Our climate is highly variable and let’s not forget it

IN recent months Queensland has been impacted by devastating weather events, namely floods and cyclones, with more forecast for this wet season.
Predictably, we are told that this is a consequence of climate change rather than climate variability. This appears to have little basis in fact.
Of even greater concern are the statements that claim the Toowoomba and Lockyer storm, Cyclone Yasi and all the flood events since November would have been less damaging if we had climate change programs in place to reduce carbon emissions.
This claim is a misuse of current climate science at best, and a fraudulent interpretation of all science at worst.
You would have seen commentary in our major newspapers or heard it on radio and TV, and probably on blogs and Twitter, that claim “science” says our extreme weather events are at least partly to do with climate change.
The truth is we do not know if such a cause-and-effect exists. In theory, warmer oceans should create more violent summer storms, but how they travel and make landfall remains unknown, such is the complexity of global weather.
Given that we don’t know, it is entirely inappropriate to suggest that policies to alter climate change are appropriate for climate variability.
Queenslanders live with one of the most variable climates on the planet and our priorities must always be to deal with it, and hopefully get better at it through adaptation and better information.
QFF is active in climate science and whenever possible participates in workshops and seminars about climate change and the science needed to guide our actions to ameliorate it.
I know that people talk about a drier, hotter, stormier future as if there is some certainty to the claims.
There is not. At present, the best our scientists can offer is statistical projections of what the future may hold and some statistical probabilities on those projections.
And with climate these statistical projections are a lot less accurate than most people realise.
The science of describing climate as statistical parameters is relatively new. Even newer are the Global Circulation Models (GCMs) used to project those statistical climate indicators.
They help us define scenarios and assess risks and opportunities under various policy settings, but they do not define the future.
At a National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF) seminar last year Professor John McAneney form Macquarie University outlined results from ongoing emergency management and natural hazards risk research.
He and his team are seeking knowledge of the probabilities of climate catastrophes in a changing climate world.
Using USA, European and Australian data dating back to 1912 to assess the incidence and severity of extreme weather events (hurricanes, floods, bushfires) they found no trend in either the number or severity of weather extremes.
As to the future, Professor McAneney noted there remains robust debate about the scale and speed of global warming.
He stressed that “beyond temperature and sea levels, climate change models have little useful to say, especially about regional implications”.
He noted that at this point rainfall extremes are poorly captured by the climate models, and storms and other extreme weather events are unresolved.
This is more a statement about the current limitations of the models than knowledge of how climate may change with rising temperatures and sea levels, but the latter are either theories or scenarios and should not be interpreted as anything other than that.
Professor McAneney recently advised us that it will be “many years” before high resolution modelling and the experts such as those at Princeton’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics laboratory will be able to meaningfully replicate regional storm/cyclone activities.
He noted that the big issue for the insurance and emergency services industries remains that of climate adaptation and the where, what and how we build infrastructure and plan for future events.
While government officials and climate strategists will keep busy trying to frame options for many carbon reduction programs, which undoubtedly have their place, we hope Professor McAnerey’s message about storms and cyclones remains outside those deliberations.
With our limited knowledge they are not related, and it remains prudent to deal with them accordingly.
As a farmer I know we need to work to improve energy efficiency on farms and down the supply chain. We also need to better manage water and be prepared for weather extremes and the more good science we have to direct these efforts, the better.
For the present we need to be patient as climate experts try to replicate the complexities of mother nature and remain ever vigilant of “the experts” who claim we are in for a stormier future. If it is, then it will be because that is the way with weather, which is highly variable when it comes to your particular location.