In September, BOM issued this:

“The Australian rainfall outlook for the December quarter (October to December) favours wetter than average conditions over large parts of the continent, with strongest odds across northern Australia...

The October to December outlook is the result of warm conditions in the Indian Ocean and cool conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, both of which are associated with the current La Niña event.”

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/archive/rainfall/20100923.shtml

What happened was this:

http://tinyurl.com/6zvcf4a

I don’t expect Alice (or her fellow Travellers in Novaland) has complained to BOM – their response would clear her confusion up. My guess, she wants to stay mired in wonderland.

If she wants to complain about BOM’s predictions, she should make one here:

GPO Box 1289
Melbourne VIC 3001
(700 Collins Street,
Docklands)
Tel: (03) 9669 4000
Fax: (03) 9669 4699

Next, Alice conflates weather and climate in typical ‘wonderland’ fashion:

“will the weather in 2015, 2020, 2050 or 2100 be fine, cold or apocalyptic?”

She is confused, most people know there is a difference between predicting short term chaotic noise (weather) and long term smoothed trends (climate).

Apologies to Charles Dodgson, the impostor's dim.

.

Curmudgeon
<< As for the IPCC forecasts, the panel most emphatically did not forecast river floods. They equated forecast higher temperatures (which also haven't occured) with droughts.. the Brisbane river should be down to a trickle.. not in flood. >>

Read that slowly and tell us you're serious ... with a straight face.

People that live where there is humidity will not notice The intensity of the sun. Live where you get clear heat and you notice the difference.
Floods across five states, something to look forward to.
We know there is warm sea one side and cool see the other side, what is causing this, is what we want to know. Record floods around the globe, i am sure the conditions on either side of AU is not causing world events.

The Brisbane floods of 1893 and 1974 both resulted from a cyclonic rain depression. This was not the cause of the 2010/11 floods and let us be clear, here we are not talking about Brisbane or even Australian floods but to widespread floods which have occurred in Sri Lanka, Southern Africa, Eastern Australia, Brazil and other places.

The cause of these floods has been the build-up of water vapour in the lower stratosphere during the last El Nino event, exacerbated by global warming making the build-up much larger than usual.

Water vapour is of course the most powerful of greenhouse gases and its build-up contributed to heightening the warming effects of the 2009/10 El Nino.

This was followed by mid-2010 by onset of a La Nina, a cooling event which, coming into contact with record build-up of water vapour, has resulted in record precipitation, largely in the southern hemisphere due to the Coriolis effect.

Those doubting this explanation should offer an alternative explanation and ask themselves: since what came down must have initially gone up, what made it go up in such volume if not atmospheric warming and if the latter, what caused it if not global warming induced by the greenhouse effect?

Ensuing floods point to two things predicted by climate scientists: 1. A growing severity in the number and frequency of extreme climate events and: 2. Greater climate sensitivity to temperature increase than previously indicated by climate models.

AoM
nit-pic 1. "lower stratosphere" should be: lower troposphere
nit-pic 2. "Greater" (climate sensitivity) could be better stated: instead of 2 - 4.5 degrees C, more like 3 - 6 degrees C
nit pic 3. "temperature increase" should be: doubling of [CO2]

Bonmot - the 2007 IPCC report did not include climate cycles at all - in part because they are not yet predictable. They most emphatically did not forecast anything like these floods - quite the reverse. If you believe otherwise, then what forecast are you relying on? In that sentence you quote I'm talking about the IPCC forecasts, not what actually happened. Obviously teh river is in flood, not a trickle, so the IPCC forecasts are looking sorry.

agnostic of mittagong - that's better, but the only known theory about changes in the strength or otherwise of the la nina - el nino cycle relates it to another, longer cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The PDO is now in its "cool" mode which emphasises la ninas. (NASA has issued various releases on the PDO if you want to look it up.) Why is it in its cool mode, as opposed to its warm mode? No one rally knows, but they know its flips from one mode to the other every 30 years or so. Expect strong la ninas for the next 20 years or so.

CHORUS OF CONCERNED RABBITS

Of all the beasts that God allows
In the green and grassy fields of Warmerland,
Most bonmots dislike the cows?
Their noxious eructations should be banned.
Yes, we most of all dislike the cows;
Their bovine flatulence we just can’t stand!
Let’s drive them from our grassy land.
All the other naughty ruminants should go too.
We’ve given it a lot of thought. What else are we to do?
They must be exiled somewhere. Why not France?
Millions go there every year, if given half a chance.

bonmot

".....Most people know there is a difference between predicting short term chaotic noise (weather) and long term smoothed trends (climate)."

Thanks for contact details. Most helpful. Are you a BOM employee?

Just love your probability maps. They adorn the walls of Warmerland's most sacred temples.

"Will the climate in 2015, 2020, 2050 or 2100 be fine, cold or apocalyptic?”

Perhaps you can share your OZ decadal "climate" predictions for this century with us?

But then, according to http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

“The ability of the current generation of models to simulate (not forecast) some aspects of regional CC is limited, judging from the spread of results from different models; there is little confidence in specific projections (not forecasts) of future regional climate change, except at continental scales.”

Incidentally, why is the 1961-1990 period accepted as your standard 'climatological normal'? Why is this "long-term smoothed trend" deemed to be "climate"? Is thirty years long-term? Why? By learned convention?

Alice (in Warmerland)