He says "Whatever may come of all this scientific enquiry, as readers can see, the higher temperatures forecast by the IPCC, if and when they ever occur, may not result in lower rainfall."

Has anyone ever suggested higher temperatures would result in lower rainfall?? Is the author setting up a false straw man to shoot down? Or doesn't he understand what he reads about climate change?

It's absolutely elementary that warmer air can hold more water, and so higher temperatures should mean more rainfall (averaged worldwide).

It is widely reported that global warming is likely to lead to different weather _patterns_ (eg, zones of high or low rainfall would move to different places on the earth's surface), but the specifics of this are much harder to predict. Thus the lower rainfall around Perth corresponds to climatic zones moving southwards. But this doesn't mean lower rainfall worldwide.

Thus worse floods (due to (1) higher rainfall generally, and (2) high rainfall falling in different places, where the river systems haven't developed to handle it), and worse droughts (ie, (1) the effect is worse due to higher temperatures, and (2) worse in their effects because they occur in different places) are both to be expected as a result of global warming.

This is a very interesting article that is worthy of considerable thought.

Jeremy, it is probably reasonable to assume that Mark is writing about Oz. After all it is in Oz that our governments paper cutout scientists have been predicting eternal drought due to AGW, in an attempt to help Julia get her cap & trade [tax] up & running. This combines well with their desire to keep the gravy train on the rails.

Now of course, after a flood or 2, & a couple of cyclones those same paper cutouts have flipped, just like the PDO. Now we are all going to drown, not burn.

Perhaps if some of these people did some science, rather than look for an excuse to introduce a new tax, we would know a bit more about the POD, what it does, & why.

With your hotter atmosphere example, which side are you on, you do sound to be on the fence. Half the AGW warming crowd tell us the hotter atmosphere will hold, not drop more water, hence drought. The other half claim it will drop it all, & flood. I guess for them, & you, it depends what the newspaper headline said yesterday, as to what can be made most scary, Oh, & Julia's last press conference.

Mark Lawson here

Jeremy - I see you do realise that higher temperatures may have quite different effects on rainfall, but as Hasbeen correctly points out CSIRO and others have repeatedly warned us that higher temperatures mean more droughts. The droughts in the Murray-Darling basin were supposedly due to global warming and so on, and on. The Garnaut report (which used the CSIRO projections) said similar stuff.

Admittedly scientists never tried to sell that message in Europe, now that I think about it, as they knew they'd never get away with it. But in dryer Australia these warnings were constant. We are all going to starve to death because crops would wither in the heat etc, etc. Just why quite experienced scientists persist in projections based on very limited information while ignoring known climate cycles is an interesting question for another time.

Hasbeen and Mark Lawson
Jeremy is correct. A warmer atmosphere does hold more water. It has to fall out somewhere as rain or snow. Simple thermodynamics explains this very well, but most people don't understand this. We can expect regional hot, dry and and wet spots.

Hasbeen
A country's policy (where the ideological arguments are taking place) on adaptation and mitigation has nothing to do with the science.

Mark
No scientist, scientific academy or organisation has said droughts in the Murray-Darling basin were entirely due to global warming. If anything, they say there is an anthropogenic component to the warming.

It is hard enough to convey the science without journalists distorting what the IPCC, CSIRO, BOM and others have actually been saying. Whether you do this intentionally or not has the same effect - it creates doubt in the mind of your readers.

"We are all going to starve to death because crops would wither in the heat etc, etc."

One has to question your motives when you deliberately take things out of context and perpetuate the myth.

To be sure, the aftermath of this latest ENSO will result in a cooling. Nevertheless, the upward trend will prevail.

Bonmot said

"Jeremy is correct. A warmer atmosphere does hold more water. It has to fall out somewhere as rain or snow."

It seems that pro warmers have forgotten, rather conveniently, that prior to the big wet we are currently experiencing, AGW activists claimed that Global Warming would bring about an endless drought in Australia. The snowfields would, according to them, be seriously affected, and in the UK, the winters were supposed to be very mild from now on. All of this was proven to be completely wrong. The consequence of this was politicians built desalination plants and not dams.

Ian Plimer pointed out correctly at the time, that a warmer climate did indeed hold more water and was likely to result in greater not lesser rainfall. He was roundly criticised by AGW activists for that view.

If AGW proponents could make reliable predictions then maybe their support base would increase and not decrease as it is now.

I think you have something to look forward to. bomnot . We cant have rain heat drought and fires all at the same time. While you wait for these different cenerios to take place, The situation can only get worse. Our best adviser to the govt; says we haven,t seen nothin yet.
Instead of deny everything, lets just suppose there could be something in it. Co2 is a well proven fact, at causing a greenhouse affect.

Atman, you and many naysayers think the IPCC is 'alarmist'.

This part of AR4 relates to Australia:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch11.html

Could you show us where the IPCC claimed:

>> Global Warming would bring about an endless drought in Australia <<

or, for Europe:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch12.html

>> winters were supposed to be very mild from now on. <<

The 'shoot/ask questions later dam policy' is a (conservative) political response - not a scientific one. Have you seen the response to this knee-jerk 'policy-on-the-run' by water experts?

The AWA is a good place to start;

http://tinyurl.com/AWA-position

Ian Plimer can thump his Heaven & Earth bible to his congregation all he likes but he is not the messiah of an undiscovered truth.

