According to all the news reports visibility is 10 metres at Broken Hill to the far west and 100 metres in Sydney just 150 kilometres east of where I am.   Australian Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman Jane Golding says gale force winds have whipped up the dust from Australia’s drought-stricken inland and spread it east.

According to ‘Out of the West: A historical perspective of the Western Division of New South Wales’ by Dick Condon (Published by Rangeland Management Action Plan, 2002) there were severe dust storms in 1902-03, 1937-39, 1983, 1993, but the worst were during the period from 1943-1945.  Some of these storms were often continuous day-in-day-out for several days. 

Most of the dust storms that swept New South Wales during the 1943-45 period had their origins in South Australia with dust pick-up from treeless country.  On reaching timber country to the east the wind velocity at ground level is reduced and dust trapped by the foliage of trees.  As the storms passed eastward more and more dust was deposited.  

Meteorological records report there were 34 dust storms at Wagga Wagga in central western New South Wales during the 1944-45 period.  According to Dick Condon many of those resulted in blackouts or near blackouts when it would have been necessary to turn the lights on in order to see inside the average sized house.

Comparing the drought period 1982-83 with 1944-45 Mr Condon concludes that the storms were more severe during the earlier period because of the relative absence of dust raising winds and the much improved conditions of the landscape in the semi-arid and arid grazing country in western New South Wales during the latter part of the 20th century.

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Photograph of dust on my mother’s car parked in the driveway at Katoomba, Blue Mountains, September 23, 2009.

The following notes and quotes from  ‘Out of the West – An Historical Perspective of  The Western Division of New South Wales’, by Dick Condon.  Published by the Rangeland Management Action Plan, 2002.

“One  thing is certain, however, the millions of tonnes of soil particles, and attached plant nutrients, which were lifted into the atmosphere in the 1965-67, 1980-83 and 1991-94 droughts were minor in comparison with the amounts which would have left the Western Division, and other parts of arid and semi-arid Australia, in the period 1885 to 1945.”  Condon pg. 221

“The present climate of New South Wales is very mild compared to the arid periods of the distant past.  Wasson (1989) has presented evidence of the extremely long periods of intense aridity in the last 36,000 years – responsible for re-working the dune systems in Australia.  These extreme arid periods occurred in cycles, often lasting for thousands of years, developed from earlier arid periods, as in tens of thousands of years, of extreme aridity.  In more recent geological times, Mother Nature has arranged to clothe the dune systems with a protective and stabilising cover of ground vegetation as well as tree cover.” Condon pg. 221

 “ Many fences were submerged by the drifting soil and stretches of railway line were buried.  On 21st November [1902] so much soil was blown from the interior that Melbourne was drenched with dust and, in the afternoon, the sun was almost hidden by the dust in the air.”  Blainey 1980  (pg. 206 Condon)

“In an extreme case near Menindee [in 1937] a new four-roomed house was never occupied.  It became sanded up, and when the owner returned after a compulsory absence of six months, he had to enter it through the roof.  It was however, found impracticable to remove the sand the house was abandoned.”  Ratcliffe 1937 (pg. 212 Condon)

[In 1939] Albert Morris, an amateur nurseryman at one of the [Broken Hill] mines, was able to convince the manager of the Zinc Corporation that the best way of protecting the proposed new offices from being buried in drift sand was to establish a plantation of trees on their western side. (pg. 215, Condon)

Last week parts of north-eastern Australia received a “year’s rain within a week” and many inland areas are now sea.  There is a photo gallery at the CourierMail website entitled “Queensland Under Water” and the following photograph of the Urandangi Hotel copied from the gallery.

[As correctly pointed out in the comments following this posting, my brother Jim Turnour, also a member of the Federal Parliament, has a Batchelor of Agricultural Science.  Other members with science and science-related degrees are listed in a comment in the following thread.]    

Yesterday Dr Jensen suggested in the Australian Parliament that many of the current problems facing the Murray Darling Basin are the result of low runoff as a consequence of changed land management practices (including more plantations in the top of catchments), catchment-wide drainage management plans (place in the 1980s and 1990s to lower water tables) and more efficient water use (resulting in less leakage). 

He explained that it was wrong to blame climate change for the low levels in the dams, because there had been no long term decline in rainfall in the Basin. 

Dr Jensen also explained that many of the climate models used to predict regional rainfall, including the CSIRO models (relied upon by Ross Garnaut in his report on climate change to the Australian government), are unreliable and unduly pessimistic.

When Dr Jensen asked to table supporting information in the Parliament by way of charts and tables, the request was denied. 

Much of the information that Dr Jensen was banned from tabling can be found in a recent publication from the IPA entitled ‘What’s Happening to the Murray River?’.

