Wet 2010 just a blip according to ACTEW

@10,

I think you are confusing “climate” and “weather”. The climate can become drier (and appears to be) but that does not exclude unusual rainfall from time to time.

And how can you object to planning for a drier future? If it doesn’t happen, awesome, water for everyone. But I sure as hell feel better that our water infrastructure is being designed for the worse case scenario, and not the other way round.

For example “Australian of the Year” Tim Flannery. circa 2007.

“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.”

Three years later and it Australia’s third wettest year on record. From July to December it was the wettest ever recorded in Austrlia.

2007:

DROUGHT will become a redundant term as Australia plans for a permanently drier future, according to the nation’s urban water industries chief…

”The urban water industry has decided the inflows of the past will never return,” Water Services Association of Australia executive director Ross Young said. “We are trying to avoid the term ‘drought’ and saying this is the new reality.”… Mr Young blamed climate change for the nation’s water woes.

Not to mention all their “expert” Climate modelling cannot even predict what has happened in the past let alone 20 years from now.

How about we come back to earth and recognise that our climate is typically one of lesser rainfall for extended periods, followed by short periods of wet, and plan our water collection and usage accordingly.

Chief Ten Beers,
where are these “Expert” predictions?
The most i’ve read is scientists saying that droughts will become more frequent and severe in the future thus leading to greater and more frequent water shortages.

It was only ten years ago these so called “experts” were yelling at us that Queensland would by dry and entire states would be running out of water.

There’s a little thing called climate change, and the fact that the average temps have shifted so much already, that La Nina weather will become increasingly rare – and already has. It used to oscillate every 2-3 years, and now the intervals are much longer around the Pacific. More info on the BOM site.

It seems perfectly sensible to me to plan for a dry future based on forecasts from the premier scientific research body in this country. If it does rain all well and good. But experience over the last 15 years would suggest that we can’t rely on regular and predictable rainfall.

I honestly can’t see why anyone would have a problem with this approach, no matter what your views are on climate science.

I’m sorry, but where is Mr Sullivan getting this information that the next 20 years will be low rainfall?

utterly ridiculous!

CSIRO (if you’d bothered to glance at the article, you’d know that). Where do you get the information that it’s utterly ridiculous?

The La Nina weather pattern comes along every five years or so on average, and that every La Nina event previously has brought either on average or above average rainfall for the ACT. There is no indication from reliable and informed sources that this is likely to change. I think he has spent too long listening to the “we’ll all be rooned” set of climate alarmists and is looking for a cheap headline.

I’m sorry, but where is Mr Sullivan getting this information that the next 20 years will be low rainfall?

utterly ridiculous!

Long run averages tend to be easier to get right than the short term. I can’t tell you how you’re going to go playing the pokies tonight; but I can give a pretty good estimate of how you’ll go over the whole year if you play them every day.