We are in the middle of an election in Queensland, Australia.
My local member has just sent me a glossy brochure stating that:
“Queensland is experiencing the worst drought in 100 years …no other government in our history has faced a challenge of this enormity.”
The Premier Peter Beattie has being repeating the same message for some time.
So how bad is it – really?
The catchment with Brisbane’s dams is reportly the most severely affected.
Warwick Hughes has constructed the following graph from the rainfall record for the Wivenhoe catchment — that’s the catchment with the dams:
So there is really nothing unprecedented about the current dry spell? Could the Bureau of Meteorology please correct the graph, or correct the Premier?
Update 22 August
Simon commented (see following thread) that the above graph looks different to the graph posted by Warwick at his site. Following is the graph posted by Warwick:
I made the error of assuming the graph Warwick sent me on the weekend was the same as the one he had posted at his blog. There are slightly differences after 1990, because as Warwick explains in the note at his website, “rainfall data is less than perfect, many stations close and an alternative has to be opened at another site, recordings can start then stop, there can be gaps in the data”.
In the graph I posted, Warwick had used values from neighbouring stations to see what a more complete record for the catchment looked like.
He has sent me the following comment tonight:
“If I can obtain a more complete catchment dataset I might spend a long day trying to correct these.
The Bureau of Meteorology and water utility have had years to publish a graph of catchment rain history if they wished to do so.
Clearly, it must not be perceived to be in their interests or they would have done so.
Likewise, I have never seen catchment rain history charts made by a water utility or the BoM for Perth, Sydney or Melbourne but maybe there are some I have not spotted.
Why is this when water supply issues are controversial in all our cities and all our dam water originates as rain.
I see the issue of the 2002 drought being raised and I show from the Australia wide Bureau of Meteorology high quality rain data that in 2002 there was a Great West Queensland drought but nothing nationwide to match the Federation drought.
…With respect to the claims of “worst drought in a whatever”, the criterion I was talking about was the definitions of serious and severe drought as on the Bureau of Meteorology website and as expressed in their maps with shades of pink to red. I have a small area of their latest 3 year map shown on my Brisbane page. Now I do not know what result you would get if that Bureau of Meteorology 36 month drought map series could be rolled back through 2000.
But do we expect policymakers to be making such definitive statements about data that is far from black and white and when the result is probably so line ball?“
When I look at the second graph I see regular wet periods with yearly averages around 1200mm (once as high as 1400mm) and there have also been regular dry periods with yearly averages around the 600mm (once as low as perhaps 450mm). We are currently in one of the dry periods with yearly averages in the 700-800mm range.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen, what consitutes a drought? What are the appropriate parameters to assess drought across QLD?
Have you considered rainfall patterns or QLD rainfall distribution (space & time) (v’s evaporation?) Perhaps you could argue that intensive farming practices have increased soil moisture evaporation, hence manmade drought conditions. (Cut down too many trees?) Or perhaps the sun is getting hotter, causing climate change and causing drought and skin cancer. Forget drought relief to undeserving farmers, we should launch geostationary satellite shade-cloth structures.
Three important questions:
(a) Do we have any capital cities that have built new dams or expanded old ones in the last 20 years?
(b) When the latest expansions to the metropolitan water supply systems were officially opened, what predictions were made as to how many years we would have before a further expansion was required (eg. “This should guarantee our water supply for the next 25 years.”)
(c) Have we past the number of years referred to in (b) or have population increases exceeded those earlier projections?
Re John’s 3 questions.
For (a) I can only suggest North Dandalup SSE of Perth. I have a date of 1994 but obviously decisions were made many years prior to that.
For (b) there is this gem below at this website.
http://www.seqwater.com.au/content/standard.asp?name=WivenhoeDam
“The construction of Wivenhoe Dam, when added to the existing water supply at Somerset and North Pine Dams, is expected to meet water demand for the Brisbane area for the next twenty years.”
It sounds enigmatic to me, not at all clear which 20 year period is being talked about.
However, considering the webpage is fairly recent, I suppose their 20 year period still has at least a decade and a half to run.
The Beaudesert newspaper prints a rainfall summery, fron about 10 sights around the shire, each month. This year, most of those sights are showing about average. In my area, we are 50mm above average, for the year to date.
This decade, our rainfall is 400mm above the same period, last decade. I am so sick of being lied to. When they can use such blatant lies in their election spiel, you know they are lying to you about everything, & there’s just nothing you can do about it.