**************

The picture of Dr Jensen is from his parliamentary website.

I don’t think the article was very convincing. I am annoyed that it didn’t include any real data.  While Dr Jones claimed that “We know that over the past 11 years Melbourne’s rainfall has been about 20% below the long-term average”, he didn’t explain what period this “long-term average” covers and what is the relevance of the last 11 years given it is accepted that over this period there has been a dominance of El Nino, and therefore dry conditions.   

Key Australian Institutions have claimed for some time that we have a water crisis because of climate change. 

Indeed in 2005 CSIRO published a “Melbourne Water Climate Change Study” claiming  “…the greater Melbourne Region has had its lowest rainfall on record compared to all other periods of similar length.” 

But as blogger, Warwick Hughes, showed some time ago, the period chosen was just 92 months, from October 1996 to May 2004.

In order to put their statement in some context Mr Hughes graphed high quality rainfall data for the weather station closest to Melbourne, Yan Yean, back to January 1863 – and he has just updated the chart to the end of September 2008. 

A high quality version of this chart can be found at Mr Hughes’ website, click here.

The chart indicates that Melbourne experiences dry periods every so often and that the current drought is similar in magnitude to the droughts of 1896, 1925 and 1945.  The chart showing 145 years of data, does not support the claim, made by Dr Jones in his article in Melbourne’s The Age, that there has been recent unusual climate change in Melbourne.  Indeed periods of drought and flood are a natural hazard.

*************************************
Read Part 1 here:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/how-melbourne%e2%80%99s-climate-has-changed-a-reply-to-dr-david-jones-part-2/ 
Read Part 2 here:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/10/how-melbourne%e2%80%99s-climate-has-changed-a-reply-to-dr-david-jones-part-1/

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke yesterday released the report commissioned by the Rudd Government as part of a review of national drought policy.

According to the media release:

“The overall review, announced in April, will help prepare farmers, rural communities and Australia’s primary industries for the challenges of climate change.

The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO climatic report on future drought events – the first of its kind in Australia – will be considered as part of the drought policy review.

Key findings of the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report include:

Under a high scenario, droughts could occur twice as often, cover twice the area and be more severe in key agricultural production areas;

The current definition of ‘Exceptional Circumstances’, which defines areas eligible to apply for Federal Government drought assistance, is out-of-date;

Temperatures currently defined as ‘exceptional’ are likely to occur, on average, once in every two years in many key agricultural production areas within the next 20 to 30 years;

We need better ways of getting information about climate change preparedness to farmers.”

So it seems the government is reverting to scenario-modelling to determine its drought policy and will focus on a worst case scenario by way of a high emissions scenario.

There is really nothing new in this approach, indeed in November 2004 then NSW Premier Bob Carr released a report by CSIRO entitled ‘Climate Change in New South Wales’ alerting us to the possiblity of more frequent droughts. Given this report was also based on scenario-modelling I suggested at the time in my The Land column that the CSIRO could have spiced the report up even more by scenario-modelling a war and a volcanic eruption into it.

——————
The Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO report ‘An assessment of the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events’ is available at www.daff.gov.au/droughtpolicyreview.

As Neil Rankine ( a spokesman for protest group Your Water Your Say) and his supporters gear up for a new round of protests, Melbourne could do worse than look west to the city of Perth. Its US$329-million desalination plant, which opened in 2006, has won grudging approval. In fact, a second, US$811-million plant is now planned. The secret: renewable energy — the power comes mainly from a wind farm, and up to 90% of it can be recycled by energy-recovery devices.

From Nature News, 19th March: ‘Water: Purification with a pinch of salt’

But the stories went on to lump upstream legal and planned irrigation development that makes allocations for environmental flows with legal and illegal levies on grazing land within the marshes. Some levies within the marshes are currently blocking designated environmental flow water from reaching the northern nature reserve.

Some of the media reports suggest a need for more studies, but the solution may simply be to bulldoze levies so that environmental flow can get through to the nature reserve.

Other issues within the marshes that require action, rather than more studies include:
1. Preventing the trampling of bird nesting sites by cattle, and
2. Addressing the general issues of overgrazing.

The Macquarie Marshes is a large non-termial wetland in central western New South Wales covering about 200,000 hectares. Most of this area (88 percent) is privately owned and grazed. There are two publicly-owned nature reserves where cattle are excluded and which are Ramsar-listed, meaning they are considered of international importance for migratory bird species.

