THE Carbon Sense Coalition today accused Western Governments of massive waste of community savings on frivolous climate “research” and alternative energy toys while neglecting the infrastructure needed to maintain sustainable societies in the face of an unknown climate future.
The Chairman of Carbon Sense, Mr Viv Forbes, said that none of the massive government climate spending has produced anything of long term use to the people paying their bills.
“The US government spends over two thousand million dollars per year on “climate research” but the recipients were completely unable to forecast the frigid winter they are now suffering. That money would be better spent on snow ploughs and highway improvements.
“Australian governments are spending at least eight hundred million dollars per year on “climate research”, but were unable to forecast the massive floods now affecting much of Australia. That money would have been better spent on water storage and flood-proofing roads, bridges and airports.
“The UK Government plans to spend one thousand million pounds on carbon capture and burial schemes and untold billions on wind power subsidies, but wind provided almost zero power when needed in the recent freeze. In places, the wind towers actually consumed electricity to protect them from frost damage. UK residents would have been better off had all of that money been spent on reliable power sources and snow-proof infrastructure.
“It is time for all western politicians to recognise climate reality. Changing climate and weather extremes are enduring features of earth’s history. This reality exists even if not one elected member recognises it.
“Change is what climate does – floods or droughts, stinking hot or snow storms, stilly nights or violent hurricanes.
“The cycles of ice age extinctions and verdant warm eras are well recorded in earth history. Only 17,000 years ago, much of the northern hemisphere was covered in ice and sea levels were 130m lower. Then followed a long warm period with several peaks hotter than today. This time of warm abundance was terminated by a sudden return of the cold.
“But good times returned with the Roman Warming. It was not Roman use of coal which caused the warming and no carbon tax triggered the lethal Dark Ages cooling which followed.
“Then, with no help from man’s carbon dioxide, earth recovered into the Medieval Warming Period but soon slipped back into the bitter Little Ice Age that helped defeat Napoleon’s Grand Army in Russia.
“Finally, well before man’s engines and smelters became numerous, the Modern Warming started.
“Unfortunately, this warming too will end when the earth, moon, sun and stars command. Taxing carbon to subsidise green playthings will not stop the floods, prevent the snow or change future climate.
“Man must do what every one of our ancestors did – adapt to climate change or suffer the consequences.”
Stop Press: Thanks to all the people who have asked how we are faring in the great floods of 2011. We live on high ground so are safe from flood waters. The rain has filled all dams (and burst one), replenished underground water and soaked the soils. But on the flood plains in the valley, people have been washed away and drowned and tremendous damage has been done to towns, houses and properties and roads are badly eroded. Farm animals and wildlife are suffering from hunger and exposure. Weak ones will die unless we see some sun soon.
Viv & Judy Forbes, Rosewood, Brisbane Valley
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Viv has written a column that is precisely true historically and probably understates the wasteful, useless expenditure on this mad new religion.
Adaptation is the only solution and certainly money spent on proper scientific research will always return the most benifit in the future through invention and new technology.
Even if all developed countries followed Kyoto 1 to the letter it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference ( if you’re a believer) to the climate over the next 30 years or to sea levels or ocean heat, droughts or floods, Arctic ice, west Antarctica, MDB, Kakadu, GBR etc, etc.
A new agreement like Kyoto 2 will just waste more money at a faster pace and will starve new research spending and building of new infrastructure that will help every country ( rich or poor) in the future.
For climate adaptation I favour:
More coal, cheaper electricity, human comfort as a priority, more and cheaper water, shaping the land for human use, promoting true, non-corporate, capitalism based on personal risk.
The consequent global expansion of middle classes will cause global population reduction without mass deaths, but the Left should look on the bright side. There will be heaps of people rich enough to be socialists.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/all_you_need_to_know/
This is an absolute hoot
Unfortunately its 6min long which is beyond the attention span of most peope involved in alarmism climataria, and their mouth pieces like Hamilton and Flannery et al
This is great!
It is so refreshing to see some common sense in print.
We need the science and we need the technology and we need to be aware that we do influence our environment.
It is even commendable to be aware that man is probably a pollutant in some ways.
But hey!
We are part of the environment too!
Not only that, we have to get over ourselves and realise that we have already interferred and we can’t go backwards.
