Pacific Weather Swings and Climate Warming

Originally posted by twhitehead
Facts? I see nothing but wild statements such as "1 in 100 years", "unprecedented", "nobody could have predicted it", none of which are backed up with any facts.

My understanding is that:
The amount of rainfall is not unprecedented.
The amount of flooding has to do with the amount of runoff which has to do with agricultural practices.
The scale of d ...[text shortened]... make sense. Either there is a measurable effect right now, or there is no effect at all.

There is enough in the various links that I have referred you to backed by
Meteorological Bureau scientists who are mentioned to indicate the size of this event and the changes that are happening.

You keep asking for stats to prove these events prove climate change. I keep telling you you won't have enough such proof until it is too late. You must make effective decisions on a holistic picture now, based on predictive climate modelling.

Such things as flood and fire damage being helped by poor placement of housing or poor fire management refers to the extent of damage, not the cause or severity of the weather itself. Some of those facts about things making the damage worse are probably true, although I might mention for the bush fires last year, extended unprecedented (ie so bad our governement committed to a billion dollare desal plant) drought and the highest temperature ever recorded and winds of 100 km or more helped. But let's ignore all that.

I did get something wrong in the size of the 1970's Darwin cyclone that was a radius measurement apparently. So it was 100 km wide. That was about the size of Cyclone Yasi's eye.

If you are referring to Livingstone, Zambia, I am surprised at your resistance to climate change in the light of the very similar (droughts and floods) steadily increasing severity there.

But I guess everyone must getting it wrongly interpreted everywhere.

We must agree to differ, well I do anyway. I've said enough. If you see it as just media inflamed emotionality, so be it. We must in the end both wait and see.

Originally posted by Taoman
Such things as flood and fire damage being helped by poor placement of housing or poor fire management refers to the extent of damage, not the cause or severity of the weather itself.

And so far I can find no evidence that the severity of the weather was unique.

Some of those facts about things making the damage worse are probably true, although I might mention for the bush fires last year, extended unprecedented (ie so bad our governement committed to a billion dollare desal plant) drought and the highest temperature ever recorded and winds of 100 km or more helped. But let's ignore all that.
Yes, you can ignore the fact that droughts are part of Australia's history. The need for a desalination plant only tells us that Australians use more water. It tells us nothing whatsoever about the history of droughts. I don't know why you keep bringing up such unscientific anecdotes to support your claims.
Surely its as simple as pointing me to a web page that shows that it was the worst drought in history (rainfall wise not financially or some such civilization dependent figure). And again I am not interested in the guesses of journalists - I want figures.

If you are referring to Livingstone, Zambia, I am surprised at your resistance to climate change in the light of the very similar (droughts and floods) steadily increasing severity there.
As I stated in an earlier post - I see no such pattern in Livingstone.

My main concern is that you are blaming all severe weather on global warming when in reality a large part of it is normal weather variation.

Originally posted by twhitehead
And so far I can find no evidence that the severity of the weather was unique.

[b]Some of those facts about things making the damage worse are probably true, although I might mention for the bush fires last year, extended unprecedented (ie so bad our governement committed to a billion dollare desal plant) drought and the highest temperature ever record ...[text shortened]... ere weather on global warming when in reality a large part of it is normal weather variation.

It appears I need to tediously point out respected scientific descriptions and some of the data I have pointed you too. For the sake of space I will only do so from my first post. I can continue to do similar with the other posts if you need me too.

I see climate scientists, (not the newspapers who report same) foremost amongst these as sound sources of both fact and scientifically informed opinion. I do not maintain that we have all the data required currently to prove climate change or that it is the direct current cause of these events, but that they are as a whole complying with climate change modelling. To me it is becoming convincing with each year, on the basis of such analysis. Reports come via newspapers, some of which do seek dramatic emphasis. I read The Age mainly, a balanced and respected local newspaper.

I may begin another post shortly about the increasing incidence of stronger and wider snowfalls across the US that is being presented, with similar descriptive adjectives used by equally informed persons there. I expect I will be able to do this a few times this coming year from various places, probably ad nauseum to some. I expect this discussion may well be an ongoing one.

Now...from my initial post 18/01, 09:30

* "We've always had El Ninos and we've had natural variability but the background which is now operating is different," said David Jones, head of climate monitoring and prediction at the Australia Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne."

I will not repeat the post in full, but he also said the current La Nina was different because of the WARMEST OCEAN TEMPERATURES ON RECORD around Australia and RECORD HUMIDITY in eastern Australia over the past 12 months.

>> I presume you do not deny the relationship between these factors and cyclonic weather. (my note)

DAVID JONES is a senior climatologist and current Head of the National Climate Centre at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.... Jones became the supervisor of Climate Analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology in 2002. In this role he has promoted the automation of analysis, monitoring and forecasting products and the introduction of a range of innovative climate monitoring activities, with a focus on encouraging the interpretation of climate variability in the context of a rapidly changing climate.
Owing to the continued misrepresentation of climate change in the Australian media Jones has written a number of public pieces correcting or explaining climate change including in The Age, and in articles for the Australian Science Media Centre.
In 2006 Jones was awarded the National Australia Day Council Achievement Medallion.]
Source: Wikipedia entry on David Jones.

>>Also from my post and apparently supportive of your position about immediate data [but not supportive of your "business as usual" line) I quote,

"Some scientists said it was still too soon to draw a definite climate change link to the floods... "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."

[Dr Neville Nicholls leads the Climate Group of the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
He has been studying interannual climate variations and their prediction for 25 years (his first paper on El Niño was published in 1973 - this paper identified the effect of the El Niño on Papua New Guinea drought). Neville has published about 100 papers and book chapters, mainly on the impacts of the El Niño and their prediction, and climate change. Neville has a PhD in Meteorology from the University of Melbourne, and an MBA from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. His Group develops operational climate prediction models, both statistical and dynamical, for use by the Bureau's National Climate Centre.]

He ALSO HAS STATED, “The Australian data reflect the global warming that we have been observing for the last few decades. The lower atmospheric temperature over the last six months (September 2009 to February 2010), according to satellite measurements from Roy Spencer and John Christy (and FREELY ACCESSIBLE on the internet), is EASILY the hottest September-February since satellite measurements began in 1978. The Spencer & Christy satellite data show the world has warmed about half a degree over the past 30 years, matching the warming observed by thermometers on the ground and in the global oceans over this period.”

(My emphasis)

Source: http://www.aussmc.org/2010/03/rapid-roundup-csiro-and-bureau-of-meteorology-joint-statement-on-australias-climate-experts-respond/

Oh calm down. The Pacific isn't coming to get us. It's pacific. That means peaceful. I live next to it, I know. It's beautiful here. Ahhhhh so nice...

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Oh calm down. The Pacific isn't coming to get us. It's pacific. That means peaceful. I live next to it, I know. It's beautiful here. Ahhhhh so nice...

😀.
Yes, I forgot, there are two "sides" to every story.

I guess people aren't going to move away from the coastal regions and onto higher ground in other places to avoid a possible impending outcome.
I must admit, the weathers as crazy/unpredictable/unusual as I've seen it in 31years in this country.
I have devised flood plans for the first time.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
I guess people aren't going to move away from the coastal regions and onto higher ground in other places to avoid a possible impending outcome.

Global warming - and the resulting expansion of water and melting of ice - results in slowly rising sea levels. There will not be flash floods or suchlike as are experienced with heavy rainfall. There will be plenty of warning and the choice will be whether to protect the coastal cities from the Sea, or move inland. But there really is no need to make any decision now unless you are planning 20 - 30 years in advance.