Bureau's David Jones
The floodgates are open. The unfalsifiable hypothesis of dangerous man-made global warming comes to the rescue and provides the answer to the terrible Queensland floods. We can all now self-flagellate, wailing that driving our SUVs is to blame. Over a quarter of a million Google hits for +queensland +flood +”climate change” in the last week alone. But hang on a minute, when there was a drought in Australia, climate change caused that too. Referring here to New South Wales and the Murray-Darling Basin, where there have also been recent flooding rains:
IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation’s most senior weather experts warned yesterday.
“Perhaps we should call it our new climate,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.
It was the 11th year in a row NSW and the Murray-Darling Basin had experienced above normal temperatures. Sydney’s nights were its warmest since records were first kept 149 years ago.
“There is absolutely no debate that Australia is warming,” said Dr Jones. “It is very easy to see … it is happening before our eyes.” [There is debate about the cause, however – Ed]
The only uncertainty now was whether the changing pattern was “85 per cent, 95 per cent or 100 per cent the result of the enhanced greenhouse effect”. [Apparently not according to Jones – Ed]
“There is a debate in the climate community, after … close to 12 years of drought, whether this is something permanent. Certainly, in terms of temperature, that seems to be our reality, and that there is no turning back. (source)
But now that Queensland is under water, Jones has another story:
“We’ve always had El Ninos and we’ve had natural variability but the background which is now operating is different,” head of climate monitoring and prediction at the Australia Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne David Jones said.
“The first thing we can say with La Nina and El Nino is it is now happening in a hotter world,” he told Reuters, adding that meant more evaporation from land and oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere and stronger weather patterns.
“So the El Nino droughts would be expected to be exacerbated and also La Nina floods because rainfall would be exacerbated,” he said, though adding it would be some years before any climate change impact on both phenomena might become clear.
Everyone’s a winner, ignoring the pointless weasel-word caveat at the end. Droughts: climate change. Floods: climate change. I’ve said it before, but will say it again: what evidence would show that climate change was not taking place? In other words, what conditions would falsify the hypothesis? I won’t wait for an answer, because there isn’t one. Everything strengthens the case for AGW, in the alarmists’ view.
And Keith “Travesty” Trenberth chimes in as well:
Prominent US climate scientist Kevin Trenberth said the floods and the intense La Nina were a combination of factors.
He pointed to high ocean temperatures in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia early last year as well as the rapid onset of La Nina after the last El Nino ended in May.
“The rapid onset of La Nina meant the Asian monsoon was enhanced and the over 1 degree Celsius anomalies in sea surface temperatures led to the flooding in India and China in July and Pakistan in August,” he told Reuters in an email.
He said a portion, about 0.5C, of the ocean temperatures around northern Australia, which are more than 1.5C above pre-1970 levels, could be attributed to global warming.
“The extra water vapor fuels the monsoon and thus alters the winds and the monsoon itself and so this likely increases the rainfall further,” Mr Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said.
“So it is easy to argue that one degree Celsius sea surface temperature anomalies gives 10 to 15 per cent increase in rainfall,” he added.
Yep, dead easy if you can just pick and choose a model to fit whatever weather phenomenon is currently occurring. Even the token scientist drafted in to say that there’s no link to climate change manages to link it to climate change:
It’s a natural phenomena. We have no strong reason at the moment for saying this La Nina is any stronger than it would be even without humans,” said Neville Nicholls of Monash University in Melbourne and president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society.
But he said global atmospheric warming of about 0.75C over the past half century had to be having some impact.
“It has to be affecting the climate, regionally and globally. It has to be affecting things like La Nina. But can you find a credible argument which says it’s made it worse? I can’t at the moment.” (source)
Well, it has to be one or the other. Either the warming is affecting La Niña or it isn’t. And of course, none of this says anything about the cause of the warming.
And we here in Australia are all deeply honoured that the Mighty Goracle has used “our” floods as “evidence of climate change.” If Big Al thinks so, it must be true. (source)
(H/t Bishop Hill)
Australian Climate Madness 
In the aftermath of these floods, I have to wonder how
things would have been if instead of wasting all the money on the
Climate Change Department in Canberra, and the Billions on the MET,
and CSIRO in the attempt to justify false science. If that money
had been spent on mitigation of floods. We live in Maclean NSW, we
remain cut off as the Pacific Highway is flooded in several places.
The Pacific Highway could be upgraded, dams could be built, Levee’s
improved, but instead we try to justify changing the climate. How
stupid is that?
Steve Goddard calls this new AGW proof “droughtflood.”
Invented, of course, by AlGore, who also invented the
Internet.
