Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Aussie Climate Scientist Steve Sherwood, Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, thinks in the future Australia will experience more rain, less rain or something in between.
More rain on the horizon as climate change affects Australia, study finds
Australians will need to batten down the hatches with more intense rain storms predicted as a result of higher humidity driven by a rise in global temperatures.
New findings from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, published in Nature Climate Change on Tuesday, reveal that a two-degree rise in average global temperatures would lead to a 10-30 per cent increase in extreme downpours.
The study’s authors predict that while some parts of the continent will become wetter, others will experience increasing drought.
Steve Sherwood, a professor at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW who contributed to the research, said global warming would have a clear impact on rainfall.
“There is no chance that rainfall in Australia will remain the same as the climate warms,” he said.
“With two degrees of global warming, Australia is stuck with either more aridity, much heavier extreme rains, or some combination of the two.”
…
The study referenced by the press article;
Future increases in extreme precipitation exceed observed scaling rates
Models and physical reasoning predict that extreme precipitation will increase in a warmer climate due to increased atmospheric humidity. Observational tests using regression analysis have reported a puzzling variety of apparent scaling rates including strong rates in midlatitude locations but weak or negative rates in the tropics. Here we analyse daily extreme precipitation events in several Australian cities to show that temporary local cooling associated with extreme events and associated synoptic conditions reduces these apparent scaling rates, especially in warmer climatic conditions. A regional climate projection ensemble6 for Australia, which implicitly includes these effects, accurately and robustly reproduces the observed apparent scaling throughout the continent for daily precipitation extremes. Projections from the same model show future daily extremes increasing at rates faster than those inferred from observed scaling. The strongest extremes (99.9th percentile events) scale significantly faster than near-surface water vapour, between 5.7–15% °C−1 depending on model details. This scaling rate is highly correlated with the change in water vapour, implying a trade-off between a more arid future climate or one with strong increases in extreme precipitation. These conclusions are likely to generalize to other regions.
Read more: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate3201.html
Sherwood’s University of New South Wales is also home to Climate researcher Chris Turney, leader of the infamous 2013 Ship of Fools expedition to the Antarctic.
Sadly the full study is paywalled. But from the abstract and Sherwood’s comments to the press, in my opinion Sherwood’s prediction seems unfalsifiable. Almost any imaginable future rainfall observation would fit a prediction of more aridity, more rainfall, or something in between.
In this propaganda rag article, http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/01/17/extreme-rainstorms/
…. we see a picture of Uluru, with a comment about abnormal rains..
Any geologist will immediately note that the rain is running in deep channels.. DOH !!
Mate if you visit the Olgas (now called Kata Tjuta) you’re looking at walls of previous water eroded round rocks embedded in sandstone and you’re looking across at the far distant horizon to the Peterman Ranges where they originated from. It’s as sobering to realize your own inconsequence as it is looking at the same encased round rocks in the walls of the Bungle Bungles in the NW of Western Australia. And these precious idiots look at 150 years of thermometer records and get the schoolgirl vapours. They need to get out and about a bit more-
https://www.ayersrockresort.com.au/uluru-and-kata-tjuta/natural-environment/geology
Mind you-
“The Anangu people know how Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed. This knowledge comes from the Tjukurpa, the stories and lore that explain and govern Anangu life. But much of it, particularly about Kata Tjuta, is sacred and cannot be presented here.”
Now where have we heard that sort of storyline before?
A load of useless such and such. What idiots are paying for this… oh the taxpayers.
As if any continents rainfall distribution has been static until humans showed up.
It is well known that Australia was perfect until modern (European) humans arrive. Before that, the aborigines were “perfectly in tune with their environment”. Ignore the firestick farming that completely changed the face of the continent. So much so that it appears in the paleological record.
/Sarc
That prediction is a real “no brainer”. Literally so.
Climate Change Research Centre
I wonder what a fully entrenched fully funded fully staffed Climate Stability Research Centre would find.
Don;t you just love the humility: “Centre of Excellence”.
I think I’ll award myself a gold medal.
Hey, me too. And I actually do work in a research department called centre of excellence. But then, I am a modeller too. What a loser I must be.
I think it was Professor Sherwood’s magic model that succeeded where twenty-eight million weather balloons over 60 years failed in discovering that elusive troposphere ’hot spot’, an identifying fingerprint of strong positive water vapour feedback in the climate system and hence essential for the catastrophic narrative:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/05/desperation-who-needs-thermometers-sherwood-finds-missing-hot-spot-with-homogenized-wind-data/
http://www.megafileupload.com/8gxo/10.1038@nclimate3201.pdf
yarr!
Geological history proves cycles of ice ages and inter-glacial periods.
Isn’t that very well accepted science? (you could even call it a consensus)
I would like to ask Steve Sherwood how he reconciles his prediction with geological history and, over what period of time will Australia’s rainfall be “increased”?