If Jen’s original post was intended to be about drought, then this comment is off-topic. If the post was about the honesty of modern political campaigning, then – like Hasbeen’s previous comment – this one is on topic.
On this evening’s news, Mr Beattie was presented in Innisfail, talking, predictably, about there being a heightened likelihood of category 5 cyclones visiting the area in the future because of global warming. Passing reference was made, I think, to a scientific report (released today? what a coincidence that would be) as the basis for Mr Beattie’s statements.
The only “predictions” that can be made about the future numbers and intensity of storms in North Queensland are based on computer modelling. The expert computer modellers who undertake such research are unanimous that regional climate models have no such forecast skill. For that very reason, they do not term the virtual reality worlds conjured up by their computer games “predictions” but instead “scenarios”.
Statements such as those being made on drought and climate in the current election campaign are tantamount to lying to the electorate.
Is there no way within our democratic system that this can be prevented? For instance, does the CJC have any jurisdiction if a complaint were made to them, or what about the Fair Trade Practices Act?
Cathy
You guys are rabid – don’t for a moment try to think about anything:
If the rainfall is so good why is Moogerah Dam 6%, Atkinson 5%, Bill Gunn 8%, Clarendon 0%
http://wron.net.au/DemosII/DamData/DamNodeView.aspx
I don’t know what Beattie said but the international modelling on cyclones/hurricanes says no increase in numbers but increases in intensity which have been well ventilated in this blog. There have been recent papers on peak hurricane strength doubling in the last decade.
The recent panel of experts meeting on cyclones in South Africa said the science community is currently divided on the issue with debate of decadal influences being an issue. (and gee if you guys don’t buy into AGW who knows why you buy anything on decadal – except for rampant selective bias).
More recent research says: Global warming accounted for about half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, and natural cycles were a minor factor, according to a new analysis by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
The research was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR’s primary sponsor, according to a joint June 22 press release by NCAR, NSF and the American Geophysical Union.
“The global warming influence provides a new background level that increases the risk of future enhancements in hurricane activity,” said NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth.
The study runs counter to recent claims that natural cycles are responsible for the upturn in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. It also supports the premise that hurricane seasons will become even more active as global temperatures rise.
Cathy’s bias paints the usual backdrop of sophistry of the anti-AGW side. Utter twaddle.
CJC indeed – get a grip.
Meanwhile back at the drought.
Luke, there can be now doubt about my rainfall figures, or those printed in the Beaudesert Times. I took mine, with my own pearly whites, & the others have been provided by the same people for many years.
Don’t you city folk know that “average” rainfall does not, & never has, or will, fill dams. It takes a major rainfall event. One of these occurs as often in a below average year, as in above average years.
Infact you had better hope that the bull sh1t about increased cyclones starts to happen very soon, because its the lack of them, plus a lot of mismanagement, that has SEQ so short of water.
I know its very hard for you, in your hard surfaced city to believe, but we can get 100mm of rain, in 24 hours, & not even get a puddle, let alone, run off into the river.
What has flash floods all over your city, merely waters the grass out here.
I can’t quite see, why your global warming, & resultant cyclones is so selective. Why is
the Atlantic getting them, but not here? The poor people of Innisfail caught one this year, but our lack of cyclones over the last dozen or so years is quite exceptional.
I ran tourist boats, in the Whitsundays for 12 years in the 70s, & 80s, & we had to move our boats into our cyclone holes at least once, & generally more than once every year. A mate of mine was telling me, that its 3 years since he has had to do a bolt for the holes. Strange isn’t it?
Having had very close acquaintance with quite a few cyclones, let me assure you, they were much stronger than the bureau believed, but they were in their office, not my boats.
The one with the utter twaddle is you, & if you don’t know you are being lied to, you are a fool, or worse.
Of course the Queensland coast-crossing cyclone numbers are lower but that’s another issue. Many in our region that we have had are very fast systems (even locally – see Vance, Zoe, Ingrid, Larry – the facts are that peak cyclone intensities are double in all ocean basins are all up). So you’re the fool who isn’t keeping up with developments which it seems you’re dismissing as bullshit without even reading the material. We now have 3 science papers on the issue in the last year or so. Meanwhile back at the drought.. ..
