A new University of Texas at Austin study finds that El Niño and La Niña can crank up floods and droughts at the same time in far-flung corners of the globe, a twist that makes it tougher to plan for water, food, and trade. The researchers say the climate pattern known as ENSO acts like a global conductor, lining up wet and dry extremes from South America to Australia.
The peer-reviewed paper, published in AGU Advances, tracks total water storage - the combined signal of surface water, soil moisture, snow, and groundwater - using gravity data from twin GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites from NASA for 2002-2024. The authors flagged wet extremes as the top 10% of local water storage and dry extremes as the bottom 10%, then mapped how those extremes show up at the same time across continents. That method, the paper notes, reveals links that simple event-counting can miss.
How far-flung events move together
The UT team reports that ENSO explains a large share of the global synchronization: a given El Niño or La Niña phase can nudge regions thousands of miles apart toward simultaneous wet or dry spells. The study connects El Niño with dry extremes in the Amazon during 2015-2016 and ties La Niña to extreme wet conditions in Australia and parts of Brazil during 2010-2011, examples highlighted by the researchers. Those takeaways are summarized in a news release from the UT Jackson School of Geosciences, while coverage by ScienceDaily stresses the humanitarian and trade implications of simultaneous shortages and surpluses.
Why it matters here
That global rhythm has very local stakes. When several key farming regions swing wet or dry together, supply chains, commodity markets, and disaster relief systems can all be pushed to the limit. Local outlets picked up the study on Feb. 12, 2026, including KXAN, just as an ENSO transition was unfolding. At the time, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center said conditions were likely to shift toward ENSO-neutral during January-March 2026. For Texas, a fading La Niña or a move to neutral can reshuffle where winter and spring rains land, with direct consequences for reservoirs and crops.
Limits to the record
The authors are quick to point out that the satellite record is still short for firm climate attribution. GRACE and GRACE-FO observations cover about 22 years (2002-2024), and the team relied on probabilistic reconstructions to bridge an 11-month gap between missions. Because of that limited window, the paper does not claim a long-term trend in the intensity of extremes, instead urging continued gravimetry missions to tighten attribution and uncertainty estimates. Those methodological caveats sit at the core of the study's conclusions.
Even so, the researchers argue the big-picture message is already practical: extreme water events often are not isolated surprises but can be part of coordinated global swings that demand coordinated planning. "Oftentimes we hear the mantra that we're running out of water, but really it's managing extremes," co-author Bridget Scanlon said in a statement to the UT Jackson School of Geosciences. Extending satellite observations and baking ENSO's far-reaching connections into water and food security planning are the next steps the team recommends.
