As we have seen over the past year, drought can take an emotional, as well as financial toll on farmers, placing individuals, families and local communities under extraordinary stress.
Helping people cope under such pressure is essential but the challenges of a changing climate demand a visionary new approach in the way Australia deals with drought.
Read the rest of the ABC News article, 'Drought: secure today, but prepare for tomorrow.'
Thanks to Luke Walker for this article.
In the NSW tablelands, the drop in rainfall appears to be related to El Nino. It was certainly dry from 1900 to 1940, but whether there is a human factor in the recent rainfall decline/greater El Nino frequency is very hard to say. The 6 years from 2001 to 2006 have been especially dry:
mean rainfall: 1900-2006 851mm
mean rainfall: 1900-1940 791mm
mean rainfall: 1940-2000 911mm
mean rainfall: 2001-2006 711mm
I had to look hard to find a drier spell than 01-06, and there was only one: 1936 to 1941 with a mean of 672mm.
But it's the persistent heat that has made this "drought" really bad. October 2007 in SE NSW, where maximum anomalies are up to +4°C (more like December) could be the hottest on record - eclipising 1988.
The challenges Australia faces re water and food are much more to do with excessive population. Early last century there weren't so many mouths to feed, so drought wasn't such an issue. If recent trends (heat + dry) continue, the future for this country, apart from mining, could be very bleak.
Ignorance taxes about to be placed on all posters in the form of doubled food prices by Christmas. $50 t-bones just around the corner. Drought-proofing by this stage will be more focussed on the term food security.
All the smartest economic minds are calling for a boom in agricultural commodities the likes no-one has ever known. Get your inflation hedges in place folks. Own stocks like AAC (up 20% last week), IPL (up 1000% in the last 2 years), NUF, RWD and MAK. Or start learning how to trade ag commodities. Disposable income to food will rise to 50% in the next few years for the average household. The last 50 years have been an anomaly in history, just like cheap oil has.
Cai is MDB, Mummery is Perth yep. Just an add-in on same syndrome that runoff is off the scale. Of course you don't see an precise AGW influence - do you expect to see "hello I'm the wiggle on the left". But runoff deficit is worst everywhere and the drought sequence ongoing. Middle non-El Nino years are also not delivering.
SE Qld dam catchment has the same sort of syndrome and is also off the scale.
These are serious national declines in runoff. Also see previous slides in Mummery and Cai.
What does Perth have to do with Murray-Darling - it's called multi-factor southern hemisphere climate change.
You task as an incisive thinker is to see if the southern hemisphere circulation patterns that cause this drought sequence might have an AGW related influence and whether evaporation is now worse. BUT also who says it's all AGW. AGW does not suddenly suspend natural variability. It builds on it.
You have every interesting things according to Cai going on with El Nino, SAM, IOD, Tasman Sea, evaporative demand, latitude of the high pressure belts, and blocking patterns.
'Chrisgo - you guys are going to have to get a bit more sophisticated and stop using such blunt instruments and uninformed analyses'
Posted by: Luke at October 27, 2007 10:24
http://www.greenhouse2007.com/downloads/keynotes/071002_Mummery.pdf
I'm baffled.
What do the annual rainfall and runoff to a Perth WA water storage have to do with the Murray/Darling basin [rhetorical].
http://www.greenhouse2007.com/downloads/keynotes/071004_Cai.pdf
Sorry, I fail to see any AGW influence, I wouldn't reject it, I just don't see it.
Uh-oh, now there's an Adventist at the door I have to piss off.
Rog
fantasy as comforter is self deceiving claptrap. You complain that Luke calls a spade a spade. What do you want him to do, tell you that's OK to believe in the tooth fairy if that's what's going to make you happy?
Chrisgo - you guys are going to have to get a bit more sophisticated and stop using such blunt instruments and uninformed analyses. Gavin is correct.
Slide 7 here shows why
http://www.greenhouse2007.com/downloads/keynotes/071002_Mummery.pdf
See slide 4 here
http://www.greenhouse2007.com/downloads/keynotes/071004_Cai.pdf
At some point the penney may drop with you guys - available water = rainfall - evaporation + antecedent conditions
The drought for runoff is off the scale !!
Same in SEQ.