Thanks for this excellent, informative post.  It is very interesting to see that as of September, El Niño is up to a 71% chance of a "strong" ENSO event heading into 2024.  Just a few months ago it seemed it may be a "mild" one!

Anyhow, though ENSO phases are not drivers of climate shifts, they do temporarily drive climate records up (in the case of El Niño) or down (La Niña phase).  Which makes the the past three-year La Niña event a bit of a head-scratcher:  It "should" have brought slightly cooler temps to Earth's oceans and atmosphere; yet instead, we witnessed very warm anomalies for both.  Indeed, the Niña three-peat did not reduce temp levels as much as had been hypothesized!  And unusually, the Atlantic ocean warmth this year, is atypical compared against all prior first-year Niño data?

Not to "jump the gun" but does the data since the 2015-16 event suggest a rapid shift of sorts?  Is there a chance future ENSO models require new inputs?  That is, if the climate itself keeps warming, the "stable" conditions prior models may have taken for granted may not be statistically reliable in the face of an overarching climate shift:  For example, (and though it certainly isn't the right analog!), the Pliocene epoch has been found to be locked more in a El Niño phase until various factors cooled the planet to conditions similar to today's Earth.  Therefore today, even if conservative climate models predicting slight planetary warming are correct, is there a chance ENSO might be shifted to a prior systemic type - that isn't so well balanced between El Niño and La Niña?