The most definitive recent publication on the ecology of the Macquarie Marshes is:

The Macquarie Marshes: An Ecological History
by Gillian Hogendyk
IPA Occasional Papers
http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/publisting_detail.asp?pubid=683

You can see pictures of overgrazing at this blog post:

Cattle killing the Macquarie Marshes, 21October 2005
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000949.html

There are pictures of the illegal levies here:

More Water Won’t Save the Macquarie Marshes, 28 March 2006
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001282.html

And for more discussion read:

Three Pressing Issues for the Macquarie Marshes, 13 July 2006
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001481.html

—————————–
** Yesterday’s stories include:

Report reveals illegal Murray-Darling irrigation. By environment reporter Sarah Clarke
Scientists say the flood plains are being sucked dry and there is no legislation in place to stop further development.
A new report has exposed major flaws in the management of key rivers and flood plains along the Murray Darling Basin. Satellite images of a key wetland in north-western New South Wales reveal more than 2,000 kilometres of earthworks have carved up the waterway. While some of the channels and levees may have been authorised, others are considered illegal and are diverting water into irrigation and farming.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171517.htm

NSW vows crackdown on Murray-Darling earthworks
The New South Wales Government says it will crack down on unauthorised earthworks in the Macquarie Marshes in the state’s north-west. A report by the University of NSW found that more than 2,000 kilometres of channels, levees and dams are carving up the Macquarie Marshes and diverting water into irrigation and grazing areas.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171663.htm

Wetlands in a flap after the rains
February 25, 2008
Birds are winning the battle of the marshes, writes Daniel Lewis.
Wading through Monkeygar Swamp, with magpie geese honking in the sky above, even a vicious bite from the odd leech can’t wipe the smile off Ray Jones’s face.
There’s enough water for significant bird breeding in his beloved Macquarie Marshes for the first time since 2000, and the National Parks field officer is on a high after depressingly dry years.
“When you see these geese taking off you can’t help but smile,” Jones says. A fellow parks employee recently told him: “This is the first time I have seen you smiling for years.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/wetlands-in-a-flap-after-the-rains/2008/02/24/1203788147733.html

‘Water theft’ threatens Murray-Darling
By DANIEL LEWIS & MARIAN WILKINSON – Australia
Monday, 25 February 2008
A MAZE of levee banks, channels and dams is stealing water from the state’s flood plains and threaten to undermine the $10 billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
A year-long study by a leading wetlands expert also says environmental water stolen on the flood plain that is home to the iconic Macquarie Marshes has already caused enormous environmental damage.
The report says inappropriate development has continued for decades…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/river-rescue-under-threat/2008/02/24/1203788147679.html

Flood plain development ’stealing water’
February 25, 2008 – 6:35AM
Levee banks, channels and dams are stealing water from NSW flood plains and threatening to undermine the $10-billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
The authors of a report on flood plain development on the lower Macquarie River say state and federal governments have turned a blind eye to water theft through flood plain harvesting, Fairfax reported on Monday.
http://news.smh.com.au/flood-plain-development-stealing-water/20080225-1ugc.html

‘Water theft’ threatens Murray-Darling
By DANIEL LEWIS & MARIAN WILKINSON – Australia
Monday, 25 February 2008
A maze of levee banks, channels and dams is stealing water from NSW’s flood plains and threaten to undermine the $10 billion Murray-Darling Basin rescue plan.
A year-long study by a leading wetlands expert also says environmental water stolen on the flood plain that is home to the iconic Macquarie Marshes has already caused enormous environmental damage.
…. SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald.
http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=48948

Yesterday I visited the Wakool River with Wakool Landholders Association Chairman John Lolicato.

He showed me a spot downstream of Gee Gee bridge where there is still water in deep holes. A bit upstream the river has been reduced to billabongs and further upstream in Possum forest some of the billabongs have dried up.

Downstream of Gee Gee bridge

A billabong that was Wakool river

John has moved some Murray Cod from drying billabongs to larger water holes.

John looking for some water and stranded fish

Also yesterday, the NSW Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water Phil Koperberg announced that a pulse of water would be released into the Wakool River to provide stock and domestic water and environmental benefits.

Mr Koperberg acknowledged that the Wakool River had not had flows for months due to the severe and extended drought.

“The diversion of water into these systems will provide landholders with access to stock and domestic water for the first time in months, help improve water quality and provide significant environmental benefits to stressed populations of native fish and other aquatic species,” he said.

“The water cannot be used for irrigation and additional deliveries for irrigation are not viable as they would exacerbate additional water losses that cannot be supported.”

ABC News: ‘Murray-Darling still in trouble despite welcome rain’

Thanks to Luke Walker for the link

ABC News: ‘Farmer confidence hits yearly low as dry drags on’

Thanks to Luke Walker for the link.