Please show/link/quote where Plimer was roundly criticised for saying that a warmer climate did indeed hold more water and was likely to result in greater not lesser rainfall. If you are able to do this, then it will demonstrate you are not just blowing smoke.

a597: Not sure I follow:

>> We cant have rain heat drought and fires all at the same time. <<

Yes we can. Rain in Qld, drought in NSW, fires in WA - on a regional basis. Just look what's been happening globally.

The enhanced greenhouse effect is well understood by studies of radiative properties:

http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf

An interesting observation:-

'The scientific literature has shown again and again that the observed warming can not be explained by ENSO or PDO or other internal climate modes, because they simply move heat around in the system. Trenberth et al. (2002, JGR) showed that +0.06 C of the +0.4 C warming (about 15%) observed between 1950 and 1998 was attributable to trends in ENSO.These internal climate modes are internal drivers which can act to mute or enhance the underlying warming trend from higher CO2, they cannot and do not explain the fact that the planet is in a net positive energy imbalance (Murphy et al. 2009).'

Mark Lawson here

Bonmot - while I have tried not to be negative with your comments in other posts, this time around I'll have to put you up sharply. In fact, CSIRO and others have been telling us for years that severe droughts had the "fingerprints" of global warming all over it. They never said anything about the PDO or the cycle bringing more rain although, as other posters have noted, this is what you would expect from a warmer atmosphere.

Now that its obvious soemthing else is happening they will have changed their tune - that is, until the next drought, which they will blame on global warming.

One of the scientists I spoke to said that none of the forecasting systems of which he was aware used climate cycles like PDO. Now go and look at the NASA release which I mention. NASA did say something about wetter times ahead (from memory), so why didn't the CSIRO or the office of climate change or any other part of our vast, active climate science establishment say something?

The answer is that they are not there to investigate climate as such but to give credibility to climate scare stories. You can't get a good scare story out of the PDO, so they don't mention it.

Yes, Atman and if the warmists told the truth they would gain support, but then, of course, they wouuld no longer be warmists.

From Tim Flannery, bonmot, to whom you should have no trouble relating, sharing a similar view of (un)reality, this gem:

“One of them is just simply the shifting weather patterns as the planet warms up, so the tropics are expanding southwards and the winter rainfall zone is sort of dropping off the southern edge of the continent”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200506/s1389858.htm

If you understand cause and effect, bonmot, you will see that the spin and misinformation of the bodies you name, IPCC and its accomplices, has the effect of distorting what they are saying, particularly in their unsupportable implication that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate.

You follow the same model. When you are not incomprehensible, you are pushing misinformation. What does this gobbledegook mean:” We can expect regional hot, dry and and wet spots.”

This is a nice piece of misinformation from your post:” Nevertheless, the upward trend will prevail.”. Did you not notice that the upward trend finished in 1998? Like all warmists, Flannery, Garnaut, Hamilton, Karoly, Quiggin et al, you prefer to ignore facts.

You know what i was saying, your the one wondering where all the heat is, when you see nothing but rain. Chances are you won't see a drought while it's raining either.

Bonmot, it is surprising that you infer that the IPCC is not alarmist ( viz. you say "Atman, you and many naysayers think the IPCC is 'alarmist'").

As the IPCC cannot come up with any scientific evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have a measurable impact on average global temperature, it uses assertion and models (that it has not been able to validate) to make alarmist climate projections so as to con UN-member-country politicians, the media and gullible observers.

Paul writes

'To date the best that scientists can do is give a few months warning of an onset of a new cycle '

With weekly and even daily forecasting changing several times a day I think you are being a bit ambitious. The big freeze throughout Europe and America was not predicted. In fact some IPCC guru warned some years ago that English and European kids might not get to see snow. I bet many of them wish these clowns were right. I recently saw a quote that said the ark was built by amateurs while the titanic was built by professionals. Seems like the economist and forecaster have one thing in common. Often they don't have a clue. And to think this Government is still dumb enough to push for a carbon tax. Idiotic and dishonest at best.

This is hilarious, while claiming not to be alarmist, the believers are gleefully predicting more weather events that "prove" their hysterical claims.

Yep, there's the believers science in action, science that can't be falsified since they now believe every rainstorm, cyclone flood is the work of their god .. AGW, everything is predicted in the climate astrology, climate scientology

If you look at BOM, you'll see we have fewer cyclones now than in the past .. did they have AGW then?

It's now a smorgasbord of dire predictions, and there's one of the prophets Garnault, darkly calling on more doom for us all. (re[ent you fools or the AGW will come down upon ye!)

So if BOM and CSIRO and all the climate so called advisors were previously saying that drought was but a passing thing and the weather was heavy with water .. why were state governments advised to build desal plants?

Surely the warmists prophets saw this coming?

no .. really?

Oh, it's hindsight you are now using to link AGW to weather, so that's science now is it. How dare you use the term science at all.

Oh good grief, this is becoming less and less believable.

Do you think people do not remember the drought and fires being attributed to AGW? That the SE states would see less rain? Can we all pull out Penny Wong's doom predictions, Flannery's and all the otheres?

pull the other one .. it's got a tax on it .. oh

bonmot
I've said nothing about the IPCC. They are far from the only source of alarmist information. So you want me to go searching for information you have conveniently forgotten? Not likely. However, here are some tasty Alarmist highlights from the past which prove my point.

