Climate Change will Bring More Strong El Niños. Here’s What That Means for California

California is no stranger to extreme weather. The last decade has brought crippling droughts and dam-busting deluges. And climate change is only making the situation worse by turning up the heat during the dry season and supercharging storms during the wet season. Now, a new study suggests rising temperatures also will increase the frequency of strong El Niño events, which often bring pummeling rains across the state. “This adds to the evidence that what we’ve experienced in California over the last several years is consistent with what we can expect from global warming,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study.