We can however look forward and do what we can to fix up our worst mistakes and also do our best to protect ourselves from the next onslaught that nature decides to throw at us.
We have to learn lessons and then decide to be better.
We achieve nothing by preaching doom and gloom.
We achieve nothing by kicking ourselves around over and over again for our past errors.
And….we cannot go backwards. That is just plain dumb!
We would do well to spend some of those frightening amounts of money on some practical and progressive projects that will contribute to helping to protect us all in the future.
We will get a much better return on our investment.
We also shouldn’t forget that we need our scientists, they are often just misdirected because of the way they are funded.
Science and technology will probably yield the best answers if given a proper chance. It has in the past.
Thanks for this post Jennifer.
I hope everyone in QLD are staying safe and that the cleanup is going OK for those who can start to do that.
Malcolm as stupid as that girl sounds in the video I still think she does a better job explaining this mad cult than Flannery, Wong, Gore etc.
But very funny, I must agree.
Some interesting info on the Qld floods and particularly the tragedy of Toowoomba.
Some of the Csiro projections for future rainfall and Beattie’s acceptance of the science( ?) should be questioned by a future enquiry.
The blind stupidity using up and constricting a flood plain just because it looked nice is a disgrace.
An engineer asked them to use much larger pipes but was ignored, probably because this type of rainfall wasn’t supposed to happen anymore in the future.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/now_30_believed_dead/#commentsmore
Adaptation is the only solution, which is where Carter’s Plan B comes into fruition, because ‘those that forget the past are condemned to repeat it’.
Neville – would that be CSIRO’s work on the danger of extreme rainfall events in SEQ. You utter moron. Let’s have an inquiry with you as star witness for the goons.
Bolt is basically an extreme rightist activist. But hey anyone with half a brain (not you Neville) knows that.
And what’s Carter’s Plan B – pffft ! (I’ve only been asking for a few years – Cohers has had plenty of time -but nothing – nadda – nyet)
I assume Viv would disapprove of this research
From a recent Qld Govt summary of the science.
Climate change is also likely to affect extreme
rainfall in south-east Queensland (Abbs et al.
2007). Projections indicate an increase in two-hour,
24-hour and 72-hour extreme rainfall events for
large areas of south-east Queensland, especially
in the McPherson and Great Dividing ranges, west
of Brisbane and the Gold Coast. For example, Abbs
et al. (2007) found that under the A2 emissions
scenario, extreme rainfall intensity averaged over
the Gold Coast sub-region is projected to increase
by 48 per cent for a two-hour event, 16 per cent for
a 24-hour event and 14 per cent for a 72-hour event
by 2070. Therefore despite a projected decrease in
rainfall across most of Queensland, the projected
increase in rainfall intensity could result in more
flooding events.
It is massive hypocrisy by the sceptics to pretend this work has not happened.
that ‘recent report’ Luke is referring to is at this link
http://www.climatechange.qld.gov.au/pdf/climate-change-in-queensland-2010.pdf
It carries this disclaimer on page 2
This document has been prepared with all due diligence and care, based on the best available information at the
time of publication. The department holds no responsibility for any errors or omissions within this document. Any
decisions made by other parties based on this document are solely the responsibility of those parties. Information
contained in this document is from a number of sources and, as such, does not necessarily represent government
or departmental policy.
If the projections are so certain why the disclaimer?
“It is massive hypocrisy by the sceptics to pretend this work has not happened.”
My god you are a jerk!!
This is a standard flooding event in SE Queensland accompanied by a large La Nina and a negative Indian Dipole event to make it worse.
Does your pathetic toy computer prediction also account for the flooding in Carnarvon?.
http://www.marine.csiro.au/~lband/web_point/
note where the warm water is and where the floods are!!
The 1841 flood reached 21.3m at Ipswich – this one reached 19.3m
The 1841 flood reached 8.43m at Brisbane – this one reached 4.45m
was it climate change that caused the 1841 flood Luke?
I see that not only do they insert the usual lawyers cop out, but use the words Climate Change, which everyman and is dog knows is being done quite deliberately to ensure that the public is suitably mislead into assuming that all change is because of manmade emmissions
That means the document begins on the basis of a gross and deliberate misrepresentation goes downhill from there.
When the so called climate scientists are a party to that sort of thing, they are no different to used car salesman.
The cop out and the blatant misrepresentation are all part of the same package.
