niña. In El Niño years the risk of drought conditions across large parts of Australia is increased, whereas the probability of widespread above average rains and flooding is enhanced during La Niña-events. In particular El Niño -related droughts affected Australia's colonial past. But even today, with the predictability of ENSO-events much improved over the last years, ENSO-related droughts, bushfires and floods still have a large impact on the Australian economy.