Although La Nias cooler-than-normal waters in the tropical Pacific helped intensify the Texas heat and drought, climate scientist David Rupp of Oregon State University, Corvallis, and his colleagues found that La Nia-related heat waves are now 20 times more likely now than they were 50 years ago
Since the 1960s, the likelihood of Texas seeing extremely hot, dry weather in a La Nia year has mushroomed 20-fold due to human-induced global warming, David Rupp of Oregon State University in Corvallis and his colleagues calculate.