Drought, flood, snow, heat-- it's all global warming!

One of the great things about the claims made about CO2 and climate change is that they are essentially unfalisfiable- that is by their nature they cannot be disproved. Anything can be put down to "climate change." That essentially makes the whole enterprise unscientific because science is about putting up hypotheses that can be potentially disproved.

Andrew Bolt collects the evidence for the claim that the current Queensland floods were caused by climate change:

2003, and warmist scientist David Karoly blames the severity of the drought on global warming:

This drought has had a more severe impact than any other drought since at least 1950.... This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed.

2011, and warmist scientist David Karoly blames the severity of Queensland’s floods on global warming:

Professor Karoly stressed individual events could not be attributed to climate change. But the wild extremes being experienced by the continent were in keeping with scientists’ forecasts of more flooding associated with increased heavy rain and more droughts as a result of high temperatures and more evaporation.

‘’On some measures it’s the strongest La Nina in recorded history … [but] we also have record-high ocean temperatures in northern Australia which means more moisture evaporating into the air,’’ he said. ‘’And that means lots of heavy rain.’’

The beauty of global warming theory, as espoused by Karoly, is that whether it’s dry or wet, global warming is to blame.

And the other odd thing is that neither the drought nor the floods allegedly made worse by global warming need to be worse than anything seen before to have Karoly hail them as corroboration of his ideology.

For instance, Australia has had drier spells before the recent drought:



And the flood which yesterday hit Brisbane, peaking at 4.6m, hasn’t reached the level of the one in 1974 and several before that, too:



Indeed, even last year’s huge rains in eastern Australia aren’t unprecedented - even if they do tend to contradict warmist predictions of less rain thanks to global warming:

Which means wetter, drier, worse, better – whatever the conditions, you can blame global warming.

(Thanks to several readers.)

UPDATE

Associate Professor Stewart Franks of Newcastle University writes to the ABC to protest its repeated use of an alarmist who may say what it wants to hear, but is not actually an expert:

Dear Mr Uhlmann

I would like to protest the repeated interviews with Prof David Karoly with regard to the Queensland floods.

Since 2003, I have published a number of papers in the top-ranked international peer-reviewed literature regarding the role of La Nina in dictating Eastern Australian floods.

There has been no evidence of CO2 in affecting these entirely natural processes, irrespective of their devastating nature.

Why is it then, that someone without any publication nor insight in this key area of concern for Australia is repeatedly called upon to offer his personal speculation on this topic?

This is not a new problem with Prof. Karoly.

In 2003, he published, under the auspices of the WWF, a report that claimed that elevated air tempertatures, due to CO2, exacerbated the MDB drought. To quote…

‘...the higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates, which sped up the loss of soil moisture and the drying of vegetation and watercourses. This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed...’

The problem with this is that Prof Karoly had confused cause and effect.

During a drought, moisture is limited. The sun shines on the land surface, and as moisture is limited, evaporation is constrained, and consequently the bulk of the sun’s energy goes into surface heating which itself leads to higher air temperatures. This effect can be as much as 8-10 degrees celsius.

This is a common confusion made by those who have not studied the interaction of the land surface hydrology and atmosphere, as Prof. Karoly has not.

Undoubtably Prof Karoly has expertise but not in the area of hydrology or indeed in many other areas on which the ABC repeatedly calls on him for ‘expert’ comment.

Could I please ask that you cast your net a little wider in seeking expertise? These issues are too important for the media commont to be the sole domain of commited environmental advocates. Surely objective journalism also requires objective science?

Sincere best wishes,

A/Prof Stewart W. Franks
Dean of Students

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