Greenpeace
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/secure/appeal/climate.php
"Australia is the world's driest inhabited continent. Every day we suffer the worsening effects of climate change, like ENDLESS DROUGHT and weather extremes."

This might also jog your failing memory:

CRU
"According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become 'a very rare and exciting event' ".

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html

I bet this guy is still happily working away at the CRU. If it wasn't such a tragic waste of public monies,it would be funny.

Alright then Atman, I'll take that bet.

How about AUS $1000?

My car rego is due.

My recollection

Is that these extreme events

Are as predicted

Hang on to your money Atman, there are fewer and fewer staff at the CRU, Dr. David Viner has been de-listed. The US DoE withdrew their funding last year following climategate and the UK Gov. has slashed research grants. Not surprisingly, the CRU has lost much of its funding and is heading for academic "struggle street". Thank you very much Professor Jones.

Perhaps it was their forcast of "iminent, irreversible catastrophic global freezing blamed on human use of coal and oil".

I hear that they are working on a new theory that a warmer planet will attract reptilian based aliens.

From what I have read about El Nino and La Nina, a La Nina is associated with lower temperature waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. I notice that this article says "When a La Niña effect rules, as it does now, the sea surface in the central and western Pacific is generally cooler". So, I think that is incorrect.

Does anyone know of any serious studies re shipping & air traffic impact ? Or satellite launches ? How many rockets & shuttles have burst through the ozone layer ? All the nuclear tests underwater, on land & above ground ? I'm sure that all exhaust emission pales to insignificance when compared to all the aforementioned. I have no doubt that all this activity has an impact but climate change itself is a natural cycle. Our impact is merely speeding up climate change & shortening the ice-age intervals from 10,000 years to 9500. I believe the last one was 8000 BC.

I'll accept the climate change hypothesis until climatologists change their minds. I don't really value the opinions of economists,lawyers or any non specialists on the subject.

The politics behind climate change/global warming denial-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio

"" AGW activists claimed that Global Warming would bring about an endless drought in Australia. The snowfields would, according to them, be seriously affected, and in the UK, the winters were supposed to be very mild from now on. All of this was proven to be completely wrong.""

Posted by Atman, Friday, 4 February 2011 1:55:20 PM

Not claimed specifically by activists, but hypothesised that southern Australia would experience more prolonged dry periods - below the Tropic of Capricorn - to the extend it would be harder to run cattle in some areas, etc.

One season does not a climate make.

""Ian Plimer pointed out correctly at the time, that a warmer climate did indeed hold more water and was likely to result in greater not lesser rainfall. He was roundly criticised by AGW activists for that view.""

Ian Plimmer would be right, and these vague AGW activists ought to be cited by you.

What the climate scientists were predicting was a greater frequency of extreme weather events. This week Australia has seen a category 5 cyclone hit North Queensland, flooding rain in Victoria, and a record heat wave in Sydney.

I would suggest that the noise coming from the denialists is in proportion to the accuracy of the predictions.

Mac,
You are usually pretty much on the ball but I think you might have mis-fielded. this time.

You say: “ I don't really value the opinions of economists, lawyers or any non specialists on the subject.” then go on to reference Naomi Oreskes!

Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, who along with Erik Conway (a historian at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory) recently authored “Merchants of Doubt”.

So Merchants of Doubt is perhaps a good measure of her style and thinking. It is marketed as a piece of investigation and analysis but reads from beginning to end like a piece of one-eyed advocacy.

It starts-out bemoaning the “attacks” on “one of the worlds most distinguished scientists”:

“Ben Santer is the kind of guy you could never imagine anyone attacking . He’s thoroughly moderate --of moderate height and build or moderate political persuasion . He is also very modest …People have been questioning the data, doubting the evidence , and attacking the scientists who collect and explain it. No one has been more brutally –or more unfairly – attacked than Ben Santer."
(actually, what Ben Santer had to endure was very little different to what people like Pilmer have had to put up with!)

And having started with that little sympathy seeking story, the authors straight-away proceed to do a hatchet job on a number of prominent sceptics associating them big tobacco , big polluters and lack of scruples.

And they do so, while all the while referencing and lauding such sources as Paul Ehrlich, Al Gore & the IPCC , without even hinting at the aforementions fallibility.

Born Lomborg is also given a serve because he questioned certain aspects of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

I came away with the impression that there were no sceptics who were not on the payroll of big industry, which is simply not credible.

There may be good sources that support the AGW case -- but I have my doubts that a joint author of Merchants of Doubt is one of them.

SPQR,

Fair comment. I should have been more explicit, I wasn't trying to present Prof Oreskes as an expert on climate change itself, but as an expert on the politics and history of the subject. That's why I referenced the link the "politics behind climate change/global warmimg denial". You could argue that she has misrepresented the facts, however, I don't have the expertise to make a judgement as to whether she has or not.

As far as I understand, the consensus among climatologists is that the balance of evidence points to climate change, that's good enough for me. As to scientific dissenters from the mainstream--well, perhaps their ideas represent one of those 'paradigm shifts' in science that will lead to a new accepted theory, or they could be complete ratbags. I'll leave that judgement to their colleagues.