Did is say I doubted the rainfall figures. I did imply though that there are quite a few dry dams in SEQ out there – should have also added in the Bjelke Petersen Dam at 3%. Gee another one. Why is it so? Of course as you note the answer is runoff – we’ve been over it before ad nauseum. But all we have is bleating about average rainfall and what Beattie says – it’s irrelevant. Not all drought is rainfall drought. Engineers who build the systems use the rainfall record to work out how the dams would respond over the historical record. Once you’re in a drying sequence it takes a sizeable event to get you out of it. Do you think they’re that stupid. What you don’t have is the dam’s performance over 120 years of records – if you did you would simply rank the dry spells highest to lowest. Are you sure that this spell isn’t the lowest sequence? You haven’t got a clue ! There would be other periods in the record would give it a run for the record lowest but are you sure that they’re worse?? If this sequence in SEQ is the worst sequence on record – then it gets the medal – it’s just maths.
Note that I have not endorsed the building of the dams nor am I arguing with the rainfall numbers – just you guys talking pseudo-science crap. I’m stunned you can’t see the obvious with your piffly level of analysis.
Hasbeen – if you want to argue that we should have rainwater tanks; be more frugal; get into recycling with industry/agriculture; that the government hasn’t kept pace with population growth generated demand; or that we may find ourselves in low dam reserves in more years out of a hundred than we perhaps think – then we might have a useful discussion.
As Luke says, an obvious problem here is that drawing graphs, eyeballing them, and saying you can’t see anything isn’t really a very useful way to undertake analysis. Dave Pannell made this point here not long ago in relation to rainfall in the Murray catchment. More generally, amateur science like this is likely to produce mistakes that professionals would avoid.
In the present case, the three-year average helps a little bit but not much. Looking at it we can see that the three-year average is close to the minimum level in the graph, and has been at that level for the last three years. On previous occasions when this level was reached it was there for one year and bounced back fast. So, it’s perfectly possible that a five-year average would show this as the worst drought ever. But, before jumping in with amateur exercises, I’d suggest talking to an actual hydrologist.
Most of these comments miss the point.
Another repetitious argument on the ambiguous evidence regarding global (not NQ) cyclone incidence will get us nowhere. Ditto for drought.
The question I was raising, and that no one has addressed, is quite simple.
It is, if a person tells outright lies in pursuit of election to public office, is he or she in any way accountable at law? And, if so, which law and what is the likely penalty?
The matter as to WHETHER the person has told a lie will be adjudged by the competent body, not by bloggers.
Cathy
For heavens sake Cathy the Australasian evidence fits bloody well with the international findings. You have not read the material nor reviewed the evidence. Don’t let any facts intrude into a debate.
If you want to wail on about utter lies – try massive lies – try weapons of mass destruction or children overboard. Or the recent findings on the systematic lies of tobacco industry.
Beattie – like his politics or not (and don’t see my comments as an endorsement) – probably has the facts broadly right. How he uses them with what emphasis may be a different matter.
And there is no competent body to appeal to as you guys have systematically bagged the IPCC, CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology and many notable climate scientists. You’re on your own. Try a lynch mob.
Maybe Warwick’s graph has heat island effects or the gauges have been moved to the airport. Is he sure he can vouch for the data. You can’t trust that Bureau of Met – they’re tricky guys.
Incidentally I thought swinging voters in the Qld election are portraying a choice between someone they assert they can’t and do not trust and a rabble. What a choice !
Pixxy asks Jennifer to define “drought” as used by Beattie and then proposes various factors that have caused Beattie’s “drought” including the predictable “intensive farming practices” and tree clearing, no doubt by the big bad raping and pillaging farmer bogey man.
In fact in 2003 *Dick Condon, Rangeland and Environmental Consultant observed that
“The current drought across south-east Australia has been shown by the Bureau of Meteorology to be more intense than the 1895-1902 drought which contributed so much to the earlier devastation. This time, however, it appears that the recovery factors discussed, and the low livestock numbers (now similar to the previous record low in 1903) have been responsible for keeping the landscapes well covered”
*ref: The Australian Rangeland Society
Whats your beef Pinky?
“Or the recent findings on the systematic lies of tobacco industry.”
And of course, many of the worst tobacco shills (Milloy, Singer, Seitz to name but a few) moved straight on to climate change denial when the tobacco money dried up.
As I understand the science as it stands at the moment it is not the intensity per se of hurricanes(cyclones) but the frequency of the occurence of category 4&5 that has doubled.
Does nobody have the data on water inflow and outflow for the Queensland dam system since the dams were constructed? Also the history of dam capacity versus water use.
