From
Operator of dam ‘invented’ rain data
EXTREME rainfall so rare it happens on average once every 2000 years has been “invented” by the government operator of a major Queensland dam as part of its explanation for releasing huge volumes of water that caused most of Brisbane’s January flood.
The claim by SEQWater in its official report that a “one-in-2000-year” rainfall event occurred over the Wivenhoe Dam at a critical stage on January 11 has been widely reported in the media and cited by senior public servants to justify the near loss of control of the dam at the time.
But no such rainfall event was measured by any rainfall gauges. Instead, the claim was manufactured by SEQWater after it modelled the rapid rise of levels in the dam, repositioned rainfall data to an area immediately upstream of the dam, and then doubled it.
After extrapolating in this unusual way to achieve an extreme number, the SEQWater report states: “Rainfall of this intensity and duration over the Wivenhoe Dam lake area at such a critical stage of a flood event was unprecedented.
…
The technical report by SEQWater shows it relied on a manual gauge of dam levels, not the actual rainfall in gauges, to extrapolate data to claim the occurrence of a one-in-2000-year event.
However, in doing this, SEQWater disregarded the data from a nearby electronic gauge, which showed dam levels lower than those in the manual gauge.
Full story here
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My heart goes out to the people of Queensland and in particular, Brisbane, where I visited last year. Heads should roll over this. h/t to WUWT reader Betapug
UPDATE: Reader Frank K points out this article by skeptical cartoonist John Cook in ABC:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2011/01/17/3114597.htm
The headline:
The essay was also posted on his antithetically named “Skeptical Science” blog:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/OK-global-warming-this-time-its-personal.html
He’s right about one thing, this event IS personal, and preventable. And, I’m willing to bet there will be scads of very personal lawsuits by people who have been grievously harmed by the government ineptitude in managing the dam.
If Mr. Cook has any integrity, he’ll retract his story. But, I doubt he will.
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when people begin suffering actual, measurable economic losses, or even loss of life, as a result of mann-ipulated data, we’ve gone from “just” fraud to… something else.
So all that dramatic flooding we saw in TV news was not due to AGW induced rain, but was due to operator error at a dam? WOW!
All designed to make the flooding in QLD “worse than expected” (Shame about 1974, 1951….and all the way back to 1870). And in Victoria and the snowy mountain hydro plant doing “odd things with water flows” (I don’t have the details anymore, but basically, hydro plant “1” was at full chat, during the flooding downstream).
The error was caused by global warming heating the operator’s cranium so that he suffered an episode of extreme delerium.
If I read it correctly, the article states “the Brisbane flood” damage was caused by the dam operation.
The loss of life was in other parts of Queensland and not impacted by dam operations.
The flooding in Brisbane came with plenty of warning and was only property damage.
Strange. A graph of flood levels measured on the Brisbane River, dated 28/05/2010 and issued by the Australian Bureau of Meterology shows an equal level of water rise in about 1975 as well as three similar earlier 19th century cases, plus a further two substantially larger events, these being in about 1842 and 1892. (The graph has not been scaled so as to allow for accurate date back-tracking.) That is the difficulty of these once-in-2000-year events. They occur so darn often!
Geoff Alder
Someone just demonstated the qualities to become a climate scientist, and IPCC Lead Author
I am sure I remember reading at the time there was an embargo on releasing water from dams due to forecast droughts expected as a result of global warming. It seems they eventually had no choice but to release water to save the dam. I feel it was the government that was at fault and this was an attempted cover up.
Are there any Aussies out there who are familiar with
Australian liability laws that would apply to SEQWater
operators and any “harm” the folks downstream might
claim ?
From the article:
“Mr O’Brien, who has mounted a strong case that the devastating floods in and near Brisbane would have been almost completely avoided with better management of the dam, said the one-in-2000-year event was an “invention” that could not be taken seriously.”
Wow! That is a serious charge!
Hey! You beat RC with this headline. Oh, the irony.
Sounds like they’re measuring the dam level with a “hockey stick” like device.
Wow . . . these guys are really channeling their inner climate scientologist. They believe their models trump reality, they make up data as required and can cook-up a cover-up in nanoseconds.
What next, applying for a Faculty job at East Anglia or Penn State?
And it only took a couple of minutes to find this article on the Brisbane Floods…
OK global warming, this time it’s personal!
By John Cook
ABC Environment | 17 Jan 2011
Climate change is making a better boxer of Mother Nature. She landed a few good punches last week.
.
.
.
But now our climate is packing more of a wallop. Fuelled by more water vapour, it’s looking like what we used to call 100-year events will become more common. And that means we’re going to see more and more extreme rainfall and flooding.
Climate change isn’t just some theoretical prediction for the distant future. Global warming is happening now. Extreme rainfall has been increasing over the last 50 years. As the world continues to warm, we’re going to be seeing more.
Ironically, we see the flip-side of this as well. Part of the reason that the air is so moist is that the water has been baked out of lands elsewhere. Global warming means more intense rainfall and more intense drought. Again, this isn’t theory – it’s happening now. While the rate of extreme rain events are increasing, we’re also observing an increase in drought severity.
—
[sigh]
The flooding in Brisbane came with plenty of warning and was only property damage.
“only” property damage. well, that makes it all better. so what if we fudged the data, then. didn’t really hurt anything.
moral relativism is a cancer.
the data manipulators/fraudsters should all be put in a prison cell next to Madhoff. The only difference between them is that increased taxes are legal, hidden, “somebody else’s money” and largely forgotten about. Their actions, as we are beginning to see, have real consequences for real people, all based on fabricated “facts” to suit the agenda.
It will continue until we all get serious about holding those responsible to account for their actions.
What fools. And expect similar from California. It has been so long since California has experienced normal/above normal rain fall that there is discussion that the current generation of operators are unprepared for reservoir and dam flood control. Given that most reservoir levels are over 100% average and many at capacity sound judgment will be essential.
hind casting …….
Stick with what you’re good at
Frank K. says:
March 28, 2011 at 9:43 am
And it only took a couple of minutes to find this article on the Brisbane Floods…
=======================================================
Did you read the article linked to Anthony’s post? The ramblings of Mr. Cook aren’t relevant to this discussion. And neither are his delusions of an atmospheric water-world.
This is a story about piss-poor judgment, methods used to determine future water levels at a particular site, and the misstatements after the fact.
@ur momisugly Frank K. says:
March 28, 2011 at 9:43 am
Sorry, conditioned response to Cook.
Geoengineering.
The flooding in Brisbane came with plenty of warning and was only property damage.
Thats OK then /sarc off
If it was your house you would not be so happy!!!!!
The data are sent to a secret prison deep in the Queensland wilderness where they are tortured until they tell the “truth”.
This is a major advance in the “science” of global warming. Rather than putting a lot of effort into truncating data series and building bad models, all you have to do is just to “make it all up”. Think of the labor and watt-hours saved by this new approach. It is guaranteed to win a Nobel prize.
In China, if proven guilty, the dam operator would be made to knee down and then shot in the head from behind. Not my favorite solution, indeed (I am strongly and unconditionally against the death penalty) but useful here to remark on cultural differences. Something of the sort (say, a few years of jail time) would be better than the promotion frequently granted to such types, for their heroic efforts to promote the cause of climate change mitigation through the difussion of an “undiluted message.”
Slinging in the rain.