Will it cancel out the next ice age?
If not, and the earth continues to warm at the current rate of a poofteenth of a degree per year, won’t the humans alive at the time (if any) in the lead up to the ice age, experience a comfortable “cool period” after the hell-fires of predicted warming?
So what is it, Each Way Sherwood or Two Bob Steve?
Hi, I’m Aussie Climate Scientist Steve Sherwood, Director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. This essay, all of you have been commenting on, is really a test for Saturday Night Live. It looks like I’ve received plenty of positive response to present this study to NBC. Hope you enjoy the production! /SARC
Dr Tim (Ghost Metropolis) Flannery, will have something to say about this…it’s barely 7 years since he was predicting a city destroying ‘permanent drought’….sound familiar?
Tim Blair has come up with a great nickname for Flannery and his woeful predictions: Nostradumbarse.
Actually it was back in March 2015 that Tim Blair christened the ridiculous Bob Ellis with the name Nostradumbarse. But it’s a perfectly good nom de pume for Old Flannelpants.
You’ve got a good archive, Karabar. Do you go back as far as when Tim was writing in The Bullein?
And the null hypothesis is….. ?
*facepalm*
there is none , try asking them what would ‘disprove ‘ their claims and they cannot or will not ever answer .
I truly weep for my country and as for the wankers who keep coming up with this garbage ,” the end of your gravy train world is nigh” .
Just listening to our local news and they were whining about our unusual 40 degree c plus day , the weather presenter then claimed more people die of heat stress than natural disasters .
I checked and you know what ? More people die from heat stress than winning tattslotto and eating their shoes and choking and walking on railroad tracks and even playing on freeways at peak hour .
I kid you not check it yourself Tony , unfortunately they didn’t mention more people die from cold related injurys than heat related injurys .
A complete bunch of nongs. They haven’t got a clue. One day we’re going to have a week of rain & 2 days later, after no rain, well the rains been postponed to next week.
But it’s Climate Change, DOH! I meant Global Warming that’s really causing the problem.
Hey, this is Australia, let’s not get too serious, after all we’ve got Labour party or dead duck Liberal governments.
Might as well stooge them all. Let’s squander the kids inheritance on a mirage of windmills and stupid solar panels.
Actually PaulE it’s spelled Labor Party. Sorry to be picky.
What the Australian Labour Party now spells its name “labor Party”? colour me sceptical!
Yes the founders of the ALP couldn’t spell either but you know how ejumacation is nowadays-
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/i-was-fired-from-my-school-for-correcting-a-students-spelling-mistake/ar-AAlVsbf?
“Might as well stooge them all. Let’s squander the kids inheritance on a mirage of windmills and stupid solar panels.”
Interestingly the non-science crowd might get their comeuppance next summer once Hazelwood closes-
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2017/01/nem-wide-demand-at-34000mw-today/
There’s a cartoon line for this one: “Eenie meanie chilli-beanie – the spirits are about to speak” *SMH*
Classic climate ‘science’ heads you lose tails I win ‘ and if ever wanted to know why these people protect their own areas so much , its party because they never get such a easy job anywhere else and no other area of science would touch them given their rubbish standards. So its all in , because otherwise they have nothing .
And what if the temperature does not rise by 2 degrees, but drops instead?
Another paper, of course!
Perhaps Sherwood could get a job at the Bank of England!!
Mark Carney – “As a result, the next interest rate move could be either up or down, he said”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38644963?SThisFB
“A regional climate projection ensemble6 for Australia, which implicitly includes these effects, accurately and robustly reproduces the observed apparent scaling throughout the continent for daily precipitation extremes.”
I think this illustrates the problem. They build a model, tweak it to replicate what has actually happened, then congratulate themselves that they have build an accurate and robust model.
I honestly don’t think they see the problem.
You misunderstand the problem they were solving. The government had money. They wanted it. Once paper later, problem solved.
My prediction for the coming year is that (fill in the blank) will increase, decrease or be somewhere in between, all on account of climate change. You’re welcome!
What he’s saying isn’t a mere truism. He’s saying that if aridity is avoided, and rainfall occurs at current levels, it’ll be in a less benign way.
(But maybe, OTOH, rainfall patterns in Australia will become more benign; i.e., maybe there’ll be a moderation of its flood/drought pattern. Who knows?)
Weather in Australia used to be like clockwork, there were no extremes whatsoever. Not any more.
if it’s normal is it extreme ?
http://www.outbackcrossing.com.au/Information/The_Great_Debate_-The_Hottest_Town_in_Australia.shtml
Perhaps only in comparison to someone else’s normal
I have said it before and I will say it again:
Simulation is like masturbation – the more you do it, the more you start to believe that it is the real thing.