Recent Article on Controversial Topic – Drought and AGW

Stewart Franks, a hydroclimatologist at the University of Newcastle School of Engineering has spoken out, that the Murray Darling Basin drought was caused by an entirely natural phenomenon, the 2002 El Nino event, and there is no evidence that CO2 has had any significant role. He goes on:

Numerous politicians, environmentalists and especially scientists have made spectacular leaps of faith in their adherence to the doctrine of climate change over recent years, too many to document here.

And in a clear reference to the recent Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report (DECR), the subject of two critical articles by Ian Castles, former Australian Statistician, and a report that I have reviewed, written letters about, and now possibly starting an FOI request he says:

However, the most literally fantastic claim on climate change must go to Kevin Rudd, who has guaranteed that rainfall will decline over coming decades; one can only assume he’s based his view on deficient climate models and bad advice.

The article is a huge slap in the face for those in BoM and CSIRO who have eagerly adopted the IPCC climate models as future climate truth machines, and created exaggerated apocalyptic AGW scenarios. The real problem he says is:

This is due to a failure of planning, management and leadership from the relevant authorities. Under these conditions, when a prolonged drought strikes, the system collapses. This is a man-made problem but not one that is attributable to CO2.

He concludes with advice directly for his colleagues:

Perhaps our leading climate authorities who have played such a prominent role in fomenting speculation about climate change, and who apparently adhere to the notion that climate is amenable to prediction, should also point out that these models cannot reproduce the observed multi-decadal variability of El Nino and La Nina in anything like a realistic manner.

Given the uncertainty of El Nino and La Nina behaviour, one clearly cannot predict the future.

And finally:

There is no direct evidence of CO2 impacts on the drought, nor is there any rational basis for predicting rainfall in 30 years time. One just hopes that sensible and sustainable management from our leaders will enable struggling rural communities to weather the vagaries of climatic and political extremes.