EL NINO'S HIDDEN BENEFITS

Oceanographer John Middleton says the dreaded El Ninos that bring drought to Australia might have a previously unrecognized upside:

"The research I've done to date suggests they can actually lead to more nutrients available to the food web and thus more productivity," he said.

"So it's not all necessarily bad news about El Nino. It may be that in our oceans they may in fact be beneficial, while on the terrestrial side of course we know that they can be pretty miserable in terms of rainfall."

With the bad comes the good.