I must admit my owne gut feel is that the Government did not invest enough in capacity for too long and the chickens have now come home to roost. Although it is good economics not to expand capacity until you have to shed load for a significnat portion of time on any system hence the increase in electrical load shedding every say ten years.
You have been told all this before, Luke. The dams are empty because the regrowth is widespread all over the catchments and is retarding the runoff. But you still haven’t bothered to check. Surely a guy like you with so much access to SLATS could get the relevant info? Or would that be inconsistent with your role as information Beta Blocker?
Sorry I should have said 30 years.
Nature advance online publication; published online 31 July 2005 | doi: 10.1038/nature03906
Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years
Kerry Emanuel1
Top of pageTheory1 and modelling2 predict that hurricane intensity should increase with increasing global mean temperatures, but work on the detection of trends in hurricane activity has focused mostly on their frequency3, 4 and shows no trend. Here I define an index of the potential destructiveness of hurricanes based on the total dissipation of power, integrated over the lifetime of the cyclone, and show that this index has increased markedly since the mid-1970s. This trend is due to both longer storm lifetimes and greater storm intensities. I find that the record of net hurricane power dissipation is highly correlated with tropical sea surface temperature, reflecting well-documented climate signals, including multi-decadal oscillations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and global warming. My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in tropical cyclone destructive potential, and—taking into account an increasing coastal population—a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the twenty-first century.
I’m not too sure about the data handling of Warwick’s, for one thing the graph here is different to the one at his site, especially towards the end where in 1999 there’s a 200 mm difference between plots. Also there seems to be a difference in the way the moving average is calculated – in one of the plots the moving average is ‘ahead’ of the points.
Anyway, looking at the graph at his site, we have had six consecutive years where the annual rainfall has been below 800 mm – the only time in the last 100 years that this has occured. I would argue that this is a pretty good indication that we are in a drought.
If you want to spend some time looking at rainfall across parts of australia over the past month, year, 3 years, etc, the Bureau of Meteorology has a handy interractive mapping system that lets you specify the data you want and map it. see here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/rain_maps.cgi
and a recent BOM drought statement:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/drought.shtml
Last but not least, the trend mapping at the BOM website is very interesting too – perhaps the most interesting. see here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/trendmaps.cgi
I spoke recently to BOM about some of their forecasting esp the 3 month – they agreed that the terms were ambiguous eg ‘better than average’ may mean the average over 1 year or 50 depends on data available.
Also that mischievous SOI, it was very positive for a while but still no rain, the data was boosted by rain events in Darwin and other parts of the NT.
They did agree that to say best or worst ‘on record’ does not mean too much unless you know what their records are.
The BOM data also shows that:
1. There has been no change in the Australian Annual Rainfall rolling average, when taken over the full term since 1900. The geograhical distribution may have varied over the short term, but the rolling avge is on the axis. ie remains the same.
2. The Southern Hemisphere Annual precipitation rolling average also shows no change since 1900.
3. If Qld dams are showing near empty it is because of both the input being too low, and output has been too high. Considering just one side of equation and blaming it exclusively for the situation is nonsense.
4. What has been the population growth of the period of the life of the dams in question. I bet its greater than 0%.
5. Most dams take more than one season to fill, and this means management of what one has got has to work in sync with the forward planning to meet new demand, by whatever means.
6. Clearly the Qld govt has stuffed this up.. but so have all the others.
1 & 2 – how many times do we have to say it. Why not quote the solar system average rainfall too.
3,4, 5 – I think you’ll find the engineers may know these issues. They well know the performance of these systems under a range of draw-down scenarios undser the historical record. What gets through the political filter is another issue.
6 – maybe – but most of us don’t want any inconvenience/cut backs in use/complexity with valves & pumps/recycled poo water/backyard tanks/charge increases or a dam in our back yards (see fate of Wolfdene) until we’re facing a crisis. It’s the crisis we had to have so we all wake up.
See also road & rail infrastructure, power, petrol price and availability post 2010, health, education and a number of other issues also about to blow a gasket – if not already blown.
You can find Queensland rainfall data by selecting the appropriate options on http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi.
For what it’s worth, without examining every nuance, Queensland’s rainfall from 1915 to 1970 was patchy. If the current drought is the worst on record then other periods are not far behind at all.
