You know the rest of the jingle, from the weather man, a guy called Norm. Can’t remember what channel or how long ago, but no platitude could be more relevant today. …Nobody does a thing about it.
Weird weather is becoming the real Norm, just in case you hadn’t noticed. Not just the incredible rains in Australia, the snow in the northern hemisphere, the typhoons that we hear less about. Weird is the sudden warm snaps that unleash water in the wrong season, or the create mid-winter tornados in the US mid-west.
Interesting indeed, especially from a safe ridge in wet Moruya, where I eye the river and wonder if it could isolate us here some day.
Different matter in much of Queensland and northern NSW, where lives have been lost and the economic cost could top $6 billion.
The lost food production alone will be felt across the country, and will apparently drive wheat prices up globally. Food security is no longer such an arcane idea.
As for doing something about it, well, we’re still waiting for the penny to drop. It’s gone beyond a joke, gone beyond trying to stop climate change.
Remember how the talk during the Copenhagen meeting ‘decided’ that warming should be kept to 2 degrees Centigrade? Hubris indeed.
This isn’t going to be fun, as the residents of Queensland are already discovering. Time for adaptation, and better make it snappy. Welcome to the new normal.
Ronda, rather than being confirmation of the global warming thesis the floods in Queensland appear to be a rebuttal. We’re seeing a seasonal weather pattern that is thousands of years old and which makes a mockery of the idea that global warming is going to make the place drier.
Those politicians and scientists who tried to make us think it would never rain again ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Comment by Graham Young — January 11, 2011 @ 6:46 am
for sure La Nina, or whatever is the source of this intense rain, is ancient. Extreme climate change has happened fairly suddenly, over mere decades, in our planet’s history.
However, our pumping of CO2 into the air is accelerating what is happening, and in the past there weren’t 7 billion people on the planet.
Our civilisation is a closely coupled system, which means it is very vulnerable to slight perturbances.
Extreme events, both dry and wet, will be more frequent. Today is wet, I wouldn’t want to place a bet that the big dry won’t return.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — January 11, 2011 @ 8:17 am
Rhonda you have to look at the longer climate cycles.There are too many variables for us to draw any conclusions.
I think we are affecting climate but not to the degree the alarmists would have us believe.Even scientists have to survive and erring on the side of caution makes very good sense to their hip pocket and consciences.
When doing stats you knock out the lowest and highest scores to get a true pattern of events but the ABC ,Greenies and some of our pollies jump on extreme weather events to argue their bias.
Climate is always changing and we need the opinion of thousands of other scientists who have contrary opinions which are not being aired in the media presently.
Comment by Ross — January 11, 2011 @ 8:58 am
The articles I read say that 99% of scientists agree on the existence and causes of climate change.
Now there are mudslides in Brazil, along with extreme snow in the northern hemisphere.
I wonder what events would be needed to convince the sceptics that their lives are going to be affected.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — January 13, 2011 @ 9:09 am
Rhonda,the cause of these mud slides is the removal of deep rooted vegetation like trees.As I’ve said,we are affecting climate but to what degree?.”99% of scientists agree?” How was this survey conducted.eg “Do you believe there is climate change?” I would have said yes. Was this printed in the Murdoch press? Many scientists dare not disagree because they won’t have a job if they do not buckle to the conventional establishment thinking.
With expodential increases on CO2 we should also have a commensurate increase in temp.It is not happening.The floods in QLD have not exceeded those of 1974 in many areas.
My mind is still open.I may be wrong but the reality does not bare that out.I remember in the height of the drought many saying that this is the new climate pattern and rain will be forever scarce.By whose authority do they make these statements?
The sky is not falling,just a lot of rain.
Comment by Ross — January 13, 2011 @ 9:38 pm
Also Rhonda NASA has found that sun spot activity has increased over the decades.Mars and other planets are warming too. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/2003/0313/irradiance.html
The IPCC did not include the suns energy output when considering global warming here.The sun is the most obivious source of heat.
Comment by Ross — January 13, 2011 @ 10:18 pm
For p0ractical purposes, Ross, it almost doesn’t matter what the source of the climate change is.
You hit the nail on the head about the mudslides: human occupation in marginal areas. How much of the affected areas of Queensland were as densely populated in 1974?
The main issue is that human civilisation cannot keep up with the level of destruction and repair that repeated climatic events will create.
There are too many of us, plain and simple, living too heavily on the planet.
Comment by Ronda Jambe — January 14, 2011 @ 12:51 am
Ronda, I think you will find there has been little change in population density in most of the areas flood-affected in Queensland.
I can speak reasonably confidently about Brisbane, and the major differences between now and 1974 are the value of dwellings by the River as older weatherboard houses were replaced by masonry mansions and high rise.
The high rise are relatively unscathed, apart from car parks.
We’re lucky they built the Wivenhoe Dam. I hate to think what it would have been like without that, but I guess it would have been at peaks like 1893 or higher (we’ve been up to around 8 metres in the past versus 4.4 this time around.
Comment by Graham Young — January 14, 2011 @ 1:19 am