Flooding And Big Surf

Sid; today we have major traffic interruptions round our city. It seems snow and black ice is everywhere. Hooray we need the water! How predictable is that? I can’t recall exactly when snow falls at 580m were such a problem but let’s say it was 1987.

Likewise a couple of major floods up the Hunter over hundred years or so can’t be used as evidence of global warming by CSIRO or anybody else. Let’s agree on that hey.

Although I don’t know your country in detail, I reckon major land clearing has contributed to the severity of heavy flooding in the past hundred years. Recall, I have lived in much wetter and wilder regions and seen rapid river rises as a mater of fact in what is now mainly hydro country.

Eighty feet under the EBR bridge up the Pieman R. in half a day was the norm in a big storm. Trees washed out to sea were regularly thrown back inland by the Indian Ocean surges in the following seasons. Records from almost daily F111 recon missions probably started mid 70’s. A nasty day or two of heavy weather (1975) suddenly ended that program!

Building dams up the Hunter with the capacity to control huge floods during that era was not possible as all the resources including expert engineers, construction teams and federal funds were focused in my region for decades following the Snowy Scheme.

Sid: Its worth more than a glance at the potential of all those dams to produce power today.

Rates of change will keep the likes of CSIRO scientists busy for some time yet. Forecasting remains at best an art. Dam builders as good as they were can’t change that.

The flood in the Hunter raises one important factor which has been swept under the carpet so far...The Kerabee Dam. The main volume of water which caused so much damage, and then ran out to sea, came from the Goulburn River catchment in the Upper Hunter. If the proposed Kerabee Dam had been built back in the 1980's, so much of this flooding would have been mitigated, and the wasted water stored for the use of agriculture, industry and domestic use.
Why was the dam not built? As I mentioned in a previous thread, since the rise of Green Fundamentalism, hardly one new major dam, (and base load power station), has been built. Not only must governments, who abrogated their responsibilities to build these utilities, as they grovelled for the Green Vote...be held acountable. But also these Green NGO's should be held accountable for their economic terrorism. I was for eight years, in the 1980's, a Trustee of the Hunter Valley Conservation Trust, (a forerunner of todays Catchment Management Trusts)and during this period, saw how a governments resolve to build a much need utility, can be eroded by the actions of these environmental groups.
Well, Luke I also know some fine people who work in the CSIRO. However, I re-state that their climate division, instead of conducting independent and impartial research into climate change, has become an active player in promoting the AGW cause. By doing so, they are abrogating their responsibility, as a public funded body, to provide unbiased advice to industry and agriculture on possible ways to mitigate climate change problems. The whole thrust of their advise is how to deal with a hotter drier world with rising sea levels. They are quite irresponsible by not providing advice on how to deal with a colder climate. (Which would be far more devastating). In fact they flatly dismiss compelling evidence that the latter could be just as likely as the former.
Perhaps, Luke, they are like you, reality deniers too. No matter how feeble the evidence supporting AGW is, the believer has to stick to the cause and deny reality to the end. I am sure that an appropriate memorial inscription to you would read.....'Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem'.

What a skanky knife job from an uninformed Sid - but what do you expect from bigots. Reality CSIRO had kept climate change research alive for long periods of the "great political darkness" before any of this field was trendy or popular. We're talking decades. Their international credibility has improved - see IPCC representation. As for any disclaimer - yep standard stuff. I assume you're happy for Australian researchers to be taken to court by sleazy spiv litigants from Asia looking for a quick buck. Have your research tax dollars shipped off to Honkers by flash Harrys.

So here we have a request from a regional body to ask the CSIRO about the current state of the art - what a climate change world might mean for these events. Substantial caveats in process understanding are noted explicitly. Similar projects have been requested by the Gold Coast City Council who unlike Sid have to consider legal implications for not considering climate change impacts on future development. The extent to which the information is used is up to the organisation involved. It doesn't go to the janitor's desk - it actually goes to engineering groups who have to make formal probability of exceedance calculations.

Gold Coast for example see it as "a factor" in wider considerations. It's called risk management. So really what a disgraceful scumbag comment against some really good people.

Arnost: Thanks but my question “was it a tropical type cyclone that developed a typical eye during its more intense phase” was a bit of a trap based on the recent chatter about tropical storms moving further south under a warmer atmosphere. To me an intense low is a threat wherever it forms despite the glib comments from Sid and rog regarding some welcome rains etc.

With six decades of ECL experience I have maintained a constant theme here on the importance Bass Strait influence over SE oz weather events including bizarre storms.
Bass Strait is the original storm grinder and regional whipping post including large lows extending further up the NSW coast.

Arnost, the capacity of this and previous storms is not completely measured by wind speed here or there. Total water dumped in on or two rivers is not much of a guide either.
Surging seas and coastal subsidence records do not get into daily weather records suitable for modeling change. Sure this makes me an amateur coast watcher at best but what else have you got hey.

The Hunter region cops a hiding every now and then. After substantial forest clearing we put up levies but still people get washed away. The SES turns up from all over but what have we learned? Ignorance is a costly business. Unless someone is at sea or is out in orange overalls for the duration we can remain glib.

Luke: That study is very interesting given Burnie was once my nearest port. Since Stony Point is a wee bit more protected, let’s examine the models re the fate of the North West end of the island for a mo as the short term indicator of sea rise (fig 12). It’s been my opinion this is the most sensitive region in the country for sea level rise and impacts from storms. Several blog masters may recall a photo or two of the appropriate coastlines.

Thanks Arnost for an excellent account of ECL's, and a realistic assessment of the plight of the Pasha Bulka. I grew up in the Lower Hunter, and have seen several floods associated with these ECL events. In fact June is the most common month to get them.
CSIRO's 'preliminary modelling'!! Ha ha, did you see their 'Important Disclaimer', before they commenced their fairy story. The CSIRO is now highly politicised in favour of AGW and has lost all credibility in matters climate. With that arch green fundamentalist, Ian Low, holding a 'consultancy' position with them, and armed with $millions more from the Feds. we can expect a lot more of the same.