Some of the 'evidence' presented by supporters of both sides of the controversy does nothing more than demonstrate either their ignorance of Statistics 101, or their self-serving agendas.

Mark (at Friday, 4 February 2011 4:25:36 PM)

You have indeed written a good article. I agree with much of the science (and the scientists) you reference.

However, I think it is entirely unprofessional for a science reporter to then accuse (in the comments) CSIRO, BOM, etc of saying droughts in the Murray-Darling basin were entirely due to global warming. They simply did not say that, Mark.

What I found particularly disturbing is that you followed this up with your inferred vexatious comment:

"We are all going to starve to death because crops would wither in the heat etc, etc."

Who said that Mark, who can you attribute the remarks to? In my opinion, those remarks were disingenuous at best, intentionally malicious at worst. Can you get any of your contributing scientists in your article to endorse those remarks – I bet not.

Back to topic.
While the PDO is termed an oscillation, there is no ‘evidence’ to show that it is (hopefully the work by your contributors will help). It is easy to assume the SOI is “periodic” but as has been said before, you have to understand the concept of “periodicity” and that the time scales assigned to the PDO is a “characteristic” time scale – they are not periods. For example, the PDO time scale includes 50 to 90 year and 10 to 30 year scales.

PDO, ENSO, etc does impact our oceans. However, the cause of these oscillations is still unresolved, as you have pointed out e.g. what do you think is driving the heat content?

Predicting the PDO is very uncertain because of the limited time we have been making direct observations. We really don’t know if the PDO is a long term pattern of variation or just another unexplained unknown. It certainly is not “periodic” (by definition) so any predictions based on it are meaningless.

Every government will have to make strategic policy decisions in the next few years but that they should have to wait until they can validate an unknown unknown is just plain stupid.

Fester has it right

Accuracy of predictions

Ramps up denial

groan .. more climate astrology "What the climate scientists were predicting was a greater frequency of extreme weather events."

yet BOM site has it that extreme weather events, like cyclones are not increasing .. in the US there has not been a land falling hurricane for 4 years .. how is that explained?

"This week Australia has seen a category 5 cyclone hit North Queensland"

stop exaggerating, it was Cat 3 when it crossed the coast.

"flooding rain in Victoria, and a record heat wave in Sydney."

Heatwaves are not new, floods are not new .. these are not even record floods.

"I would suggest that the noise coming from the denialists is in proportion to the accuracy of the predictions."

I would suggest the noise from the believers is loud every time it rains, or doesn't rain, or if there is any weather at all.

You can't claim "accuracy" when the "prediction" is so vague .. extreme weather events, like La Nina? Do you understand anything about climate science?

No one has made "predictions", as in this summer XXX will happen .. it is all vague nonsense, that weather events MAY be more extreme, they also "predicted" continuing drought .. how do you resolve that ... that drought and extreme events (floods and cyclones) are both "predicted"

What utter unbelievable nonsense.

shintroa - "accuracy of predictions" So which prediction was accurate, that Brisbane would flood if the dams were mismanaged? That in cyclone season, there would be cyclones? In a La Nina year of all things?

I guess it feels good to finger wag from the sidelines, cheering for doom.

regardless, it won't change the way weather happens, nor will taxing people or any number of stupid actions you all insist on.

Bonmot
Puzzling over your response - I assume you're neither stupid, nor crazy - it has occured to me you may not be thinking back more than a few years. What you say is almost true if you if you don't go back beyond, say, 2008.

I go back decades and I've read at least part of the original material and,I assure you, CSIRO has been ringing alarm bells just as hard as it can for years, but perhaps not so loudly in the last two or three years. If you want proof of this go and look at the Garnaut report, which uses CSIRO projections. This forecasts the collapse of agriculture in the Murray-Darling basin in a matter of decades. There is nothing in there about PDO or cycles or anything else that might indicate we were at an historical low in rainfall. The one qualification that I can recall is that the report also pointed out that more CO2 might initially help plants grow faster.

You can continue to deny that CSIRO and every other part of the climate industry was not busy telling us all that we're doomed (mostly - a few did say higher temperatures may not be all bad), but you will find ourself isolated and ignored. Best to agree that much of what was initially forecast was wrong, and move on.

Bonmot, you are in 'good' company by suggesting that "Every government will have to make strategic policy decisions in the next few years but that they should have to wait until they can validate an unknown unknown is just plain stupid. "

The 4th February The Australian(http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/we-risk-deep-subversion-of-climate-effort-garnaut/story-fn59niix-1225999796798) reports:
"Ross Garnaut has hit back at opponents of climate change action, declaring that uncertainty about global temperature rises increases the case for cutting emissions rather than doing nothing..."

Rather, the uncertainty about the causes of climate change dictates that there should be rigorous review of climate science, before any policy measures are contemplated. This review should be undertaken by a properly constituted Royal Commission, so as to minimise the bias of the pro-AGW scientists that have the ear of Garnaut and the Labor Govt.

The Oz article goes on to say that Garnaut's paper squarely takes on the climate change sceptics, arguing that there was no peer-reviewed scientific research in the past five years that gave strength to their views. In so doing, Garnaut adopts the same arrogant approach as the pro-AGW scientists, namely, that no one has the right to question the veracity of their case.

