Massive flooding in Australia cuts off city of 75,000
The arrival of the new year has brought continued misery to northeast Australia, where unprecedented flooding continues in the wake of weeks of torrential rains. The floods have killed at least ten people and covered an area the size of France and Germany combined, cutting off the coastal city of Rockhampton. Today, the military was forced to fly in food, water, and other supplies into Rockhampton, a city of 75,000, due to the lack of unflooded roads into the city. The local airport, all access roads, and all rail lines into the city are closed. The flooding has affected at least 21 other towns, and 200,000 people in northeast Australia. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stated last week, "Some communities are seeing flood waters higher than they've seen in decades, and for some communities flood waters have never reached these levels before [in] the time that we have been recording floods." According to the National Climatic Data Center, springtime in Australia (September - November) had precipitation 125% of normal--the wettest spring in the country since records began 111 years ago. Some sections of coastal Queensland received over 4 feet (1200 mm) of rain from September through November. Rainfall in Queensland and all of eastern Australia in December was the greatest on record, and the year 2010 was the rainiest year on record for Queensland. The heavy rains are due, in part, to the moderate to strong La Niña event that has been in place since July. The relatively warm waters that accumulate off the northeast coast of Australia during a La Niña typically cause heavy rains over Queensland.
Figure 1. Comparison of river conditions in Queensland from today to December 30, 2010. While some rivers have fallen below major flood stage, the Fitzroy River at Rockhampton is rising, and may peak at levels not seen since 1918 on Wednesday. Image credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Figure 2. Rainfall in Queensland, Australia for December, 2010. Image credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
The rains over Queensland continued yesterday and today, with many of the flooded regions receiving 1/2 - 1 inch (about 12 - 25 mm) of rain. Total rainfall amounts in the flood region over the past month are generally in the 16 - 24 inch range (400 - 600 mm). Predicted rainfall amounts for the next two days in the flooded region are less than 1/2 inch (12 mm), which should allow for river levels to peak by Tuesday or Wednesday, then slowly fall. However, heavy rains are predicted to affect the area again by Thursday, and it may be several weeks before the summer rains ease enough to allow all of Queensland's rivers to retreat below flood stage. Damage to infrastructure in Australia has been estimated at over $1 billion by the government, and economists have estimated the Australian economy will suffer an additional $6 billion in damage over the coming months due to reduced exports, according to insurance company AIR Worldwide. Queensland is Australia's top coal-producing state, and coal mining and delivery operations are being severely hampered by the flooding. Damage to agriculture is currently estimated at $400 million, and is expected to rise.
Jeff Masters
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http://www.wunderground.com/blog/HurricaneKatrina/show.html
http://www.globalsuperstorm.bravehost.com/whatis.html
If the gulf current shuts down "The Day After Tomorrow" will likely happen in real life.
Its just a bad movie.
And, personally, I don't think we've seen anything yet...
1. Its a great movie.
2. The science its based on is not bad. The superstorm is a plausible THEORY but the gulf current could shut off and change the climate in weeks.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091130112421.htm
using HYCOM
Austrailia seems to get a lot of severe weather - they still hold the record for most consecutive days above 100 °F (37.8 °C): 160 days; Marble Bar, Western Australia from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.
No place else on Earth has come close since...
That was a long one, alright, but then again, Marble Bar is in Western Australia's desert, where long heat spells are the norm. These past few years, on the other hand, have seen incredible extremes of temperature and precipitation all over : the unprecedented heat wave in Moscow--a decidedly non-desert region; the unprecedented flooding in Pakistan and Australia; the unprecedented "Snowmageddon" storms in the eastern US; unprecedented drought in the Amazon basin; unprecedented cold in Europe; unprecedented all-time record heat in numerous nations; and so on, and so forth.
A tornado would be my guess. The birds probably got caught in one and were dropped downwind.
Personally, I think we could, but it would take an Apollo Program/Manhattan Project type of effort, and the political will for that simply doesn't exist in this country. The fossil fuel industry has spent billions in an effort to buy politicians, deride the science, and confuse the issue, all in an effort to convince the American people that things are just fine the way they are. And they've thus far been very successful.
That's very unfortunate.
So, I think we could do something about it, but we won't--at least not until it's too late (which, by some accounts, may happen sooner than we think). The time to put a thicker hull and more lifeboats on the Titanic was before it left the dock in Southampton, not after it had already struck the iceberg...
Even if it does freeze up it will melt quickly come melt season because it wont have had time to thicken. This years sea ice extent will likely be lower than last years.
en serio ??
y que provoco esas lluvias extremas hace 111 años ?
el CO2 tambien ??
As soon as they cherry pick the data to make it so.
They are both guilty of it... both sides of the fence. Both have been caught.... both crying Wolf.
I no longer believe either side.. is it happening... yes.. is it "totally" man made.. IMHO no.
Will nature survive yes... will man survive.. probably not, but thats evolution.
So you are stating... based on fact.. that GW is entirely man made?
Don't get me wrong, I think we ARE warming the climate (in addition to natural factors) and we should try to stop as soon as possible. However, if the above is true, it's certainly too late.
And I actually like disaster movies.
A. I don't listen to Fox news. I personally think it ranks right up there with the national Enquirer.
B. Did it uncover a huge conspiracy, No. Did it uncover questionable to say the least (if not some out right BS)data, Yes.
Did it do almost irreparable damage to the faith in "GW Scientists" you bet your butt it did.
Good point about the ice acting as relfectant, and yes the atmosphere does mix, but there are still much greater densities over the industrialized parts of the world. The mid troposphere shows very high concentrations right over the industrial belts of the world.
Just as a reminder, YES we are warming the climate and need to do something about it. I don't believe the models can predict much beyond the fact that we are messing with the climate and it will almost certainly be detrimental to our species.
The snow cover map you posted doesn't cover 09 or 10, which isn't surprising since they just happened/are still in progress. But, these years are the first years the weird jet stream popped up to this extent.
Your tone seemed a bit hostile, i don't think that is necessary. I am not an AGW denialist, I just think things might unfold a bit differently than we think. We'll see; the next few years will be very interesting :(
yeah, that was the whole reason the oil companies and politicians turned good science into a 'debate', wasn't it. Unfortunately for most humans and other life forms on the planet, it seems to have worked just as planned.
It still looks to me that winter snow pack is increasing even though it melts off more in the summer. I guess that is to be expected. Again, I think the new things we are seeing are too new to show up on that.
I'm not 'listening to HurricaneKatrina' too much, I haven't really noticed many of their blog posts since I am only a sporadic poster.
Since the thermohaline spans the whole ocean, why are changes limited to the northern Atlantic?
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