I think there is far too much focus on computer models making long term forecasts way beyond their bounds of accuracy. Further, the parameters that the models are based on are not well understood. For example, there needs to be more understanding of the carbon cycle, especially the interaction of land and ocean. Over fifty percent of fossil fuel carbon emissions are absorbed by the natural world, yet there is little understanding of how this happens. The recent rainfall in eastern Australia may have in part been a result of the interaction of smoke and ocean, yet without any monitoring no one is any the wiser for the event.

Fester I think you would find if you looked closely, that the east coast rains are due to a little cyclone that wised down the western Oz coast, breaking up the positive Indian ocean dipole that had been blocking the moisture from the Indian ocean for over a year.

That & the El Nino blocking most moisture from the pacific is what had us so dry. As usual when these conditions collapse, they do so with a bang. Isn't it surprising that the weather bureau with all their records & super computers don't appear to know this.

Chris my forecast is that by 2050 the elites will have the majority of humans living like sardines, packed into little boxes stacked high in huge cities, scurrying around like rats in a trap, while they enjoy the wide open spaces denuded of the despised majority.

It is a real pity that there are so many useful idiots in the population, particularly in academia, the bureaucracy & media who want to help them achieve this objective.

It will be that, or if enough join the French yellow vests the Dutch tractor drivers, & the Brexit folk, the elites may experience something like the Chinese Cultural Revolution, & we may have taken our countries, planet & futures back.

For sure there has been the breakdown of the IOD and the southern migration of the monsoon trough, but to be fair on the BOM they were not oblivious to the prospect in the ENSO reports. MJO forecasts also suggested the prospect of some rain. Hard to predict things that aren't well understood. Harder still if you think it just a matter of computing power.

Smoke can fertilise oceans.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/07/190729151853.htm

Dear Cossomby,

Sorry for causing this misunderstanding: my response was not directed at yourself, but at this hypothetical person who is convinced that the earth is round and based on this conviction is happy to impose certain air-travel policies on others who believe that the earth is flat.

«If we can't even sort out, then we are in real trouble when it comes to issues»

Only if you insist on creating policies for others who disagree.
Otherwise, just agree to disagree, then you may create your policies and they will create theirs.

«That's why I am asking: how do we decide which opinions to follow in making policy.»

This was my whole point: you do not need to decide, the problem rests with the insistence to decide for others.