Summer rain this year was low but has been lower. Autumn rain this year was the 8th highest on record (7th highest was just 1.5mm more), winter rain last year wasn’t to bad, last spring’s was about average. Or if you prefer, northern wet-season (Dec 2004 to Mar 2005), in the top 25%, so nothing terribly remarkable here.
Agreed that there have been ups and downs over the years, however, i did notice that the last 5 years rainfall for QLD have all been below average.
The time series graph gives you yearly rainfall and an 11-year rolling average. I downloaded the data and plotted a 5-year rolling average. It looks like the 5-year average for the most recent year you can plot it for (2003) is the 4th lowest on record for the whole State of QLD, with 1902, 1903 and 1967 having a lower 5 year averages.
Given that in 2006 QLD has had below average rainfall to date, the whole State of QLD is shaping up to deliver the lowest 5 year average on record for 2004.
Given how close the whole state is to having the lowest 5 year avg on record now, it seems plausible to me at the moment that some areas of QLD could be having their worst rainfall deficiency on record at the moment, if you were to take a 5-year average as your measure. I think a 5-year average is a good measure, however, i’m no hydrologist, and can accept that others may see differently for good reason.
I’d note also that that is just looking at rainfall – there is also the issue of vegetation and runoff, evaporation, and water consumption.
NOw, to look deeper, i wonder if specific areas of QLD have the lowest on record?
Of course the deeper you get into surface water drought the more it takes to bring you back. What is missing from Queensland’s climate is La Nina events and coast-crossing cyclones (save Larry being recent exception in the far north, with the next system after Larry meandering around out to sea and did not cross the coast).
Indeed Russ Hinze dam on the Gold Coast was lucky to catch the edge of an off-coast low. Maroon Dam just a few kilometres more inland is at 21% and falling.
Ian;
not being a scientist my current most useful reference on hurricanes/cyclones is http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/08/fact-fiction-and-friction/
Would you significantly disagree with the conclusions in the paper referenced therein.
Some years ago I was involved in a parliamentary inquiry where it was important to understand water flow velocities and capacities of mountain rivers and creeks. The issue at hand isn’t important but the Department of Natural Resources would not acknowledge that these waterways could experience full bank discharge with accompanying high water velocities all year round. What do you think of this?
Jennifer, your local member who wrote “Queensland is experiencing the worst drought in 100 years …no other government in our history has faced a challenge of this enormity” deserves to be booted out for ignorance. The BOM data shows that in SE Qld that the Wivenhoe catchment is about at the 10th percentile annual rainfall over the last 3 years (ie 10% of the time its been worse, 90% better). But the Sunshine coast and Gold coast dams are at very good levels and rainfal has been near median. The correct missive from your local politician would be “Queensland is experiencing the only govenment in our history that does not understand that Australia has dry spells and the only government in history that doesn’t plan for population growth”.
Siltstone – be careful who gets the boot if you don’t have the calculated inflows for the historical record ranked one to n for five year runs with the current level of draw-down by the existing population (and that ain’t rainfall). I think you may find if you have that information the current period is pretty bad. You guys haven’t even started to think seriously about this issue.
Luke is like Jennifers’ local politician, trying to blame water supply difficulties on the weather, not having a clue despite 200 years of European settlement that Australia is prone to dry spells.
Translating rainfall directly to runoff is a dangerous thing to do, one needs to do an event by event calculation of if runoff whould have generated runoff then do a perectile rank of runoff. The period to use for comparison is also a tricky issue but I would suggest it should be somewhere near “storage life of the dam under normal usage”, a moving feast with population / demand changes!. Someone hinted that the Queenslander’s have some more runoff maps hidden in a password protected area of the Longpaddock web site.
OK Silty – Australia and Africa already build dams 2x to 3x the size elsewhere due to climate variation- I guess you’ll be happy to pay double to again to get the reliability you want.
And isn’t so strange that other regional storages Maroon, Moogerah, Atkinson, Clarendon, and Bjelke-Peterson are also so low – so many dams – obviously mis-management on a vast scale eh Silts.
the beef rog is not whether or not there is a drought, but over Jennifer’s usual approach to give shallow consideration to an isolated or single or localised parameter and extrapolate from that to make an argument that, heh, doesn’t hold water (ie the spin approach to framing an argument). It’s an approach used in empty arguments by both sides, not just Jennifer, but I think Jennifer knows better.
I realise Jennifer might not have the time to research an issue thoroughly to present a well argued case in numerous blog entries and she relies on blog comments to complete the story which does make for interesting discussion and an interesting blog, but Jennifer should make it clear when she is inferring or pointedly extrapolating from insufficient data – otherwise it comes across as a strawman argument regardless of whether or not her question is a valid one.
