Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Dreaded Drought

We've been told over and over again, how Australia's lack of rainfall has been due to global warming. The website climate change in Australia, co-hosted by the BOM and CSIRO talk about the massive changes in rainfall and projected droughts due to global warming. This despite, as we pointed out, no statistically significant changes in trends of rainfall Australia or locally wide.

But as World Climate report shows, America too is having certain parts with increased rainfall and others with less rainfall. Must be due to global warming right? Well they also show that the last 50 year of rainfall in Canada has been greater than the 50 before that.

Strangely enough however, the BOM come back and suggest that the our current lack of rain [(despite non significance)] is caused not by warming, but by cooling:

Australia’s climate may continue, at least in the short term, to be influenced by the unusual state of the oceans to the north, and particularly northwest, of the continent. These have been cooling since June when, historically, they would have been expected to warm as the La Niña evolved in the Pacific. These cooler than normal waters inhibit the formation of northwest cloudbands, which are a major source of winter and spring rain for central and southeastern Australia during La Niña years.

Hmm..but well maybe we should eat more kangaroo to decrease global warming. But no need to go full on in the meat race, as last month was the 7th coolest month this century.

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