Luke, dear fellow,
let’s pretend that the introduction of a Carbon tax (and how I hate that term. It’s Carbon Dioxide) will go a significant way towards reducing the emissions of that CO2, which are (supposedly) the root cause of all this Global Warming/Climate Change, that CO2 making up 0.039% of the total Atmosphere.
Australia currently burns 90 Million tons of coal just for coal fired power plants alone. Each one ton of coal burned produces 2.86 tons of CO2, giving an emission of 260 million tons of CO2. Add on the emissions from natural gas fired plants at the rate of 122 pounds per mcf, and the total now becomes 310 million tons of CO2, just for electrical power production.
That power sector makes up one third of all emissions so the total now becomes 1.04 Billion tons of CO2 each year.
At the preferred Garnaut cost imposition of $26 per ton, then the amount raised by the government introducing this iniquitous new and huge tax becomes $27 Billion each and every year.
Those coal fired plants just cannot wind back on the amount of coal they burn, so those emissions will, er, just stay the same.
So the tax does not reduce emissions. All it does is raise money for the Government. Perhaps they might spend (a tiny portion of) that money to construct renewable power plants. Even $27 Billion would not go very far towards even making the most minimal of dents in that coal fired power, and those renewables operate at the absolute best of supplying power for only 25 to 30% of the time, while coal fired power does it at 100% of the time. Those renewables will take ten years in the planning and construction before they deliver power.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with reducing CO2 emissions as Australia’s emissions are around 1.2% of the World emissions, and any tiny reduction as a result ….. (er, no reductions)
is a tiny fraction of 1.2% and will do absolutely nothing, even here in Australia, as overall CO2 content is the same all across the Planet.
This, Luke dear fellow, is only about the money.
Jen, sorry to take so much space here with this.
Tony.
Plan B is all about preparedness, the warmists have failed.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/alarming-report-on-risks-covered-up/story-e6frg6nf-1225986634328
A Royal Commission should see the end of tom foolery.
Luke is starting to get a little bit upset it seems.
I listened to a climate scientist from the csiro on the country hour (Abc Vic) a couple of days ago try to explain that Australia would receive less rain into the future because of AGW.
His name was Barry Hunt but he didn’t sound very convincing or very convinced of the tale he was telling.
So far most of Australia has certainly received more rainfall in the last 55 years than the previous 55 years. The SW tip of WA and Tassie are probably the only exceptions, with Vic and SE Aust about line ball.
BTW I consider Bolt to be the best journalist we have in Australia and to see him described as extreme right has to be a sick joke.
He’s like me he despises any kind of totalitarianism or group think, but that’s why he upsets these types of fools that promote and foster this type of blind extremism.
Good find,ElGordo.
So you can see,there is no lack of good advice from hydrologists,engineers and meteorologists.
Just too many gung-ho developers and their tame councils.I wonder how many of these people are ‘warmists’?
JohnS, can we make it clear that no meteo/climate experts say AGW ’caused’ this flood or that fire? That strawman is a little tatty now.
The work is suggesting that AGW is ‘exacerbating’ or potentiating events. Don’t pretend the research suggests otherwise.
one of the warmer sites had a recent post about the report Luke is talking about; have a read http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/queensland-floods-are-consistent-with-climate-change-predictions/
they do get heated over there
and this is interesting for historical purposes http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_reports/brisbane_jan1974.pdf
More from Bolt on the latest floods and droughts and the usual stupidity from the Karoly jitterbug. A good response by Stewart Franks to the CAGW fool .
There is a small graph showing the historical Brisbane floods and of course 1974 wasn’t even the highest as has been pointed out by the more sane contributors to this blog.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/karolys_global_warming_wetter_drier_worse_better_whatever/
Poly – I’m sorry but Karoly did – see Neville’s post to Andrew Bolt!
Gore’s response to the Qld floods, what a genuine nutter.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/services_offered/
Neviile – what a hoot – you drongos were lording Barry Hunt as one of your own here only 2 years ago – woo hoo. As for less than 1974 etc – yes pretty good flood for not being associated with a cyclone eh? THE POINT and Franks an arch sceptic should know better.
And like a denialist dog returning to his vomit you continue to use whole of nation rainfall stats numbers.