Pinxi,
You are correct, my issue is not whether or not there is a drought and how droughts are defined.
My issue is that current conditions are being reported as unusual.
The above simple graphs of rainfall history indicate that the last few years are dry, but not unusually dry in the scheme of things.
Incredibly in the above thread a leading academic suggests we ignore the graph/the available evidence and have some discussion with hydrologists.
If the above graph is wrong I am happy to post a correction/the new information… but to simply dismiss the available evidence and revert to expert opinion because it fits current mythology is unacceptable.
Pnixy, there is no problem with the data, and the question of spin isn’t one you should be putting to Jennifer. Beattie, in the newspaper article that Jennifer links to, says it is the worst 10 year period on record, so one has to do a 10 year rolling average to check this, rather than the three years rolling average. Would like to see that graph.
However, it is clear from the graphs that are on display that we are not in a period of rainfall so low that it should not have been planned for.
There are three definitions of drought, and there appear to be some cross-overs between them on this thread. The one that Jennifer is highlighting is the meteorological definition, which is the one most of us use when we talk about drought.
However, there is an agricultural definition and a hydrological one. I suspect Luke and others are using the latter to try and confuse the debate. Hydrological droughts can be man made because they are defined by there being a deficit of water required for the need that has to be met, and can occur irrespective of rainfall.
Queensland definitely has the worst hydrological drought for the last 100 years, but guess what, it is entirely man made. If we’d built enough dams there wouldn’t be a problem – Luke go and check the rainfall records for Wolfdene where 17 years ago the Goss government decided not to build the dam which had been planned by the previous government.
So, we definitely do have a drought which is the worst ever, in terms of one definition of the word, but it is entirely man-made! If you’re looking for spin, that’s where it is.
BTW, was surprised to see John Quiggin suggesting that we should just leave the issue up to the experts – where’s his enlightenment spirit of inquiry…and I would have thought that the Mann et al debacle would have shown him that appeal to authority is a poor subsitute for independent thinking.
OK. Thanks Jennifer.
But Graham’s comment supports my point about reviewing relevant parameters. ie to contradict Beattie’s claim, Jennifer would need that 10 yr rolling average.
with those different definitions, we could refer to 3 different schools of experts. Perhaps Quiggin didn’t get in up to his elbows because there was no suggestion of an economically determined drought.
Re: drought relief to farmers – what definition of drought falls into the category of normal business risk?
Politely I beg to differ – like “climatology” being typically referred to as the last 30 years of climate data or 1960 to 1990 – drought depends on your definition. It’s only a definition. State and Federal governments wish to define drought to delineate “exceptional” or rare events that would only occur a few times per century and might be difficult for average risk management to cope with.
You will get various definitions of drought depending on who you talk to with what end in mind. The notion of 1 in 20 or percentile 5 – the worst 5% of years is common.
You can define drought in terms of rainfall, stream flows, pasture growth, wheat yields. You can have “protein” droughts in grazing industry when nitrogen content is low and diluted by massive growth.
Rainfall is very simple and good guide for many purposes but not perfect. The US use a thing called the Palmer Index which we would find difficult to use because of inputs.
So drought ain’t that simple if you want to get right into it.
The issue here is whether Beattie et al are having a lend of you by stating that this drought is exceptional i.e. the worst or among the worst.
The engineers know how Wivenhoe and Somerset respond. They know how the rainfall becomes runoff and stream flow into the dams. They know the patterns of water use over time. The most appropriate defintion of drought for the dam system under question IMHO is not rainfall – it is the pattern of storage under some defined level of extraction over the historical record. i.e. how many times would have this happened since rainfall records have occurred. Has this gone on longer and fallen deeper. if the answer is yes – it’s the worst !
There’s no trickery here folks – just maths or highest to lowest. Lesson one in stats 101.
One might also ponder why so many other storages in the SEQ inland region are also very low. Would make a mug punter think something is a foot broadly across the region.
Of course a separate question is to then note how often this sort of shortage would have occurred over that 120 years of data and whether we urbanites find that acceptable. If we don’t find it acceptable – it’s bigger dams, desal, or recycling, shower with a friend and get up the planners/pollies.
A further question is to do the analysis with a population estimate in 10 and 20 years time. But then you’ll have interconnecting pipelines – so you will have to modle the entire system from Mary River to the Surfers Parasite.
