Some of the extreme-weather events in the past year are being blamed on the El Nino weather cycle.It has contributed to the warmest year on record in 2015, and now the cycle is expected to continue into the New Year.
As the calendar turns to 2016, much of Australia has been sweltering through unseasonably hot weather over a considerable spell now.
New South Wales recorded one of its warmest years on record in 2015.Adelaide ended the year with its hottest December.
And temperatures were at their second highest in Melbourne.
The director of the Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science at the University of New South Wales, Andy Pitman, predicts the unusual heat will continue into this year.
Professor Pitman says naturally occurring El Nino weather changes have exacerbated drier conditions in much of the country.
The phenomenon has been linked to extreme weather around the world, with major flooding in countries such as Paraguay, Britain and the United States.
But Professor Adam Scaife from Britain's Met Office predicted at the end of year that the trend would break in Britain.
In the United States, flooding at the turn of the year turned roadways in the mid-western state of Missouri into rivers.
In South America, tens of thousands of people were displaced in Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil as they experienced one of their worst floods in 50 years.
Now, NASA has released a satelite image showing warm water in the eastern Pacific Ocean rising as much as 25 centimetres above normal.
And that is happening on a scale large enough to disturb weather patterns right around the globe.
Some science experts are saying, while the El Nino has already wreaked havoc around the world, its impact is far from over and still yet to peak.
