Fun Facts About Extreme Weather
US Tornadoes at 60-year low.
US Hurricanes at 30-year low.
No unusual drought or flood activity in recent decades compared to last 100 years.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/sotc/drought/2012/13/wetdry-bar-mod-110-00-190001-201212.gif
Maybe the severe weather problem is outside the US because it sure as hell isn’t inside the US.
and that’s relevant to this;
” increased heavy rainfall events and flooding in exactly the area where this record rainfall event occurred.”
How?
Not much. I’m talking a specific location, with a specific forecast about increased heavy rainfall events and flooding in this location, and you give me Aus wide averages.
Getting back to the specifics – this particular rainfall event has a recurrence interval of 500-1000 years in some areas.
Interesting, huh? (RPJ wasn’t interested either – he had a meme to spread).
Again – the CSIRO projections were based on rainfall data from the 1950′s and not model projections. The regional rainfalls were simply projected forward.
There is quite a difference if you look at all of the record. It was simply misguided based on what we already knew about multi-decadal rainfall regimes in northern and eastern Australia. The intense dry – more related to the IOD than ENSO at that time – was the impetus to wild claims and quiet panic.
The drought response included planning for an additional dam – although this was in a quite shallow and permeable site. Not all that suitable and not in the Brisbane catchment at all. It also included desalination and reverse osmosis of sewage to be pumped a couple of hundred km to a dam for recirculation. Much of this was quite over the top as a result of capture by suppliers and a liking for mega engineering. Diversity in your water supply is not a bad idea but not at such absurd expense. I would have used a dozen smaller desalination units and injected it straight into the urban distribution system.
The 2010/11 floods were quite widespread over much of Queensland and not just Brisbane. In Brisbane the level of the dam at any time is quite immaterial to the level of a major flood downstream. In major floods detention storage makes very little difference. What makes a difference is the curtailment of development in the flood plain. A sensible planning policy in place for decades elsewhere. I worked as a flooding consultant for Brisbane City Council in 2007 – and was dismayed by the amount of development in the floodplain.
With respect to Bart – the term talking through your hat inevitably comes to mind.
I assume your rainfall projection covered much of Queensland.
Again – predicting rainfall somewhere in the state that is within the limits of natural variability is not all that impressive.
A hard rains gunna fall? Yeah sure.
Rainfall intensity has not increased and neither have totals. For God’s sake – I predicted the drought would break – in print – back in 2005. But that was based on actual science.
There clearly is a coordinated attack from the top going on right now aimed at moving the climate agenda of the administration. cif. policy paper on under AAAS banner on needing to take action now; the series of opinion briefs in Science magazine since Jan 2014, presence in the NYTs of Podesta making speeches. What is needed is: a well formed response in a high visibility OP-ED e.g., in the WSJ a) exposing this propaganda move b) countering with facts of what is capital S science, what is know, the uncertainty monster which needs to be taken into account in any new policy debate and unilateral moves that may be under consideration by the administration. Judith?
I agree that it could be little more than coincidence, but it’s notable that a very specific forecast for increased heavy rainfall events in the ranges in SEQ, were shortly followed by this extreme rainfall event.
Inquiring minds would consider this pertinent. I think it would be un-sceptical to dismiss it as nothing.
It is notable that Science magazine steered clear of mentioning, in this weeks issue of Science mag., the AAAS branded position paper endorsing urgent action on climate action. Judith?
Rainfall intensity has not increased – I would hesitate to ascribe increased intensity to AGW.
The heat at the surface of a planet, is connected to the heat of the planet all the way to it’s center. Because the cumulative total of the heat, when considered in it’s entirety, gravity in one direction is a balancing force, while pressure and heat outwards are the direct reverse to this reaction. This means to measure the average heat, of any given point in the sphere of the journey of that heat, one must be aware, in escalating proportion of all heat and pressure trapped underneath that point. Because at the end of the day, AND in the middle of the day, we know one thing for sure, for every single moment in time, the only immediate fluctuation to any temperature, anywhere on the globe, is the sun’s ability to “slow it down”, trap it. And only in it’s immediacy is it valid to evaluate the impact of CO2, because it can only ever have an immediate impact on earth, in recognition of the tide of back and forth balance of trapped heat, versus ability to trap it. it is traveling within an immediate feedback system.
“Ready to give those all up in the name of hardball capitalism?”
Yes.
There is a libertarian-leaning show on Fox Business News called The Independents. If you are tired of both Left and Right moralizing, the show is a breath of fresh air. The host is Lisa Kennedy Montgomery and she is quite a character.
http://video.foxbusiness.com/playlist/on-air-the-independents/
Tonight the topic was “climate change.” On the show was Bill Nye the Schism Guy, someone from one of Soros’ organizations, some others, and Marc Morano. Morano mentioned our illustrious hostess as a skeptical climate scientist who testifies for Congress.
Oh yeah, the Soros guy apparently got confused and said 97% of climate science papers support global warming. I’m guessing he meant 97% of scientists – but whatever – 97% of whatever by any other name is proof we will fry.
+10 for funny!
David Appell – I am paid by oil companies to eat food synthesized from petroleum. It’s quite tasty really.
I got the Akon/solar/Africa story there. Here is the clip.
Yes.
Easy to say. Trivial actually, because you know it won’t come true. The middle class likes all their tax deductions — their socialism — far too much to ever vote against it. Which is why they never do.
DA – taxes are the socialistic part, taking less taxes is therefore the negative of socialism.
I am paid by oil companies to eat food synthesized from petroleum.
No — it is the rest of the world, and the future, who is subsidizing your fossil fuel waste. Because you’re too cheap to pay for it yourself.
Rod Lambert on ‘Ends justify the means.’
‘Flood the airways and apply tactics advertisers have successfully
used for years.’
This from the past. “Ends justify the means.’ (
‘ The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success
unless one fundamental principle is born in mind, ‘said Joseph G,
‘it must conform to a few points and repeat them over and over.’
