By P Gosselin
East Australia got hit by lots of rain in February earlier this year, and the media of course blamed it all on manmade climate change.
Now a new study by Holgate et al (2022) titled “The Impact of Interacting Climate Modes on East Australian Precipitation Moisture Sources” shows East Australia’s rains are directly tied to natural oceanic patterns.
Hat-tip: EIKE.
The paper’s abstract summarizes that east Australia precipitation is driven by multiple interacting climate modes and that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modifies the supply of evaporative moisture for precipitation and that this is modulated by the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and southern annular mode (SAM).

Sources of moisture in eastern Australia. Source: Holgate et al, 2020
The authors describe how La Niña facilitates local precipitation generation whereas El Niños are associated with below average precipitation.
In an article appearing in the academic CONVERSATION here, the authors noted there are climate oscillations at play in the modulation of east Australia rainfall, primarily the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Southern Annular Mode (SAM), and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD):
“Like swings in a character’s mood, each climate mode has positive, negative and neutral phases. Each affect Australia’s weather in different ways,” write the authors. “La Niña brings wetter conditions to eastern Australia. The IOD’s negative phase, and SAM’s positive phase, can also bring more rain.”
In other words, rains and dry periods depend on what the oceanic cycles are doing, and not CO2. Understanding the key natural cycles is key.
However, the authors do go on to claim that extreme La Niña and El Niño events and weather systems “are expected to worsen due to greenhouse gas emissions”, but that is speculative at best. Co2 does not drive ocean cycles and modes.
When “expected” never shows up
We remind that also Atlantic hurricanes too “are expected to worsen due to greenhouse gases”, yet the opposite has in fact been the case over the past decades. Also the Arctic was expected to be ice-free in the summer by now. But that too has not happened and late summer sea ice there has trended upwards moderately over the past 15 years.
Oceans were expected to warm as well, but as Kenneth noted yesterday, that too has not been necessarily the case. New research suggests the bottom half (2 km to the bottom) of the Pacific has been robustly cooling since 1993!
Prof. John Schellnhuber, former director of the PIK Potsdam Institute, also “expected” the Himalayas to lose their glaciers by 2030, yet that was glaringly exposed as a real doozy of a climate bluff as well.
So when it comes to weather extremes and future projections, it’s really important to separate the science from the climate scamming.
Based on the utter failure of climate models to accurately predict the future, I am starting to think that these models have as much of a chance of being correct as I do of winning the lottery and I never buy lottery tickets.
The models are written such that CO2 is driver of what is predicted. They do meet their authors expectations. In that way they are accurate. Forecasting temperatures, not so much.
All the models turn into a linear projection after some number of years. Why is that? They are programmed with CO2 as the driver. After a few years, boundary limits are reached and only the CO2 projection is left. You want to recreate a model’s projection. Draw a straight line from today to where you think the temperature will be in 100 years. Erase the line for several years at the beginning and replace it with some random variations. There you have it, who needs a super computer?
That’s man made lottery losing!
Schellenhuber is the “scientist” who told us in 2019, the next year (2020), with a probability of 80 % we will be hit by an El Niño, because of the used new and sophisticated ENSO model that has shown what other models didn’t, just strong indicators for El Niño.
We know the reality 😀
Being a CliSciFi practitioner means you never have to say you’re sorry.
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) modifies the supply of evaporative moisture for precipitation and that this is modulated by the Indian Ocean dipole (IOD) and southern annular mode (SAM).
And yet
“weather systems “are expected to worsen due to greenhouse gas emissions”
That gets it past the narrative compliance checks. Phew!
Same exact response was needed for the wonderful Antarctic Ice Sheet article from a couple of days ago lol!
Yep, probably couldn’t get published without that statement.
Simply put, “Mother Nature” is still in charge of the weather cycles, irregardless of what the “learned” members of the climate change cult flap their jaws and fudged studies about.
The folks who put out this balderdash need to be cut off from their funding and sent to some remote place where their crap is appreciated. That would probably be someplace not currently populated by anything or anyone. Let ’em pontificate to each other. For eternity.
Not to annoy, but “irregardless” isn’t a word.
Pat, the moment I read that word I knew someone like you would pop up.
Merriam-Webster: “It may not be a word that you like, or a word that you would use in a term paper, but irregardless certainly is a word. It has been in use for well over 200 years, employed by a large number of people across a wide geographic range and with a consistent meaning.”
This is not something new. Ian Holton, a meteorologist working for BOM in the 1990’s dissatisfied that their forecasts giving weight to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation by not including data from the other oceans surrounding Australia, left their employment to form his own private forecasting service which found a market mainly with the farming sector.
Using data from all the oceans and with Japanese researchers identifying the Indian Ocean IOD in 1998, Ian was able to use historic records to study how conditions in the Indian and Pacific oceans interacted in bringing increased or reduced rainfall to Australia.
He found the various phases of the Pacific ENSO and the Indian IOD alternate, at times they coincide bringing periods of higher or lower rainfall, at other times offsetting each other for more neutral conditions. A negative IOD coinciding with a La Nina is historically associated with increased flooding events.
Since then other researchers have produced papers as if it is something newly discovered, diminishing the recognition that should be Ian Holton’s.
From the article: ““Like swings in a character’s mood, each climate mode has positive, negative and neutral phases. Each affect Australia’s weather in different ways,” write the authors. “La Niña brings wetter conditions to eastern Australia. The IOD’s negative phase, and SAM’s positive phase, can also bring more rain.”
In other words, rains and dry periods depend on what the oceanic cycles are doing, and not CO2. Understanding the key natural cycles is key.”
Mother Nature is in charge until proven otherwise. It’s never been proven otherwise. Not once.
The climate models are not intended to be accurate; they are intended to provide justification for indefensible, destructive policies.
Stop treating “climate scientists” as honorable & respectable. They are partisan propagandists.
”’… propagandists.” [ or grifters,…or both].
We know you can buy predictions but you can’t buy results. Funny how that works.
Oh, but you can buy results: Just pay for scientific papers and pay to adjust records. He who controls the past, controls the present.
“… it’s really important to separate the science from the climate scamming.”
Oh, that’s easy, it’s 97% climate scamming, 3% science.
“Predictions are hard, especially about the future”
Lol!!
Its customary to include the person who made the quote, Berra in this case
Niels Bohr said it before him and I think her heard it from someone else
This is twice on this Thread where Pat has “proven” his erudition.
So to sum up- oceanic cycles are generally affected by changes in the earth’s core heat thanks to our sun that warms up our oceans,( as per the earlier Antarctic Ice Sheet article) and drives constant melting and then freezing of polar ice and as a side effect, creates heightened periods of hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic activity. Works for me!
AGW be gone!!
We are reaching peak tipping points now, that’s for sure!!!
I hit my tipping point after 12 beer
No mention of the Tonga volcano?
Weather down under moves from west to east . The Tonga volcano was even further east of Australia
SE trades???
Good information, keep it coming.
The only thing worse than too much rain is not enough rain.
IMHO the rainfall poster generated by the Queensland Dept Prim. Indust. @
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/rainfall-poster/
Look for the pdf of “Queensland’s Extended Wet and Dry Periods”
I have not seen any other analysis of historic Australian rainfall to match this.
It is so obvious that our rain varies in cycles of variable length, affecting differing regions of the wide brown land.
If there was a “Nobel Prize” equivalent for “Portrayal of Oz rain History” the Qld DPI deserve the prize.
“separate the science from the climate scamming”.
I can’t see any actual science in the climate change scam.