Then you might bung in a climate change scenario or six.
Who’d be a water planner !
Jen – make the phone call and find out. Get beyond the simplistic rainfall chart or stay confused.
P.S. Graham did I say I was anti-dam or anti-Wolfdene?
Beattie defines drought as below average rainfall and says that SEQ has the worst 10 year period in history.
However the govts own experts disagree with this statement and believe that the federation drought to be the worst.
Should not the onus of proof be on be Beattie eh Pixxy?
How was the Federation drought worst Rog? Says who? For the nation broadly or SEQ’s current dams (had they been built by say 1890 and Brisvegas being what it is today).
“and I would have thought that the Mann et al and before hdebacle would have shown him that appeal to authority is a poor subsitute for independent thinking.”
I would have thought it shows the dangers of allowing politically motivated hacks like Joe Barton (relying on McKitrick and McIntyre who are in the same class) to substitute their policy preferences for science.
Honestly, the sooner you guys realise that relying on astrologers, science fiction writers, retired mining executives and others whose sole qualification is an axe to grind is a recipe for self-deception, the sooner you’ll come close to getting things right.
As an outdoor(Victorian) worker I used to allow for around 10 days a year when I couldn’t work due to rain. So far this year I have lost 2 hours.The noticable difference has been in the volume of rain. Instead of rain events(1-2days of rain) we seem to get showers (often at night)
Good for outdoor workers but not good for run off into the dams.
P.s. John Quiggin Please stay off the red wine until a little later in the evening. Your usual shrill tone is getting worse!
Luke, you are becoming tiresome. I don’t know weather you are a Water Resources spin doctor, or Beatttie apologist, but I must say, for them, you’re worth more money.
We know, & tried to tell you, that the rivers aren’t running. Despite your spin, rainfall has not changed much. A thunderstorm that drops 2″ in an hour is still, guess what? A thunder storm, that drops 2″ in an hour.
I am on the lower Albert River. 15/20 years ago, a 2″ thundrestorm in Lamington National Park area would have my river pump under 10 Ft of water the next afternoon, if I did not get a warning from up there. Today, the network is starting to break down, because we just don’t require the warnings. The same rainfall does not result in a fresh in the river. It takes about 3 times as much rain to have any show up, as a fresh down here.
Ian has given a lot of info about vegetation thickening, & it seams to fit the bill here. Go up to Lamington, & have a look at the garbage. Its almost funny that the city sunday drivers are sold the idea that this rubbish is rainforest.
Further to my decade rainfall figures, it gets worse for the drought believers. The last 10 years have had 500mm more rain than the previous 10 years.
Graham, I’m sorry to have to refute your Wolfdene idea. My bottom paddock would have had a couple of feet of Wolfdene water over it, when the dam was full. Despite 4 years of excellent seasons, there has been very little run in the Albert, as mentioned above. The river has rarely been a meter deep, [by 3 or 4 meters wide], & has mostly had a flow of only a few centimeters by a couple of meters. The amount of inflow to a dan would have had trouble matching the evaporation, let alone provide usefull water to suburbia.
From our point of view, it has not stopped flowing for a few years. It used to stop flowing most years in late winter, early spring.
That probably says a great deal about the changes to the catchment.
“Shrill” is the greatest compliment that can be paid to anyone who defends reality nowadays. I’m glad to share this epithet with Paul Krugman.
If the shoe fits….
The term “shrill” can be used as an insulting descriptive, used in the context of someone who is often angry and rude.
(From you beloved wiki)
John, you just appear to be trolling. Abuse of people who insist on standards of proof is not appropriate in someone who claims to be an academic. For what it’s worth I’ve never had a problem with the AGW thesis in its broad statement. But I do have a problem with many of the shills who’ve gathered around it. And likewise on the other side of the argument.
Luke, I never said you were anti-Wolfdene, just that the water infrastructure if it had been built should have alleviated the current situation. My point – the drought is not an effect of natural shortage, but man-made failure to capture the water, which is what you appear to be trying to deny.
But perhaps the reason we haven’t built any dams is because Beattie and others uncritically bought the claims that a small warming in the sea temperature was going to bring more frequent and more severe cyclones further south, so we didn’t need to worry that the dams were running down.
It’s reasonable to assume that more energy in the system should lead to more energetic circulation, but everything is more complicated than you think. As this discussion about drought is proving.
