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.
Nice to know the Aussies have their own version of Bill Nye. After saying CA was going into permanent drought, his tune has now changed to a version of ‘approve Paris accord or CA will drown!’.
You know, honestly, sometimes I wish I’d taken up meteorology. I don’t envy them at all, but there’s just so much work to do in the field. We make fun of them a lot, but they really are on the cutting edge of science. They fall on their asses a lot, but you know what we say; if you aren’t falling down you aren’t skiing hard enough.
More, less, about the same? That seems to be the best we can do these days. If they weren’t trying to promote themselves as the saviours of humanity, it would be a whole lot easier to welcome them into the ranks of the people who already know they don’t know anything.
I think the Ark of Excrescence for high Clime Cisterns is about to sail on its final voyage into permanent ice under the command of the admiral of the Ship of Fools. Typical of increasingly hysterical end of world papers being uselessly churned out in journals that also feel the cold breath of change on the back of their necks, they have dispensed with any pretence of error bars. Indeed, these are 100% certainty papers (wet, dry, mixed, warm, cool conditions). With an Ark type model you could predict the color of the First Lady’s inauguration ball gown with 100% certainty.
There you see, we indeed have climate change.
Maybe he should stick his neck in the rope and say where what will happen.
We have also climate change in Denmark. The other night it was -10C and now it is 0C. It is even visible from my window.
I predict that when the rain does come, it will fall. When it falls, it will fall more lightly or harder. The era of stable, golden-zone, perfectionistic climate is forever gone.
It’s not total humidity that matters, it’s relative humidity.
If the air is warmer, it will continue to hold onto that extra humidity.
O/T but hilarious:
https://www.cooleffect.org/saveoursnowmen
Once again, repeat after me: If your hypothesis contains all possible outcomes you have no null hypothesis to start with. If that’s the case, you aren’t doing science. All you’re producing is hot air.
My prediction for the U.S stock market is that some stocks will go up and some stocks will go down, or there will be some combination of the two. These conclusions are likely to generalize to other regions.
With a prediction like that, I expect many climate scientists will want to hire me as their stock broker. Others, not so much. When can I pick up my Nobel Prize for economics? If it’s good enough for climate science…
“With two degrees of global warming, Australia is stuck with either more aridity, much heavier extreme rains, or some combination of the two.”
WOW! The crystalline precision of climatologist Steve Sherwood’s pin point prediction leaves me breathless! Aussies everywhere can be extremely proud of the HUGE return on investment that Steve Sherwood’s Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales is providing to over burdened Australian taxpayers!!
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science just received the prestigious Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence
Thermalization of terrestrial EMR absorbed by CO2 and reverse thermalization, nearly all to the plethora of lower energy absorb/emit bands of water vapor, explain why CO2 has no significant effect on climate. Global average increased rainfall is expected as a result of the steady uptrend of global average atmospheric water vapor for at least the last 38 years as reported by NASA/RSS. The data showing the uptrend is graphed at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
This is the Same Steve Sherwood who said if you use wind as a proxy for temperature the troposphere is warming after all: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2008/may/28/upper-troposphere-is-warming-after-all-research-shows
What a clown.
That’s an ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science clown to you sir and not some common or garden Climate System Science clown.
Has Steve Sherwood finally got the memo ,
What Will Warming Do?
Another issue researchers are trying to better understand is how a warmer atmosphere will impact atmospheric rivers — a key consideration for areas that so depend on these features for water.
Climate models and basic physics suggest that atmospheric rivers will become moister and more intense in the future, as a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor (about 4 percent more for every degree 1°F of warming).
https://www.climatecentral.org/news/global-warming-atmospheric-rivers-18645
Here are some tools that could be used to steer atmospheric rivers .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Communication_Station_Harold_E._Holt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLF_Transmitter_Woodside
And the process.
Transmitter-induced Precipitation of Electron Radiation (TIPER)[edit]
“In order to cause electron precipitation, transmitters must produce very powerful waves with wavelengths from 10 to 100 km.[3] Naval communication arrays often cause transmitter-induced precipitation of electron radiation (TIPER) because powerful waves are needed to communicate through water. These powerful transmitters are operating at almost all times of the day. Occasionally, these waves will have the exact heading and frequency needed to cause an electron to precipitate from the radiation belt.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_precipitation
As a citizen of the Lucky Country the news just gets better and better. With apologies to Dorothea McKellar:
“I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains”
becomes “I love a slightly sunburnt country, a land with plenty of rains”?
Yep!
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/sa-weather-thousands-without-power-after-wild-storms-cross-state/ar-AAm1XZE?
“With two degrees of global warming, Australia is stuck with either more aridity, much heavier extreme rains, or some combination of the two.”
So if things don’t change they’ll stay the same? This is what passes for “science” these days? And there I thought “settled science” would enable one to make predictions? Oh sorry, he did make a prediction – things will change or they won’t! I could have predicted that with my puny degrees in Computer Science and History. Where do I sign up for the big bucks?
As for global average temperature; how is that more useful than global average telephone number, pray tell?
As an Australian Tax Payer I shudder to think I am paying Academics for meaningless alarmist nonsense as this by Sherwood. Australia’s climate has always varied for millions of years and will go on being variable regardless of an extra 100 or 200 ppm of CO2 . In my 60 years of life I have seen numerous droughts, heatwaves, cold spells, floods and as I live in Melbourne you can get all of it in one day!! This will go on and on like this even if we stopped every bit of human carbon burning today.
At present we are not particularly hot for Summer which I am happy about.
FYI Sherwood was very active in trying to deny Monckton access to venues at which he could present his views to the public.
Apoxonbothyourhouses
“FYI Sherwood was very active in trying to deny Monckton access to venues at which he could present his views to the public.”
Let’s not forget either the appalling and deceitful treatment of Bjorn Lomborg by the University of WA backed by the entire Australian AGW Establishment. Australian climate science is as politicised and corrupt as anywhere in the world. Very glad, though, to see Garth Paltridge, whom I met once many years ago and who explained to me all about Antarctica and the oceans, is now with the GWPF
Sherwood’s “prediction” that “Australia is stuck with either more aridity, much heavier extreme rains, or some combination of the two” is not an example of a “prediction” but rather is an example of an “equivocation.” Unlike a prediction, an equivocation conveys no information.
Reads as if it has been written by one of those random phrase generators.
So in other words; Melbourne.
But will it fill the dams? are you there Tim? come in Tim.
“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.”
Guess why.
” 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.”
Astrology always did a good job because professionals know how to take the people.