Look, as a 3rd generation lifelong SEQ resident, all this
world wide attention and theories are starting to irk me as talking
heads start to spout off things of which they appear to have little
understanding. SEQ (and QLD in general) is periodically subject to
intense widespread rain events. 1893, 1974, 2011. They happen. Even
smaller intense rain events occur at least once a decade. The 1893
floods were larger, and peaked on 3 separate occasions. Does anyone
care to tell me how AGW could have done that, given that horseback
was the primary transportation method at the time, and electricity
was something played with in laboratorys? If anything, the lower
levels in 1974 and 2011 is proof that AGW makes the flooding less
worse (I say with tongue in cheek). There’s also a popular meme
going around (James Delingpole and Andrew Bolt) that somehow green
interfering caused the death and destruction. Nothing could be
further from the truth. And believe me, I love a good outing of
ridiculous green policy as the next person. here’s the facts: – the
majority of loss of life was caused by flash-flooding in and around
Toowoomba (700m above sea level) and the Lockyer valley below the
Toowoomba range. The streams that caused the devastation in
Toowoomba are normally babbling brooks one can leap with a vigorous
jump. While some warning may have helped, many deaths were caused
by people undertaking risky actions like trying to drive across
flooded bridges. – the scrapped Traveston Crossing dam project on
the Mary river would not have saved Gympie from flooding. It would
have been 100% full (like every other dam in the region) prior to
the large rain events – it has been raining steadily for two
months. In any case, it was the residents of Gympie that campaigned
the most against the dam. Not because of lungfish (the figleaf that
the environment minister used) but because it was a bad idea. A
flat alluvial sandy plain is not the ideal location for a Dam. It
would have been wide and shallow on porous soil. And it would have
subsumed a huge area of productive farmland. It was correct for the
Dam to be scrapped, and many engineers publicly stated this. That
it was scrapped under environmental reasons was just the out for an
embarrassed Federal government saddled with the plans after the
former premier announced it to save his political hide (brisbane
was under severe water restrictions at the time) but then scarpered
anyway. It was chosen because the area had never, and would never,
vote for Labor anyway, so it was the best place to put it, safely
away from Brisbane voters. It would have been full, and would not
have saved Gympie from flooding. And the townspeople in Gympie are
used to flooding anyway, and go about moving out of the way with a
cheery disposition. – Wivenhoe dam – conceived and built after the
1974 floods, has done a very good job in extremely difficult
circumstances. They have managed to keep the peak level of floods
1m lower than predicted, by delicately balancing the inflows and
outflows and timing with the low tide in the Brisbane river. It was
already at 150% (and releasing continually, as it has been for
months) when this large rainfall event hit. SEQ Water are to be
commended with the way they handled this, with the Dam balanced
within 1m of the peak level allowable before Dam-protection levees
give way to protect the wall (with devastating consquences for
those downstream). It’s difficult for people who don’t live in
Queensland to understand the volumes of water we’re talking about
here. This is not some drizzling Victorian rain or misty English
weather. This is a proper, tropical summer monsoon rainfall a bit
further south than it normally is. The written history of QLD is
only about 200 years long, but it is peppered with tales of huge
floods that astound new observers. People see the 1974 markers on
buildings around Brisbane and think it can’t possibly have
happened. The puny infrastructure put in the way of these periodic
deluges is nothing compared with the water volumes. It will happen
again, at least once per lifetime of the average person. There’s
nothing that can be done. After all, it’s just weather.
Yesterday, as we were witnessing this natural flood
disaster, it was also appalling to see an interview, on the ABC TV
24 Hour program coverage, with a certain Australian Professor of
Climatology and IPCC author, who dared link this disaster to our
CO2 emissions causing man-made global warming, and the need
therefore to reduce CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, the ABC
journalist was not smart enough to challenge him on this issue, in
reference to the 1974 floods and, before that, the 1893 great
floods, which had absolutely nothing to do with man-made global
warming and our CO2 emissions. It is a shame that a professor could
stoop so low in ignorance about natural disasters.
“Unfortunately, the ABC journalist was not smart enough to challenge him on this issue, in
reference to the 1974 floods and, before that, the 1893 great
floods,…”
The ABC journalists intelligence has most likely been “dulled down” by the doctrine of warmists. But even if it wasn’t, to contradict the popular AGW narrative promoted within this taxpayer funded propaganda unit would be “catastrophic” to continued success within the unit.
My letter in Today’s Sydney Morning Herald provides an
alternate view. …an overview of historical floods in the Brisbane
basin compiled by the Bureau of Meteorology indicates these extreme
events, due to a combination of an intense La Nina and the cool
phase of the interdecadal Pacific oscillation, have happened before
and will happen again. The increased likelihood of major flooding
occurring during the coincidence of these weather events was
predicted by Stewart Franks, Anthony Kiem and Danielle Verdon in
their paper Climate Variability in the Land of Fire and Flooding
Rain. As these climatic events can be detected several months
before their peak, Franks et al showed the opportunity exists to
use climate variability insights to more accurately predict the
chance of climate related emergencies in the coming season or year.
