According to new climate modelling by CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research scientist, Dr Leon Rotstayn, pollution from Asian industry is impacting on Australian rainfall:
"Elevated particle emissions resulting from increased economic activity in Asia may have increased Australia’s tropical rainfall ... What we have seen in our latest climate simulations is that the ‘Asian haze’ is having an effect on the Australian hydrological cycle and generated increasing rainfall and cloudiness since 1950, especially over northwest and central Australia.
"The effect occurs because the haze cools the Asian continent and nearby oceans, and thereby alters the delicate balance of temperature and winds between Asia and Australia. It has nothing to do with Asian pollution being transported directly over Australia.”
The new research is based on simulations performed with a new low-resolution version of CSIRO’s global climate model.
The same CSIRO media release claims that representing aerosols in climate models and understanding their influence on cloud formation and rainfall is one of the biggest challenges facing climate scientists.
(from http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/reg/cli_chg/timeseries.cgi)
And I wonder what the influence of these aerosols from Asian industry is on temperature locally and globally?
UPDATE 10.45pm
This is perhaps the more relevant map. Thanks to Luke for sending it to me and also to Paul Williams for the link: http://www.bom.gov.au/silo/products/cli_chg/index.shtml .
So Ian getting all thoughtful now - just when you thought he was some hick redneck property rights fanatic he does a cerebral bootstrap of the auxiliary processsor.
See if any of this detail helps - an example
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/RainfallAndPastureGrowth/Aus/1960s/1968/Nov/
Or you really need a soil water balance with plant growth model if you want to integarte rainfall patterns
http://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/RainfallAndPastureGrowth/NSW/index.html
Given the big wets of the 50s and 70s - getting a trend is fairly easy on simple measures. Since 1976 mainly El Ninos - few La Ninas. And few east coast crossing cyclones.
This map is all very well but for my own location in Nth Coast NSW the message over the past 100 years is the direct opposite. Indeed, each 25 year interval has involved an increase in mean annual rainfall.
And it should also be pointed out the change in local conditions of 50mm over the half century comes off a long term (century) mean of 1800mm.
This amounts to a variation of -2.7% against a normal range of variation of plus or minus 35%.
And the 50 year data also masks a significant improvement in the spread of rainfall, and hence it's quality. The 50's and 60's had a lot more cyclonic activity which made rainfall totals appear high but they masked a sequence of extended dry seasons in spring/summer that, for both crops and wildlife, produced poorer outcomes than we are experiencing today.
Generally, the absence of cyclones may be bad for metrocentrics who rely on inefficient dam catchments but the less intense wet seasons have been balanced by less intense dry seasons.
It should also be noted that the changes shown all over Australia on the map, both positive and negative, all fall well within the normal range of variation from the means.
I don't suppose BOM has the same map for each of the past four 25 year intervals? Now that might actually provide some meaningful information.
Motty,
Are National Sparks run by Bureauclots, producing lots of Bureaucrap?
Yes just a mere acting excuse for a scruba -
although I did consult the Macquarie Dictionary
scrubber
// (say 'skrubuh)
noun
1. someone or something that scrubs.
2. an apparatus for purifying gases.
3. Colloquial a coarse or vulgar woman.
4. Chiefly British Colloquial a promiscuous woman.
Yep on the carbon story. Agree. that's why we should lobby for "wall to wall accounting" and count everything. But of course that's more paperwork and more meetings with urban spivvy types ??
So you admit to being a mere acting scrubber, Luke. And the problem for us all is that we are victims of a poor "substitute" for good governance.
And as for extra burning in the north, just show me the facts, man, just the facts.
But you must admit it is a seriously sick double standard when a forest under management for timber production must account for every tonne of carbon, and possibly pay carbon taxes 80 years in advance, while the same forest after tranfer to Sparks & Wildfires can see 5 million tonnes go up in a preventable conflagration that the IPCC excuses as "natural" carbon cycling.
The logical eventual outcome? Just convert all land to public ownership, let the clowns completely F@$%#& it up, then convert it back to freehold as cleared land with zero emissions so urban tax dodgers can plant plantations and get carbon credits. Just another day in spiv city.
Thanks to Luke and Paul Williams I have just updated the above post/added a graph.
Jennifer, go to this page,
http://www.bom.gov.au/silo/products/cli_chg/index.shtml
Click on Data Portal and follow the instructions to outline the bit of Australia you want to look at in more detail.