Warmists should realise that climate change sceptics merely acknowledge the fact that there is no scientific evidence, peer-reviewed or otherwise, that anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions have any significant measurable effect on average global temperature.

If Garnaut and his fellow warmists are so sure of their case, then they should have no hesitation in having it examined before a Royal Commission. To implement policies without first reviewing the climate science, as they advocate, amounts to professional negligence

alarmists

in denial over forecasts

panic

So many comedians, I think an RPG has gone off near his head:) Again!

Global observations. See, its not hard.

NEXT.

Astrology? No, just objective observation. Extreme weather events are increasing. This is in agreement with the predictions of climate scientists. You can see for yourself at the BOM site:

http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/extremes/timeseries.cgi

Or you could look at the global situation at the NOAA site:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/

What is the supporting evidence for the increase in extreme weather events being part of a natural climatic cycle?

Attack the science for the rigor you think it lacks by all means, but the prediction of increasing extreme weather events seems to be accurate.

rpg,

Yasi was Not a Category 3 when it crossed the coast: it was a Cat 5 when it hit Mission Beach and surrounds, yet quickly dropped to a Cat 4 when its energy supply - the ocean - was no longer feeding it.

Yasi started over 34C water in the Coral Sea - Hurricane Katrina started over 32C water.

A tax on pollution will hasten innovation into non polluting alternatives. Carry on as normal and nothing will change. We will have many more fun events to look forward to. I think you have all you are going to get out of science, other than waiting on events to happen so some statistics are collected. The balance of nature has been compromised, less trees, less open grassed areas. More co2 in the upper atmosphere. Glacial ice melt, releasing more co2. Ocean temperatures rising means higher tides, and bigger storms.
The huge snow falls happening around the world can only happen with the appropriate amount of moisture in the atmosphere. So where does all this extra amount of moisture come from, You guessed right 'global warming'

It is encouraging to see so many here being willing to challenge the claims made by the scientific community about the supposed looming environmental catastrophe caused by our burning of carbon fuel. I cringe when I see how some people genuflect whenever the word “science” is mentioned or the title “eminent scientist” attached to an individual.

Scientists are people just like everyone else. They have careers to promote and jobs to hold down. To do this they have to earn the respect of their peers and their superiors. Many have families to raise, homes to maintain and mortgages to pay off. All of this can be put in jeopardy if they publicly question the current scientific conclusions about “climate change.”

The reason for this is that the scientific community has dug itself into a deep hole. It is in receipt of billions of dollars in research grants from government and industry around the world as a direct result of the publicity that has been generated by their predictions of this “catastrophe.” The moment one their number stands up and publicly challenges what has become scientific dogma, this funding is put at risk. Such irresponsible action has to be stopped, for if this income stream were to be withdrawn those climate research institutions would be reduced to a fraction of their size.

Further, senior members of this community have, in the past, convinced political and corporate leaders to take difficult and unpopular decisions to face up to “the greatest moral challenge of our time.” It is now impossible for these scientists to go back and admit that there is growing doubt that the actions these leaders have been urged to take will make any significant difference to global temperatures or to a changing climate.

To suggest that scientists are above such considerations is naive in the extreme. Being human they can and do make mistakes both individually and collectively. This furore about climate change is a big one.

It beggars belief that some posters are requesting 'proof' that AGW proponents claimed there would be LESS not MORE rainfall in Australia due to climate change and that the continent would be WARMER and DRIER.

http://www.csiro.au/resources/ps3bv.html

I've already linked to the Greenpeace site which claims endless droughts for Australia?? Didn't anyone read it?

Now some claim that it is 'obvious' that warm atmosphere is accompanied by increasing ability to hold water as mentioned by the roundly criticised Ian Plimer.

The two views are obviously inconsistent. The original warmist take that warm meant dry, now they say warm means wet. Why the amnesia?

Just to help the ol' memory along.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/03/1070351653324.html?from=storyrhs

Actually Atman, that CSIRO link appears to have a section on what the effects might be:

What are the likely affects of climate change on Australia?

The likely affects of climate change in Australia include that Australia will:
become warmer and drier
become warmer by 0.4 to 2 °C by 2030, 1 to 6 °C by 2070, more hot days and fewer cold days
have less rainfall in the south, particularly in winter and spring
have more rainfall in north-eastern Australia in summer and autumn
have increased evaporation and changes in rainfall will lead to a net drying over all of Australia
have heavier rainfall
experience stronger tropical cyclones.

Now it seems to me that "have more rainfall in north-eastern Australia in summer and autumn" is spot-on. And they mention "heavier rainfall" and stronger tropical cyclones. But hey, it's your link, what's wrong with it?

Perth is in the grip of drought as the winter rains didn't come, why is that? Perhaps Mark could enlighten us.

These guys think that the current drought over there is pretty bad
http://www.watoday.com.au/environment/climate-change/wa-drought-could-be-worst-for-750-years-20100205-niee.html

And the last time I checked, it's not 2070.

Atman writes

'It beggars belief that some posters are requesting 'proof' that AGW proponents claimed there would be LESS not MORE rainfall in Australia due to climate change and that the continent would be WARMER and DRIER.
'

Surely you realise its about Green faith so reasoning never did or will come into it.

