Guest essay by Cameron Goodison
Recently the Australian Goyder Institute released a report detailing the effects of climate change on rainfall in South Australia. The result:
‘Climate change will halve inflow to SA’s biggest reservoir.’
The ABC, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-17/climate-change-will-halve-inflow-to-sa-biggest-reservoir-mount-/6128832
To make such a alarming statement one would think the ABC has done its research. They must have first done a quick Google search of the average annual rainfall for the region to see if there is any sort of noticeable downward trend that would give such a statement some degree of credibility.
Now perhaps the ABC decides that it would be better to look at data only from 1970 onwards as rain gauges before then were probably inaccurate. 
Ok now we’ve found a trend we should probably read the report in full so we can find see if the methods used appear to be somewhat reliable. Firstly let’s see what data the report used.
Stream flow records for the catchment. They are scientists so they probably accounted for changing usages by humans and changing inflows from the Murray river pipeline.
Rainfall records. 93 rain records are found in the catchment area but the scientists have decided to use only 23 as the others appear to be unreliable and these particular 23 seem to be spread out nicely. Oh and they are using data from 1970 onward too so the scientists must agree that anything before then is unreliable.
Ok so the ABC have done their research and all the data appears to be reliable. Next what is the method used for making the projections??
Well the report says they used a CIMP5 model and combined it with a Markov model and a hydrological model and well the words are starting to get a bit big now so everything in the rest of the report is probably right. And we won’t the question the motives of the Goyder institute which relies on climate change for its very existence.
So now the ABC has some science for its report they should probably go ask some politicians what they think. The Environmental minister says the report justifies his governments 1.8 billion dollar desalinisation plant which is costing 1 million dollars a day to produce water which currently isn’t needed. And so the ABC now has its typical climate change article in which the world is ending and we can only be saved by clever politicians, spending billions of dollars and a non-biased government funded media outlet.
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Can we stop using anomaly for data that differs from an average?
There is no evidence that any of the rainfall amounts are anomalous – even the Alarmists surely agree that rainfall in 1900 was not “anomalous”?
You are right “ANOMALY!!!” is a warmist term, it sounds a bit sinister. OK everyone, just start using variance, or some similar and more appropriate term
The point is variance from what exactly?
Looking at a soccer players career average, we can note his scoring is up or down against his average in any given year. In this case players career is very specific and well defined.
Climate history and averages on the other hand are random periods randomly selected by the wizards at climate international.
Tim, you might want to look up the definition of “anomaly” with regards to meteorology.
‘To make such a alarming statement one would think the ABC has done its research.’
I do not now know why you think that , given ABC just repeats any such alarmist nonsense without thought and has done for years .
Error bars! Where are the error bars?
Yeah but it usually doesn’t matter.
According to climate science whether rainfall is up or down, it indicates something bad, caused by climate change, caused by the unnatural human species that figured out to to use use energy in grand amounts.
The propaganda and government expenditures are currently heavily invested in rainfall being down, so they are going to continue to play that hand, at least until the floods come. And then of course excessive rainfall will be the calamity due to climate change.
Wish they would just come out and say it; floods and droughts are both caused by climate change. Simplifies everything, no more arguing over whether it’s getting dryer or wetter. They get what they want, which is climate change is the cause of every bad thing and real scientists get to ignore them.
Just as an aside, I can see a pretty clear correlation between the rainfall deficit in South Australia and the border between SA and Western Australia. I propose moving the border to the east coast so that it no longer blocks the rain.
How about moving it to the ACT Victorian border.
Lets face it rainfall figures are all either 0 or positive but anomalies can also be negative. When you are trying to represent a forthcoming disaster a negative figure is sooooooo much more convincing. It can even be made to look, by putting horrid brown colours on the map, like its negative rain…….negative clouds sucking up water instead of dropping it!!
They can push out articles like this in the main street press and most people will believe it. Its only the skeptics with half a brain would know how absurd it is, however they have the money and the newspaper. People here can only realize how futile it is. Get over it, remember the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules, and with $100B+ a year spend on “climate science”, they have the gold.
Somebody built one heckuva fence between SA and WA! Even patrolled by Maxwell’s Daemons to keep the rain out of SA…
Victoria’s rainfall seems to be only 0.5mm/10yr, if you go back to 1900, and not 20-50mm/10year.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ%5Bgraph%5D=rranom&tQ%5Barea%5D=vic&tQ%5Bseason%5D=0112&tQ%5Bave_yr%5D=T
http://www.bom.gov.au/tmp/cc/rranom.vic.0112.18468.png
You couldn’t claim ignorance that starting from 1970 gives a misleading result.
Listen to why climate models cannot predict future weather and future climate. It’s just mathematically impossible.
Aunty is in more hot water over it’s biased reporting of scientific research-
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/media_watch_over_heated_on_wind_farms/
Many of us are fed up with this taxpayer funded propaganda plaything of left/green fanatics that have captured and taken over what was once a reasonable alternative to commercial media, but has now become superfluous in the internet age. With a dire Federal Budget deficit position now, it should be sold off to realize any remaining asset worth.
A “white elephant,” according to Adelaide Now, brought to you by the infamous Barrie Harrop:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adelaide-desalination-plant-to-be-mothballed/story-e6frea83-1226488293662
Gloom and doom for the SW of Western Australia. We have had significantly lower rainfall over the past decade, but what the BOM likes to ignore is that exactly the same decline in rainfall occurred between approximately 1890 and 1905. Apparently there wasn’t any weather before 1905, no, rainfall or temperatures, So if this is cyclical or para cyclical, event as I suggest, things should return to normal well within my life time. Presuming there is such a thing as “a normal” in weather”.