John Sayers – I am simply putting the sword to the DISINFORMATION that science has not considered increased flooding and extreme events. Somehow matey I think they may know about La Nina, IOD and PDO – don’t be so patently silly. It’s the same scientists !
Flannery is not a climate scientist.
TonyfromOz -thanks for your contribution. I am well aware of Australias’s CO2 emission contribution. However I am not advocating here for a carbon tax or Kyoto – simply discussing the climate science. Neville will rant how gutless it is not to have a “solution” to a grand challenge problem but that does not change the climate science.
The Wally Lewis statue outside Suncorp Stadium has had a pair of goggles and snorkel added 🙂
“It is massive hypocrisy by the sceptics to pretend this work has not happened.”
It’s also massive hpocrisy to claim that increased rainfall has been included in any part of the alarmists “Plan A”.
And, Luke you’re not seriously claiming that Plan A will work, are you? Impoverishing the first world with expensive, non-performing energy systems when there is ever increasing demand.
Remember Kyoto? According to the models if all 186 countries did as required the temperature would mitigate by 0.05 c by 2050.
But Plan A can’t work anyway for lots of reasons that even an alarmist like you would understand.
Plan B [as if I need to spell out the simple logic] is simply to adapt as, if and when. Simply risk management.
When we don’t know enough about climate to know what is causing that possible fraction of change that is outside the natural variation, to spend trillions on that alone is lunatic.
With Plan B at least we are appraising the whole problem and where it occurs and not trying to apportion blame for some uncontrollable, unknowable, part.
sure: It’s the same scientists !
Yet Stewart Franks, another reputable environmental scientist specialising in east coast weather patterns says that CO2 and AGW has nothing to do with the current floods and rainfall.
here’s waht he wrote to Karoly:
David
Your comments on the role of CO2 in the Qld floods are speculative at best, immensely damaging at worst.
When will you accept that CO2 is not the answer to everything? When will you decline an interview for the lack of your insight?
Have you not learnt from your physically incorrect speculation about temperature and evaporation during the MDB drought? Do you have no shame to have confused cause and effect in such a brazen and public manner?
Is it enough for you that your pronouncements sound correct, irrespective of science? Have you learnt nothing?
You are arguably the best example of the corruption of the IPCC process, and the bullshit that academia has sunk to.
Shame on you
Stewart
Stewart Franks is strawmanning Karoly. Karoly has not said that ‘CO2 is the answer to everything’ in his positions on AGW,so we have yet another example of a decision to misrepresent a perceived opponents position without actually accurately acknowledging their argument.. Franks also tries to promote one of his co-authored papers on the MDB drought,without informing us that its findings are flawed by methodological errors.
Bolt flaps his hands and tries to suggest underlying contradictions in projections..and just reveals his contempt for the fair handling of the subject matter. How surprising.
Luke,
That is the whole point!
We have governments lining up to create a huge new revenue source based on C02 emissions and accompanying AGW theory.
As Tony says, there will be little to no change in emissions and no return on our investment.
We are all interested in climate science, that’s why we comment.
By all means continue the research.
BUT!
Please don’t charge us taxes and rejig our businesses and take our water and shut down our industries until the science is conclusive.
I see that as a regressive and negative mind set and also very dangerous.
Our highly variable and unpredictable climate should have taught us some valuable lessons in the last decade.
The number one lesson is that we need to learn to adapt better to the extremes that get thrown at us.
The number two lesson is that even though our scientists are starting to recognise patterns, they have not cracked the magic code and we have wasted a lot of money letting them pretend that they have.
The precious resource water that everyone was arguing about 12 months ago, can’t be given away at the moment!
What a pity we haven’t got more set ups like Wivenhoe Dam all over this land.
What a pity we haven’t done more about conservation, diversion and storage.
And don’t forget…of course building dams and diverting water has consequences. Anything we do will have consequences.
To do nothing will have far greater consequences.
If the Dutch and the middle eastern nations can do it, then why can’t we?
I’m also entirely sick of the evaporation excuse…gee whiz….bloody stuff evaporates anyway all the time. That’s part of the cycle of water. If you have a swimming pool or a fish pond or a duck pond in your back yard, it evaporates there too! It just does that! It also evaporates or transpirates (same thing eventually) through trees and grass and crops and out your own sweat glands!
So what if we lose a percentage to evaporation? It’s still better than having none at all.
What is it that we really want to achieve anyway?