I think it would help by trying to separate the science from the politics. As Bugsy points out, the predictions being heavily criticised are for several decades hence.

I am reminded of some scientists in the late 1990s who warned the government that extra sources of water supply need to be developed immediately to avoid possible water shortages and to allow the Wivenhoe Dam to be used for its intended purpose of flood mitigation. The advice was ignored. In less than a decade the pollies went into sheer panic in the face of a drought. They wasted billions of dollars on substandard works which would not have averted disaster had the rain not come. They also set up a political bureaucracy to manage water. This included the contradictory task of treating the Wivenhoe Dam as both a facility for water storage and flood mitigation. Now, a few years later, the Brisbane River has flooded in no small part because of the heavy reliance on the Wivenhoe Dam as a water storage facility.

One piece of advice that was heeded was the recommendation to have cyclone rated buildings in cyclone prone areas. This has substantially mitigated the damage from storms and cyclones. I have not heard anyone complaining that the standards are too strict and should be relaxed.

Scientists seem to cop much criticism for making predictions. Most of the criticism would be better directed at the politicians who either ignore advice and/or imagine that their policies will solve the problem.

There are many promising technologies from which we will benefit whether or not the predictions of climate scientists turn out to be true. And if the threat of AGW is a driver for the development of these technologies, then how is that a bad thing?

McReal,

Were those AGW activists claims made about conditions expected now in 2011, or at some stage in the future if temperatures reach a specific point?

Plimer made many a lot of claims, many of which were proven to be incorrect or conflicting.

In Qld's north climate change is just about back to normal. We've had a couple of cyclones & its February already & hardly any rain yet. In comparison to 35 years ago this is a rather dry & windless wet. Yes there appears to have been a climate change but things are getting back to normal.

You blokes are really struggling to make any argument about it all. Rely on science to tell you everything that you want to hear. [selectively ]
Someone said scientists are only human. You have been told that there is more co2 in the upper atmosphere, and yet you want more info on what that means. What it means was stated in the 1800 s. How often do you want something repeated. Move on and your knowledge base may increase.
The more condensation in the atmosphere means more snow and rain. Perth has lost 40 houses from wild fire, and in a state of drought. Yet you can,t see the forest because there are to many trees in the way. Look beyond your backyard and you may see something.

"Were those AGW activists claims made about conditions expected now in 2011, or at some stage in the future if temperatures reach a specific point?"

Posted by wobbles, Monday, 7 February 2011 1:08:32 AM

There have been lots of claims by lots of people, and lots of projections.

I have taken global warming to mean more evaporation everywhere, especially when locally warm, and more precipitation overall, some in heavy downpours.

I reckon a597 is right, there are too many trees in the way.

Chop those damn things down, & you have at least cured the bushfire problem. Would also increase runoff, & stop the cities going dry too.

Then give thanks for the occasional flood. Without them places like Brisbane can't exist.

Despite all the cr4p Beattie went on with about drought, Brisbane was going dry, with normal/average rainfall. It may be cruel, but unless some areas are flooded occasionally, the area can not support the existing huge population, & growth would have to stop. Normal rainfall does not give enough runoff to keep the dams supplied. So come on e597, give us some more of your post event predictions, & rationalising, we need a laugh.

Meanwhile, how about a levy on water supply, with the money going to buy & demolish/remove, the effected homes of those who want to get off the flood plain, but can't manage it financially.

Mark Lawson here -

The CSIRO brochure refered to by other posters is a case in point of just how clueless the official climate establishment is about rainfall. CSIRO was talking about seasonal changes in rainfall and how that might be affected by temperatures. But overall the organisation expected the continent to be dryer.

In fact the floods we just got may well have been due to a major climate cycle - the PDO - and that same cycle means that we will get significantly more rainfall on the east coast for decades, and never mind the seasonal changes. In other words the CSIRO had no real clue at the time about what was going on. Perhaps they still don't.

But to claim, as some posters have, that the CSIRO forecasts are accurate, is absurd.

Whatever you say Mark, you're the climate expert.

rpg, McReal and Mark Lawson,

Yasi was defined as cat 5 cyclone. That is misleading.
There's two types of winds in a cyclone. Gusts whose strengths determine the speed and catagory and sustained winds which I think determine the intensity. Assessment of yasi, are missing how the combination of both types of winds determine the destructive strength of cyclones.

The worlds smallest recorded cyclone (Tracey) destroyed Darwin and killed 61, yet one of the biggest (Yasi) wrecked, less damage and indirectly killed one.

Why?

Anecodotal reports tell of gusting winds in Yasi without the sustained winds of cyclones such as Tracey and Larry.
Also the eye of Yasi disintergrated very soon after leaving Tully to the dismay of many.. The Bureau of Meteorology predicted Yasi would be a cyclone until it reached Mt Isa. The sustained winds in a cyclone are predominant around the eye and once they abate and dissappear the system is no longer cyclone but becomes a tropical low with strong winds.

Yasi crossed the coast of a cat 5 cyclone with gusts up to 300klms per hour but it didn't have the worst of tropical cyclonic winds ie Sustained gale force winds of either grades, 69klm per hour or 118 klms per hour, combining with gale force extreme gusts of up to 300 kms per hour.