If governments had listened to their practical advice rather than
its alarmist climate advisers we would have been better prepared
for this latest crisis. See also Andrew Bolt’s post “Karoly’s
“global warming” – wetter, drier, worse, better, whatever”
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/karolys_global_warming_wetter_drier_worse_better_whatever/
My scepticism used to be directed at the standard religions. For me, BOM meant ‘Book of Mormon’. In the Book of Mormon one learned that Joseph Smith was guided by an angel to the location of gold plates that contained writing. He translated that writing using two stones, the Urim and the Thummim. The language of the gold plates was supposedly ‘Reformed Egyptian’, something that no one else had heard of. Unfortunately the gold plates were returned to heaven before anyone could check them. Today this would be an FOI issue.
The Book of Mormon is biblical in style. It describes how the ‘lost tribes of Israel’ supposedly became North American Indians. It contains large sections of the Bible. One problem is that those sections just happen to match the 1611 King James Version. Curious that a translation from ‘Reformed Egyptian’ would happen to match a translation generated at different time, in a different country, and translated from several other languages.
For me now, BOM registers ‘Bureau of Meteorology’. But still my BOM scepticism goes under religious doubts. The new BOM has an endless supply of prophetic signs. A sign can be heat; it can be cold. It can be drought or rain or snow or no snow. Whatever the
weathersign, it fulfills the prophesy of Global Warming. To foolishly question this makes one a ‘denier’, the Climate Church’s rendering of ‘heretic’.America’s BOM is a religious book while Australia’s BOM is a religious establishment.
This Global Warming subject has sent more fear into people who are made to listen to warnings about globalwarmings; at the same time left them wonderng how much truth is there to believe in some of our scientists warnings. I have a lot of respects for our scientists for their inventions and discoveries of many achievements, up to date. I am only a layman and I have no knowledge of science but I do use my commonsense to believe what we are been told about their forecast, concerning about humans and animals will perish if we do not control our emmision of gases produced by made made pollutions. I think we are been made to follow the blind leading the blind. It will take billion years for mankind to forecast when the world will blow up. Some of our scientists views are just a stab in the dark. Tommorow they can tell us, that they can construct another planet with their knowledge. For the moment; what have they got to say about severe winters what happen to their global warming, when we listen to people in the northern hemisphere having very severe winters in the last few years. WHY ?. Sal
Climate change projections for Australia are that dry regions (Southern, South Eastern Australia and the interior) will get drier, and wet regions (from the North West to the North east) will get wetter.
Unfortunately, the author of this blog doesn’t seem to notice such distinctions, even when they quote them.
While I accept the general findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I am leery of people specifically connecting a specific weather event with global warming. Climate change can only be assessed in the long-term.
Here then, is a link to the BOM data on precipitation for Queensland since 1900.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rranom&area=qld&season=0112&ave_yr=T
Although the trend is positive (+6mm a decade), annual rainfall is extremely variable. The trend for global precipitation is a bit starker.
I don’t know how much Jones was edited (the media certainly emphasise any snippet that is the most sensational, and often omits quotes that are more nuanced), but his quotes are not inconsistent.
Ripping highly elided quotes from the media is a mug’s game. Backyard gossip has its place, i suppose. But if you want to say anything useful about any connection with flooding and climate change (and droughts), look to the long-term data. The BOM link above has most of what you’ll need for Australian data back to 1900, state, regional and national.
Berynn BOM records show historical data, but not causation.
There are three (at least) areas of concern that I have with the
IPCC and the AGW crowd. 1. The veracity of the historical data as
presented. Many (most/almost all?) measuring stations have been
overrun by urban development giving rise to higher recorded temps
(on a very local basis, but extrapolated and promulgated on a
regional/global basis). The number of recording stations now
included in the global record has been dramatically culled
(obviously selectively – there is a direct correlation between
fewer stations and higher temperatures). 2. The AGW alarmists
always end up blaming extraordinary weather events on global
warming cum climate change cum global climate distruption. 2011
flood event is the result of AGW, but what caused 1893, 1974 and
several others? (Similar arguments can be used in relation ten year
droughts in south eastern Australia and to lesser arctic ice – AGW
or natural variation like what caused the opening of the NW passage
in times past). 3. AGW alarmists always speak in terms of ‘it’s a
fact’ and ‘it’s bad’ but never offer any empirical evidence for
either. On the contrary, Al Gore has purchased a seaside condo
despite the multi-metres of sea level rise that he claims ‘is a
fact’. Can you believe anything said by such a man with such
contradictory words and actions? BTW, I wonder what the BOM graph
would look like if they had started prior to 1893?