Why would we want to help nature? “Mother Nature” has just demonstrated in a spectacular fashion that she couldn’t give a flying rip about any of us! Even the climate scientists.
We need to learn to keep ourselves safe and productive.
We need to learn some lessons!
We need to adapt.
This letter in today’s Sydney Morning Herald is also of relevance:
Kevin Orr (Letters, January 12) attempts to link the floods with global warming, however 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.
Marc Hendrickx
“Franks also tries to promote one of his co-authored papers on the MDB drought,without informing us that its findings are flawed by methodological errors.”
exactly where does he promote his MDB paper in either article?
Sorry,John,I’ve caught your disease,it’s true that Franks does not explicitly cite his MDB paper….Franks touts his publication record and raises the chicken/egg issue of evaporation/temperature relationships,which was central to his flawed paper. Worse than this,this has nothing to do with what Karoly actually has to say in the article that so offends Franks.
El Gordo – for heavens sake – Franks doesn’t have a monopoly on decadal variability. Most of the research on La Nina, IPO, PDO has been done by those that you mock e.g. BoM, CSIRO, Hadley etc. “Their practical advice” pffft !
Like what? Plan B – ROFL !
So Debbie – want it both ways. You lot want to stop freshwater going into Lake Alexandrina due to the wastage from evaporation. And so now you’d like to build shallow storages regardless of evaporation rates? hmmmm
Polyaulux – I assume you’re referring to this affair http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/sunshine-claim-clouded-by-dispute/story-e6frgcjx-1225859043744
EL Gordo ,the link between AGW and extreme events is simply the basic physics of a warming atmosphere potentially holding more moisture which can then be available to enhance the intensity of already intense events. It’s a simple and as complicated as that. This matter of physics is not dismissed by simply claiming that we have recorded intense events for as long as we have been observing weather. Nobody disputes those observations.
Marc Hendrickx is right to point out that Kevin Orr’s [brief,speculative] letter in the SMH is factually wrong.
However,the rest of his letter is simply silly,and ultimately offensive. As Luke notes,Franks et al have little to add to the literature on an already well observed phenomenon,and to suggest or hint that information of the kind in the Franks paper has been ignored or is unavailable is just wrong.
Can Hendrickx be genuinely unaware of mainstream meteorology’s many announcements on the onset, progress and possible outcomes of this La Nina? And is he unaware of studies and work done in the wake of 1974 to improve our resilience? Failure by local and state government to act on all and every advice is not evidence that such advice does not exist.
Once again,Hendrickx is peddling the falsehood that in incorporating AGW into planning,we have ignored return rates of extreme weather,as though we cannot multi-task,and as though somehow these things exclude the possibility of each other. These accusations are breaking out like a rash,and no one has produced a skerrick of hard evidence to back them.
The Abbs et al paper to which Luke refers is basically computer modelling
so the point is what is fed into the computer has to reflect the variability of the climate and computer modelling has been shown to not be able to hindcast so why should it be assumed to forecast correctly
Here’s the name of the paper Abbs, D., McInnes, K., Rafter, T. (2007). The Impact of Climate Change on Extreme
Rainfall and Coastal Sea Levels over South-East Queensland, Part 2: A High-
Resolution Modelling Study of the Effect of Climate Change on the Intensity of
extreme Rainfall Events. CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research,
Aspendale, Victoria, Australia
and here’s a paper referring to and relying on it
Here’s a critique (peer reviewed paper) on WUWT about climate models
http://www.bee.qut.edu.au/documents/research/students/ConfirmationSM.pdf
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/05/new-peer-reviewed-paper-shows-just-how-bad-the-climate-models-are/
the question is not so much whether GCMs can produce credible estimates of future climate, but whether climate is at all predictable in deterministic terms
are GCMs really reliable – don’t know; they haven’t been able to hindcast so why should we assume they are able to forecast
Tony from Oz, I see the Bruce Highway is about to reopen, good news for your town; thank you for all your posts from ROckhampton
and for the photos
here’s Tony’s latest
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/rockhampton-flood-crisis-the-fitzroy-river-basin/
Not the point Val – the point being the promulgated myth that AGW research only infers ongoing drought.
And sorry Val – they’re not predictions. They’re tools for explorations of possibilities. Gold Coast has a lot of exposure in their town planning and flood management.
