Floods in OZ.

[hutch--]

With a great slice of Australia underwater at the moment and experiencing serious flooding, its time to reflect on the imbecile that told us that it would never rain in Australia again.

[vanjast]

Could you point him out for us please...  :bg

[Bill Cravener]

Floods in OZ and early March (vary rare) tornadoes here in the US. Strange weather my friend! :eek

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/tornadoes/story/2012-03-03/tornado-storm-midwest-south/53344382/1

[donkey]

With a great slice of Australia underwater at the moment and experiencing serious flooding, its time to reflect on the imbecile that told us that it would never rain in Australia again.

Aside from the predictions of Tim Flannery which was at best bad science and a misunderstanding of the effects of global warming, my friends in Oz tell me that it never rains in Australia, it pours, actually my buddy from Darwin says that is not really like rain, more like a swimming pool full of water drops from the sky and falls on your head.

[anunitu]

If that's anything like the Monsoons that hit the Philippines(been there,done that) ya might want to take your Ark out of the garage. 

[hutch--]

Edgar,

Right on, this "person" was telling us recently about the future of Australia turning into a dustbowl while the sea levels would rise and flood low lying areas. I gather the "person" is currently in Germany preaching about how the end of the world is nigh fuelled by the same bullsh*t that he was preaching here in OZ.

There has been a band of slow moving rain bearing cloud from the Kimberlies in northern western Australia across the whole country at a rough diagonal into the lower eastern corner in NSW and Victoria which are currently being drowned. Fortunately for me Sydney is just above the really heavy rain and has mainly been spared the flooding. Where I live near the inner city is well above sea level and any flood path so its not a problem for me but some of the far western suburbs out near the Nepean River are in trouble as the main dam that supplies Sydney is now overflowing with flooding downstream.

I guess if we just pay more carbon trading TAX then it will all go away.  :bg

[donkey]

Steve,

I do believe there will be some pretty bad things come out of global warming but the idea that droughts will be world wide and that the world will come to an end is just bad science. The fact is that though we know that global warming is a serious issue we don't have good enough models to predict the consequences for any particular area. There are definite advantages to trying to reduce global warming that have nothing to do with it, using less energy and developping cleaner energy is never a bad thing. As well, reducing emissions from other sources makes the air we breath cleaner and who can argue with that.

However the fear mongering that is based on bad science is wrong, telling people the truth and then developping a solution is always the best course and the truth right now is that we suspect some parts of the world will suffer greatly while others will not be affected at all. One of the weirdest affects is that Europe may actually get colder as the earth warms by 1 or 2 degrees since it could have an effect on the Atlantic gulf stream heat pump as the fresh water from melting ice in Greenland dumps into the ocean.

[NPNW]

weather models can barely predict what is going to happen in 24 hours, let alone long term and globally. In general we may have more problems and they will get worse overall. Yet trying to predict that... I read somewhere we would need to have a weather model with wind, temp, humidity, etc. every 3 feet over the entire globe to get an accurate picture of what was going on. Then trying to extrapolate years in advance?  No, in general things will get worse, where not sure, how soon?