Hence the lack of Innisfail or Darwin type extensive devastation.

Geoscience Australia models for destructive cyclones. I think they've missed a factor in assessing the destructive impact of yasi. I believe the advice handed to Gillard and Bligh about the destructiveness and the degree of storm surge, by the BOM and Geo Aust, which caused these leaders to state Yasi would be the greastest natural disaster Australia had ever seen, was simply wrong.

There needs be an enquiry into the activities of Geoscience Australia and the BOM since both seem blinded by pro AWG attitudes and since they got it wrong with the Brisbane floods, Cyclone Anthony and their not forecasting of the Toowoomba Range downpour which killed about 20.

I'm an amateur weather watcher.

I predicted to friends, on the morning of the downpour, the Toowoomba Range floods after the Eastcoast low crossed the coast at around Gympie and tracked Southwest towards Toowoomba.

I stated to the ABC, but not broadcast, two days before the Brisbane floods that they would not be as severe or catastrophic as the BOM were predicting.

I also stated on the ABC a week before Yasi arrived that I thought there was a possibility Yasi might abate before it crossed the coast.

How was that?

Isn't that like predicting the winner of the Melbourne cup before the race is run. A weather forecast as i understand it is only good for ten minutes. So I am not sure what a royal commission would establish.
The information we got would have been as up to date as the media would allow. Yasi has still got 90 km winds and it is somewhere in SA.

Keith:
>> The worlds smallest recorded cyclone (Tracey) destroyed Darwin and killed 61, yet one of the biggest (Yasi) wrecked, less damage and indirectly killed one.

Why? <<

Perhaps because Mission Beach and Cardwell are not a cities

Keith, as 'an amateur weather watcher', what do you think might have happened if Yasi crossed at Cairns, or Townsville, instead of the small villages that were wiped out?

""I also stated on the ABC a week before Yasi arrived that I thought there was a possibility Yasi might abate before it crossed the coast.

How was that?""

Posted by keith, Monday, 7 February 2011 4:19:06 PM

"That" was a cyclone that did not abate, or hit a major city. Spoke to a guy from Cairns this morning - he said Yasi hitting Cairns as directly as Tracy hit Darwin would have been far worse for Cairns than Darwin. Wasn't Tully, Cardwell, and Mission beach hit as hard as Innisfail was hit by Larry? Don't forget Dunk Island either - catastrophic, huh?

Good call on Toowoomba rains, though don't understand what you meant about the Brisbane Floods - you mean you predicted they would not go as high as 1974? Because?

One thing that has intrigued me is repeated claims in news.com.au and its subsidiaries that the Victorian floods in the last 4-5 days are due to Yasi. They have cited BOM in those claims ....

I thought they were more due to a cold front coming from the south west hitting the High over NSW, with only a possibility of an effect from the remnants of Yasi (or Yasi and Anthony) near Mildura in recent day or so?

keith, I'm in the USA, it was reported here that the cyclone had lost intensity gained intensity and everything in between.

If BOM now say it was cat 5, I stand corrected.

This is the problem with the alarmists all piling on, the exaggeration is difficult to separate from fact

Bonmot
data makes it appear your claim may support my theory of Yasi being less destructive than expected. It certainly wasn’t Australia greatest natural disaster, as Gillard and Bligh claimed.
The Cassowary Coast region is where the centre of Yasi crossed.
It includes the towns of Innisfail, Flyingfish Point, Mourilyan, Al Arish, Kurrimine, Bingal Bay, Mission Beach, Tully, Tully Heads and Cardwell, as well as the islands of Dunk, Gould and Hinchinbrook .
From Cardwell to Innisfail is about 50 klms.
Pop was 31,000 in 2006.
Pop of Darwin was 40,000 in 1974.
Yasi’s eye was 35 klms across. Innisfail and Cardwell should have been hit by cat 5 gales and sustained winds and destroyed. The BOM, when it predicted Yasi would go ashore at Innisfail said
‘VERY DESTRUCTIVE winds with gusts above 280klm/hr between Port Douglas and Cardwell’
They also stated Yasi’s
‘IMPACT IS LIKELY T BE MORE LIFE THREATENING THAN ANY EXPERIENCED DURING RECENT GENERATIONS’. (Their capitals)
Since the eye actually passed 50 kms south of Innisfail and also closer to Ingham, those forecasts now seem inaccurate.
150 dwellings were utterly destroyed in the Cassowary Coast region. (ABC News Monday 7 Feb 2011). Photos show many buildings in the worst hit areas, including Dunk, remain mostly intact and not utterly destroyed. There‘s no significant damage in Innisfail or Ingham.
Gale force winds upto 240klm/hr extended only 48 klms across Darwin. Darwin had 70% of its buildings utterly destroyed, which included 80% or 9,000 homes. Tracey was cat 4.
If it’s possible please I’d like to know type of winds your friend experienced?
Friends in Townsville confirm gusty nature of Yasi, as did an interviewee, on ABC radio from Mission Beach as Yasi’s eye passed over.
Had Cairns or Townsville been hit by the eye I suspect similar damage as has occurred across the whole of the Cassowary Region.
McReal,
the two previous 2011 cyclones (Tasha and Anthony)slowed dramatically and abated and crossed the coast as cat 1

cont
I suspect rain in Qld has not only caused an ocean of water to flow to Lake Eyre and the Murray but also an ocean to flow into the waters between the coast and the reef. Sunshine has been insufficient to heat that water to the 26.5 degree C. or the temp at which cyclones originate and sustain. I suspect as the cyclones crossed this, cooled and lost velocity and wind speed (Sustained wind speeds).

