I think by including that comment I am signaling that it is possible that the greater emergence of this pattern could be associated with human-induced climate change. From scientific perspective, however, I think it will take a lot of careful work to prove or disprove that hypothesis. The SST pattern and the extratropical mode of variability that it triggers in the cases of the winters of 2014 and 2015 are both natural modes of variability that existed before the rapid warming between 1970 or so and the present. It is probably true that neither winter is unprecedented. The average of the coupled climate model projections of a greenhouse gas warmed future go toward more warming in the tropical East Pacific than West Pacific, although there is no consensus among the models on this. So no firm prediction of how the tropical SST will change in a warmed Earth can be made on the basis of the ensemble of climate models. Some theories predict more La Niña-like and some predict more El Niño-like responses to warming. What we observe in 2014 through 2015 are warm anomalies in the far western Pacific and slight cooling in the East Pacific. Not exactly a classic La Niña pattern, but in the same direction, with warming to the west. Is this a trend, or just an expression of the rich natural variability of the climate system? I don't know. Human-induced climate change is real, ongoing, and a serious threat to humans and our natural and built environments. Everything is changing. This has been clearly communicated by the scientific community in numerous reports at the international, national and local levels. Of course it worries me that reaction to these facts by decision makers has been slow and inadequate, but I believe it would be a mistake for me to respond to this by cutting corners on the scientific method. I feel the best role for scientists is to try to communicate what is known and what is possible and try to calculate and communicate the probabilities. If we are to be helpful, we need to be trusted. Eventually the truth wins, I hope not too late.