January 4, 2008
This drought may never break
IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation’s most senior weather experts warned yesterday.
“Perhaps we should call it our new climate,” said the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of climate analysis, David Jones.
Five years later, exactly 0% of Australia is experiencing severe long-term drought.
“Five years later, exactly 0% of Australia is experiencing severe long-term drought.”
That is good. But I confess I find even the concept of “drought” in Australia strange.
Because when I look at pictures of it ( I have never been there) it looks like Arizona ( I have been to Arizona). Are people surprised or shocked when it fails to rain in Tucson ?
I doubt it.
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/~kobourov/IMAGES/Tucson_Images/tucson4.jpg
http://imaginaryfriendsshow.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Spirit-of-Australia-lge.jpg
That picture from Australia looks a lot like the region where I grew up:
http://parks.nv.gov/parks/valley-of-fire-state-park/
While I was growing up we did not call desert conditions a “Drought”!
Jim,
The first picture… http://www.scribd.com/doc/16839498/Plasma-in-the-Lab-and-in-Rock-Art
Did you find more like that over there?
There is a whole bunch of “Rock Art” around the Las Vegas region. Especially in the Valley of Fire State Park.
Petroglyphs are common in Southern Nevada.
Oh, no.
I just did a googley image search and took a neato picture.
I am not responsible for anything further that you might have seen.
Yup.
Granted it is not all desert. But it’s pretty close.
What is his address?
I want to send him the bill for all the desalination plants that were built based on his stuipid advice.
I think he lives with Tim Flannery, to whom people want to send something other than the bill.
Lucky he inserted the word ‘may’ into his claim. He dodged a bullet there.
Come on you guys – you’re kidding right ? There is no way Australia is “pretty close” to desert.
Do you even know where Uluru is ? Look at the map above – it is close to the T intersection on the Western Australia border with the South Australia,NT border.
It is more than 1000 miles from the nearest coast in all directions – more than 2000 miles in some – no wonder it is semi desert.
Most of northern Australia is usually deluged by the tropical monsoon – the tropic of Capricorn passes near the top of the legend – in summer, Nov to April, and is usually dry for the rest of the year.
The east coast receives good rainfall – anywhere from 900 mm to over 3.5 metres in tropical Queensland – thats about 11 and a half feet of rain – imagine if that fell as snow at the 10 to 1 ratio of snow to rain.
Yes, but it is all rotten rain. All of the multi-year rain has been gone since 2008.
I’m sure the people of Gympie who are currently flooded about an hour north of where I live will be releived to hear that.
They’ve been flooded 5 times in less than 2 years – with the possibility of another before the wet season is over.
They had the chance of a dam on the Mary river years ago but rejected it in 2009 on environmental grounds – lungfish and turtles.
I think Gympie has been flooded more than 8 times since the dam was proposed to alleviate water shortages in Brisbane’s main water storages. While Brisbane was running out of water Gympie – about 106 miles north – flooded.
Of course the whole east coast flooded in 2011 and 2013 while only a fair bit flooded in 2012.
I’ve hardly seen the sun for months now.
For comparison here’s where I live
https://plus.google.com/photos/105748527010665560495/albums/5849760674871193121/5849760678224293250?authkey=CKnHttbc06TIggE
For the non-Aussies; yes Australia has large areas where extreme dry is the norm – ie the great hunk of largely desert in the centre. But even there, large areas are grazed and occasionally watered by river systems which are fed by floodwaters from the north and east. The more coastal regions particularly the eastern seaboard are in fact very productive and generally receive sufficient seasonal rain. Every few years there is a drought to some extent somewhere and occasionally the drought lasts a few years and the rural areas suffer. Nothing has changed since Europeans arrived in 1788.
According to the Aborigines, you wrecked the climate in the 18th century
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/679787
Ouch. Did Native Americans ever blame us for climate change?
Still, they have cool stories about forest people aka big foot. If you want something fun to read, get The Locals by Thom Powell. Pretty fun to read, actually. If you live in isolated area, maybe you will spot something…
Steve before settlement the whole continent of Australia managed to feed at best five million people we now feed something like sixty million
“..before settlement the whole continent of Australia managed to feed at best five million people..”
Estimates put it at somewhere between 318,000 and 1 million.
“..we now feed something like sixty million”
Australia’s population is now 23 million.
RE: stephen – “..we now feed something like sixty million”
RE: Dave N – “Australia’s population is now 23 million.”
Australia exports two thirds of total agricultural production, so 60 million fed is an accurate estimate.
http://dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/trade_in_agriculture.html
With no part of Australia experiencing long term drought this must be classified as an extreme weather event caused by climate change.
It’s even worse.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-28/rusty-causes-polling-drama/4544756?section=wa
Permanent drought in Australia is endangering democracy! We should increase the Carbon Tax to save democracy and also the poor unfortunate London carbon scrip shysters…oops I mean financiers.
Permanent Drought is costing Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions on top of the Carbon Tax.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-28/gillard-announces-flood-mitigation-fund/4545088