The 74 floods were different in four major factors.
Firstly, in 1974 there were Spring tides. This time there were only King Tides.
Secondly in 1974 torrential rain fell across the region through the floods. This had two effects, the run off below where Wivenhoe is now and Brisbane added to the flooding river and the Brisbane creeks, streams and flood flows suffered localized flooding and couldn’t run off. They backed up causing further widespread flooding.
Thirdly the sun shone for two days prior to the flood 2011 and no significant rain fell in Brisbane or it’s river catchment for that period.
Fourthly the Bremer River a major tributary, never reached the flood heights of 1974. It started falling before Brisbane flooded.
Other factors contributed, among them was the rate of rainfall that fell across Lockyer Creek catchment, another Tributary, and the velocity of its dramatic and tragic traverse across and departure from the Lockyer Valley and its subsequent flow down the Brisbane river. 400mm fell in 4 hours onToowoomba on the Monday. (300mm fell in Innisfail during Larry).

Flood height at the City was one metre less than the 1974, 5.6 metres .
rpg
Technically it was a cat 5 as it approached Willis Island. (500 kms from the coast.) Sometime after that it lost its sustained winds. Its gusting winds were always at cat 5 level… but I have no idea how many gusts were recorded at that level. I wonder how many gusts at 300 klms it takes to make it a cat 5?
I’m working on an olo article.

You obviously have done some homework Keith, good stuff.
The building codes of 40 years ago didn't help either and because of Tracey, the codes were improved to better cater for cyclones.

<Flood height at the City was one metre less than the 1974, 5.6 metres . >

Yes, but the Wivenhoe Dam did not exist in 1974. What would the height of the flood have been without it? BTW, the flood height in 1893 was about 9 metres.

So what did the CSIRO have to say?

http://www.csiro.au/science/adapt-extreme-weather.html

"Australia is likely to become warmer over the coming decades, with a reduction in average annual rainfall in the south-east, and uncertain changes in average annual rainfall in the north.

Climate variability from year to year and within years will be superimposed on these trends in average conditions. For example, a warming trend will include some cool years and many hot years, and a drying trend will include some very wet years and many dry years.

In this highly variable climate, future severe storms and extreme rainfall events are likely to be more intense resulting in more severe flooding."

The only absurdity is the ridiculous distortion of the article.

Keith, the distance from Innisfail to Cardwell is about 90km, not 50km.

One factor not mentioned with regard to the cyclones that strike around that area, is that there are high mountains, including Qld's highest , Mt Bartle Frere of about 1700 metres , north of Innisfail , high mountains of about 1100 metres on Hinchinbrook Island, south of Cardwell, and a mountain range in between. Although a very big cyclone struck Innisfail around 1918, the locals had a theory that the mountains deter big cyclones from crossing that stretch of coast. These mountains may have influenced the wind behaviour of Larry and Yasi when they crossed the coast .

Fester,

Wivenhoe's effect. There is to be an official enquiry into it's effect or lack of it.

Raycom,

You're right, a misprint, thanks for picking it up. Although I must say that extra 40km distance isn't all that critical in a cyclone as big as Yasi.
There's been other cyclones through the area the last I recall was in the eighties through Mission Beach.

Mark Lawson points to research that in turn points to "the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), or Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), as an over arching climate cycle which governs the number and duration of the shorter, better known La Niña and El Niño climate cycles that directly affect rainfall in eastern Australia."

Back in March 2007, at the height of the recent drought and associated SEQ water shortages, there was an article published on OLO, 'What's a bone dry city worth?', by Peter Ravenscroft. I made a number of posts to the discussion thread to that article. During research for one of them, I came across an article submitted by Peter Ravenscroft to the Brisbane Institute dated 16 February 2006. This is the link to the OLO post in which I made reference to Ravenscroft's Brisbane Institute paper: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616#75114

An illustration in that Brisbane Institute article, titled 'The Underlying Pattern', showed a graph of Brisbane rainfall 1840-2004. The graph showed an apparent 'rolling wave' as to annual rainfall totals over those 164 years and Brisbane's present position in relation to it. As I remember the graph, it showed only around two complete cycles of this 'rolling wave' over this period.

I say 'as I remember', because when I recently revisited the link I posted on OLO back in 2007 to Ravenscroft's 2006 Brisbane Institute article, all I got was a '404 message'. See: http://www.brisinst.org.au/resources/brisbane_institute_water_crisis.html

The paper had been taken down from the Brisbane Institute website.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11583#199080

I am just wondering as to whether that long-period 'rolling wave' was an as then un-named manifestation of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or an over-arching climate cycle arising from the interaction of a number of phenomena of the like of the PDO? Perhaps, if it is not already known to Mark Lawson (OLO userID 'Curmudgeon'), it might be worth pursuing a copy of Ravenscroft's paper, especially as to its significance with respect to the 1990 cancellation of the Wolfdene Dam project, and the subsequent flood-mitigation management of Wivenhoe Dam.