Graham – 2 issues (a) if you want to argue that we should have more buffering capacity (i.e. more dams) to withstand droughts that’s OK – there’s a cost to that , an opportunity cost for say spending that money on health/roads/education/shooting up Iraq, and a calcuable risk to the delivery of water. (b) I think you’ll find that the current status of the Wivenhoe storage systems is now exceeding the Federation drought for inflows in the Brisbane catchment and is the worst surface water drought we could have in our historical record. The noise here about rainfall records is wrong and spurious IMHO. Now you can be unhappy about that fact and think we should have more capacity and no restrictions but that is another argument. You could argue that the government has the wrong risk profile for our water supply and is asleep at the wheel. But that’s another issue to the topic Jen has posted. Of course given the furore at building any dams even in drought – do you think they’re courageous enough to act without an actual crisis. The crisis we had to have. See what the public opinion would be on damming the Mary if Wivenhoe was full.
There’s a fun graphic called the hydro-illogical cycle. (not the hydrological cycle). You start off in good seasons and birds singing and grass green; things start to turn brown and it goes through various stages on the clock to extreme drought. Just before it rains again we have all the usuals come out of the woodwork – cloud seeding, Bradfield Scheme, diverting the Clarence, pipelines to the Ord etc, government promises. Then it rains and all is forgotten till next time. We get back to so-called “normal” – whatever “normal” is, ever was, or is likely to be.
The phenomenon is international. Nobody cares about drought till you have one. Everybody wants it recognised as an act of God. But we could have made hay when the season were good and got much better prepared, invested in forecasting, built more storage. But nobody does. Politicians don’t, Govt bureaucracy doesn’t. Farmers don’t., Urbanites don’t. Research funders that could invest in drought preparedness don’t. International aid agencies don’t. We all don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.
That’s the true headline here. What relability do you all want. At what cost. What’s a fair cop. It is the worst the Brisbane catchment has been on record (minor stats fact for down the pub bets) – but we’ll all forget if it rains this summer and start hosing the driveway again.
On tropical cyclones do we have any evidence for more frequency or more southerly extent. All I have read is more storm intensity postulated from AGW (NOT frequency or geographic extent) and some evidence/debate that this is already happening to some degree.
Proabaly Beattie will be re elected, the drought will break with record floods..
Natch – if he’s elected he calls God on the red phone to arrange an early season cyclone which fills all SEQ storages overnight. Don’t elect him and we burn in hell for our sins.
Luke, Not necessarily burn in hell. There is another view around
“FILL WIVENHOE DAM – take the p1ss out of Beattie”
Classic !
Maybe rain sooner than that – check
http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec7.html
and then look at Tuesday – Thursday next week on
http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/aus.vv.html
Of course this changes to reflect the data flow, so could disappear before then
Jeez Bealey – this is pretty intellectual for this blog. u r a dark horse.
Wahahahah u dont kno who this is!! ur website sucks!! hahhaahaahaahahahahahahahah
Wahahahah u dont kno who this is!! ur website
s u c k s!! hahhaahaahaahahahahahahahah
Your data suggests this thing called ” global warming” is crap; do you agree or not.
Sorry to go back off topic to cyclones again but…
I read a recent Australian paper on cyclones and hurricanes, and it made the interesting point that Australia has a pronounced 10 year cyclone weather cycle. That is that we have 10 years with few cyclones, followed by 10 years of lots of cyclones. Apparently we’re entering the 10 year period of lots of cyclones. That’s quite scary by itself, but the other evidence of increased intensity due to warmer temperatures is a concern. Therefore hasbeen, your personal experience of three years with minimal cyclone activity is hardly evidence that cyclones are getting more mild or less frequent. You would have to compare two decades of high activity to get an accurate comparison.
I know its an easy mental trap to fall into, but just because your experience differs from the average, it doesn’t mean that the average is wrong. the average over a long period of time or over a large area is what is important in measuring the major trends, and there will be plenty of people who have it worse or better than the average.
It’s not OK in my opinion to get to a situation where Brisbane has to be hit by a cyclone every few years to alleviate water shortages. It’s too hit and miss. And what are we going to do for water in the next ten year period of reduced cyclone activity starting in around 2016?
If you ask me the best thing we can do about the weather is to sit back and talk about, and then just hope that it will rain????? Some of you people next time you go to the bathroom and look in the mirror stand their for ten minutes and take a good hard look at yourself!!!!