And Val don’t you find it curious that the sceptics are so keen to fit Flannery out as some sort of scape-goat for recent flooding, while ignoring all the other science. Hence our umbrage and bad manners.
I’ve just heard on Today Tonight that AAMI are rejecting claims in Emerald for Riverine Runoff – that is it’s not covered in the usual flood cover policy
I made this comment on Warwick Hughes blog today
AND I think this article makes sense http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/flood-insurance-must-be-accessible-to-all/story-e6frg6zo-1225986572360
I know some insurers now include flood insurance automatically with home replacement and contents insurance (NRMA & SUNCORP for example) but I’ve heard of at least one business in Tamworth and there are possibly others who have no flood insurance (covering stock and machinery) and it would make sense to have this included in all business policies as a matter of course
AND now that I’ve heard about AAMI and their declining of riverine runoff under a home and contents policy which includes flood cover my comment applies to home and contents policies as well
Not the point Luke you referred to projections not predictions and so do I refer to projections not predictions
the question is not so much whether GCMs can produce credible estimates of future climate, but whether climate is at all predictable in deterministic terms
are GCMs really reliable – don’t know; they haven’t been able to hindcast so why should we assume they are able to forecast
and did I refer to Flannery; I don’t think I did so why the umbrage and bad manners (your wording)
and there have been worse floods in the past (viz the flood guages in the Brisbane River and in the Fitzroy River) so where’s the evidence that this is AGW related? In the 1970’s I understand the alarm was that the planet was going back into a Little Ice Age
Poly asks: ‘Can Hendrickx be genuinely unaware of mainstream meteorology’s many announcements on the onset, progress and possible outcomes of this La Nina?’
Don’t know, but when it comes to ENSO it’s plain to see that BOM only sees a few months ahead. With a large volume of sub-surface water in the eastern Pacific (4 °C cooler than normal for this time of the year) we can expect a double dip La Nina.
It’s up on the fridge, Luke.
Good to see El Gordo – no retrospective tweaking of your forecast now !
“Anticipating Failure
I think the failures of Copenhagen and Cancun are going to be the start of a series of failures, though, hopefully not expensive ones. There will be two main classes of failure, but the root cause will be the same. The two failures will be first, ineffectual, expensive “feel-good” or moral “rent-seeking” projects, and the other will be continued failure to reach a binding substantive agreement. Over at Dr. Curry’s blog , they are looking at the issue of defining the relevance of practitioner and other forms of knowledge. There is an error by some on either side with equating problems as part of good versus bad on a singular aspect of the issue. I will make the argument it is systemic, and pervading, and such discussions will not be fruitful since they are misidentifying the problem.”
And more of interest at
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/354/
As much as it would always be nice to have it both ways Luke, that is not why “us lot” want to stop fresh water going into Lake Alexandrina.
I’m sure you have read Jennifer’s research?
Neither did I say we should disregard evaporation rates. My point was there needs to be a sensible balance and an understanding that water evaporates everywhere, that’s what it is supposed to do. It even evaporates off you.
I would add that the wastage from evaporation in the Lake Alexandrina instance is pure wastage. There is no good return on the water investment and there is plenty of science and research to suggest that there is no good return for the environment either. Pretty much a lose/lose scenario.
Shallow storages and diversions along the rivers will also lose through evaporation if they are not used first in the hot months. That is more to do with good management.
As I said before, if the Dutch and the Middle East can do it successfully, why can’t we?
I also noticed that you didn’t comment on the main point of my last post?
The evaporation comment was definitely the sub plot.
here’s the history of the brisbane flooding (thanks to John Sayer)
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml
where was AGW during all those previous floods?
Neville Nicholls can’t find any scientific connection between AGW and this intense La Nina.
“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.”
Can’t find that damn signal, but I’m sure it’s here somewhere.
here’s some interesting stats (from WUWT thanks to Jimbo)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/13/and-you-knew-it-would-be-said-oz-floods-due-to-global-warming/#more-31559
Jimbo says:
January 13, 2011 at 1:19 am
Apparently the worst floods in Brisbane’s history occurred in 1893. Brisbane has the longest complete record for floods. I stand to be corrected though. ;>)
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml
Flood history in Australia
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/flood.htm
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/index.shtml
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/c20thc/flood3.htm
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/index.shtml
Drought history in Australia
http://home.iprimus.com.au/foo7/droughthistory.html
http://www.warwickhughes.com/drought/
We can expect a double dip or even a triple now and then,and this seems as good a chance as any,but it’s still not utterly predictable,just possible. The NCEP CFS model ensemble favors La Nina through NH winter so you’re in good company, El G.
