rown in 2008:
Already, (Rudd government adviser Ross Garnaut’s) daunting data of a 10 per cent chance of no flow at all in the Murray-Darling river system in future years is being overtaken by data indicating that drought is the new norm across Australia’s greatest food bowl. The Sydney Morning Herald in 2008: This drought may never break IT MAY be time to stop describing south-eastern Australia as gripped by drought and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent, one of the nation's most senior weather experts warned yesterday. "Perhaps we should call it our new climate," said the Bureau of Meteorology's head of climate analysis, David Jones.... "There is a debate in the climate community, after … close to 12 years of drought, whether this is something permanent. Certainly, in terms of temperature, that seems to be our reality, and that there is no turning back...." Jones to the University of East Anglia in 2007:
Truth be know, climate change here is now running so rampant that we don’t need meteorological data to see it. Almost everyone of our cities is on the verge of running out of water and our largest irrigation system (the Murray Darling Basin is on the verge of collapse... The Age in 2009:
A three-year collaboration between the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO has confirmed what many scientists long suspected: that the 13-year drought is not just a natural dry stretch but a shift related to climate change... ''It's reasonable to say that a lot of the current drought of the last 12 to 13 years is due to ongoing global warming,'' said the bureau's Bertrand Timbal. ''In the minds of a lot of people, the rainfall we had in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s was a benchmark. A lot of our [water and agriculture"> planning was done during that time. But we are just not going to have that sort of good rain again as long as the system is warming up.''... Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery in 2007:
Flannery predicted cities such as Brisbane would never again have dam-filling rains, as global warming had caused “a 20 per cent decrease in rainfall in some areas” and made the soil too hot, “so even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and river systems ... “. Warmist scientist David Karoly, 2003: The Murray-Darling Basin... covers towns north to Toowoomba, west to Broken Hill and south to Victoria and South Australia... Drought severity in the Murray Darling is increasing with global warming... This is the first drought in Australia where the impact of human-induced global warming can be clearly observed. Queensland Conservation Council: Reduced rainfall due to Global warming will lead to decreased overall water availability... In part, the SEQ water crisis has been caused by climate change Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, 2007: Given the current uncertainty about the likely impact of climate change on rainfall patterns in (South Eastern Queensland) over coming years, it is only prudent to assume at this stage that lower than usual rainfalls could eventuate.... Flannery again: Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming....Desalination plants can provide insurance against drought. In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months. Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, 2008: We know the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said by 2050 that Australia should expect around about a 25 per cent reduction in rainfall in the southern part of the Australia... So there is a very, very sound body of evidence that indicates that climate change is and will have an impact on rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin and in southern Australia.
UPDATE Remember how 60 Minutes whipped up the "permanent drought" scare in 2005? CHARLES WOOLEY: While many farmers believe that drought is just part of a natural cycle, scientist Dr Tim Flannery sees much broader and more sinister forces at work. We live in a new world where global warming and climate change now have Australia on the edge of permanent drought. PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: We are in by far the worst position of any country that I've had a look at in terms of climate change. CHARLES WOOLEY: The worst of any country? PROFESSOR TIM FLANNERY: Yes. When you look right across the continent, what has happened is that the winter rainfall zone that has been the heart and soul of the bread basket of Australia is declining. The amount of rainfall through winter is declining. On the east coast of Australia we have a parallel effect where we are getting these El Ninos back to back. We're getting one drought after the other and eastern Australia is suffering from that. So put together, you have the continent from Perth through to Brisbane suffering severe water deficits. CHARLES WOOLEY: If Tim Flannery is right, the new weather regime has southern Australia drying out permanently.