To continue on Hendrickx,what is he actually trying to say? That we don’t now attempt to design our infrastructure to survive extreme events? Or that we should be able to pinpoint extreme rainfall events to the day and location,or sustained wet months, well in advance? How does the Franks article materially advance that prospect?
If it’s about improving infrastructure resilience,well,that’s a given. But we are dealing from a dodgy hand,with the legacy of generations of expedient/ad hoc decision making underlying our choices for town location and design,and it takes generations to improve,whatever the weather.
Luke, I’ve emailed suggested changes to your note … please check your emails.
Val that historical info from BOM is very interesting and seems to show the chaotic nature of flooding episodes in Brisbane and Ipswich.
In the years between 1887 to 1898 there were five major floods at Brisbane and Ipswich.
I’ll have to look up la nina events and the C/phase IPO to see whether they generally coincide with those dates.
However I’m sure that those incredible flood years were entirely natural just like the 1974 and 2011 floods.
This Long Paddock chart shows that there was a short cool phase IPO and la ninas during those flood years. See bottom of chart for Enso( spikes) and IPO ( smoothed curves).
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/products/pdf/AustraliasVariableRainfall_LowRes.pdf
They have found a cooling trend in the USA.
http://sbvor.blogspot.com/2011/01/december-update-current-usa-cooling.html
Poly, I will look up the Stewart Franks et al. paper on Climate Variability and discover the truth of the matter.
It’s okay, nothing to be alarmed about, it’s just a blueprint for Plan B.
http://www.ag.gov.au/www/emaweb/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(99292794923AE8E7CBABC6FB71541EE1)~Climate+variability+in+the+land+of+fire+and+flooding+rain.pdf/$file/Climate+variability+in+the+land+of+fire+and+flooding+rain.pdf
Neville,it’s all ‘natural’. Changes to weather tendencies will only manifest themselves ‘naturally’ as more weather. Adding a big slug of CO2 is not so natural,in terms of precedent or rate. It’ll make the global lower troposphere and ocean rapidly[geologically] or slowly [anthropically] warmer. That looks like making the weather,already highly variable, a bit punchier at times,and the latitudinal norms a little different. Is that so unreasonable?
Compare 1892-1893 to 1973-1974 on the Long Paddock graphic,Neville. The wettest ever period in SE Qld 1893 coincided with with generally dry conditions elsewhere in Australia, while the second wettest in SE Qld coincided with generally wet conditions elsewhere. It’s that ‘naturally’ variable even between pos IPO/pos ENSO synchronous years.,and none of it explains the century scale temperature trend,while influencing its wobbles.
El Gordo – sigh – and the SPOTA system at Long Paddock has had a long lead seasonal rainfall forecats based on novel ENSO and IPO SST gradients for years. Franks needs to keep up.
Get yourself subscribed to SPOTA-1. !! (and put that on your fridge too)
Poly I’m in a hurry just a quick response.
Have you looked at the Argo data lately re ocean heat?
I hope that the 400 or so souls trapped in the ” ice free” Othotsk Sea in 2 metres, and growing, ice, realise that all they have to do is read the learned reports on Ocean temps and know that they are safe.
At the moment they have yet to gather their trapped collection of ice breakers and factory ships in one area , before attempting an escape.
Weather is getting worse , there are worries about fuel levels in the 2 icebreakers, visibility is poor. These are not toys – a 34,000 tonne factory ship, 2 14,000 tonne icebreakers ( one sent to rescue the other), a large supply ship.
Apparently air evacuation , in the conditions is not an immediate option.
This could turn into a real tragedy. Question is . Why on Earth were they there?
Because of the size of the fishing operation maybe it was working on Corporate instructions ?
One of the trapped ships is a re-supply ship. Were they intending to spend the winter there?
Russian scientists have been very critical of IPCC etc ., in fact a Govt inspired conference recently warned the Russia Govt of severe winters for the next 15 years and advised them to postpone Polar resource development.
Are city people in skyscrapers in Russia as thick as some here?