Operator of dam ‘invented rain data

By Hedley Thomas, The Australian National chief correspondent March 26, 2011 12:00AM

EXTREME rainfall so rare it happens on average once every 2000 years has been “invented” by the government operator of a major Queensland dam as part of its explanation for releasing huge volumes of water that caused most of Brisbane’s January flood.

The claim by SEQWater in its official report that a “one-in-2000-year” rainfall event occurred over the Wivenhoe Dam at a critical stage on January 11 has been widely reported in the media and cited by senior public servants to justify the near loss of control of the dam at the time.

But no such rainfall event was measured by any rainfall gauges. Instead, the claim was manufactured by SEQWater after it modelled the rapid rise of levels in the dam, repositioned rainfall data to an area immediately upstream of the dam, and then doubled it.

After extrapolating in this unusual way to achieve an extreme number, the SEQWater report states: “Rainfall of this intensity and duration over the Wivenhoe Dam lake area at such a critical stage of a flood event was unprecedented.

....

The technical report by SEQWater shows it relied on a manual gauge of dam levels, not the actual rainfall in gauges, to extrapolate data to claim the occurrence of a one-in-2000-year event.

However, in doing this, SEQWater disregarded the data from a nearby electronic gauge, which showed dam levels lower than those in the manual gauge.

Full story here.

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My heart goes out to the people of Queensland and in particular, Brisbane, where I visited last year. Heads should roll over this. h/t to WUWT reader Betapug

UPDATE: Reader Frank K points out this article by skeptical cartoonist John Cook in ABC:

The headline:

Enlarged.

The essay was also posted on his antithetically named “Skeptical Science” blog:

He’s right about one thing, this event IS personal, and preventable. And, I’m willing to bet there will be scads of very personal lawsuits by people who have been grievously harmed by the government ineptitude in managing the dam.

If Mr. Cook has any integrity, he’ll retract his story. But, I doubt he will.

It is called “Miracle March 2011” in the Sierra. At Boreal, near Donner Summit, as of a few days ago, they had received 221 inches this March bringing the seasonal snowfall to 766 inches. The previous record was 662 inches in 1994/95. The recent prolonged storm brought 6-7 feet of snow. The normal for the season is around 400 inches. Their snowbase is between 275 and 375 inches (20-30 feet).

The Snow Water Equivalent is well above normal and bodes well for both agriculture and coastal cities which rely on the melting snow for irrigation and drinking water. There have been battles for decades over how much water the farmers should get to use in the long dry growing season.

Enlarged.

This wet season has brought over 80 inches of water equivalent to some of the higher terrain.

Enlarged.

Here is the snowfall graph for Donner Summit Central Sierra Snowlab since 1879. It is not the same location as Boreal Ski resort at Donner Summit. But if the numbers are close, Boreal has had 63.8 feet so far, most since 1950/51 La Nina winter (like this year early in a new cold PDO phase).

Enlarged.

Note from Dr. Bob Carter:

For 3 years we have been trying to get a media reporter to take up the challenge of demanding answers to the two most obvious questions with regards a carbon dioxide tax, which are: 1. What will it cost per family per year; and 2. How much will it reduce temperature by?

About 2 weeks ago, at last, a major journalist latched on to the power of these questions. His name is Andrew Bolt, and this description of his interview with new Australian Climate Commissioner, the admission that anything we do to cut emissions will have no effect for 1,000 years, and the ensuing blog comments, is must reading. More than any other single event in the last few years, this interview has the potential to shatter the idea of carbon dioxide taxation in Australia for once and for all.

Of course, that will only happen if the mainstream media deign to notice, take it up and pursue Flannery, Garnaut and the government over it. My bet is that they are going to try to ignore it, but will be forced by outraged public opinion to address the matter. At which point, it may very well be game, set and match in Australia.

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Bolt: How much will it cost to cut our emissions by the Government’s target of 5 per cent by 2020 and how much will world temperatures fall by as a consequence?

Flannery: Sure. We do have economists on the commission who will be giving a very in depth look at that this evening and I don’t want to pre-empt their assessment of the various cost options, but in terms of how much it will cut temperatures that really very much depends upon how Australia’s position is seen overseas.

Bolt: No, no, we’ll get onto that, Tim. I’m not going to dodge that. The argument is indeed that we have to set a lead and the world has to follow and on our own we can’t do blah blah, but just looking at the basic facts so people can figure it out for themselves (that) the world needs to come on board. On our own, cutting our emissions by 5 per cent by 2020, what will that lower the world’s temperatures by?

Flannery:  See, that’s a bogus question because nothing is in isolation

Bolt: Everyone understands that that is the argument But we’re just trying to get basic facts, without worrying about the consequences - about what those facts may lead people to think. On our own, by cutting our emissions, because it’s a heavy price to pay, by 5 per cent by 2020, what will the world’s temperatures fall by as a consequence?

Flannery: Look, it will be a very, very small increment.

Bolt: Have you got a number? I mean, there must be some numbers.

Flannery:  I just need to clarify in terms of the climate context for you. If we cut emissions today, global temperatures are not likely to drop for about a thousand years.  This quote earns the Quote of the Millennium designation from WUWT

Bolt: Right, but I just want to get to this very basic fact, because I’m finding it really curious that no one has got (this) fact. If I buy a car… I want to know how much it costs and whether it is going to do the job.

Flannery: Sure.

Bolt: In this case I want to know the cost of cutting our emissions by 5 per cent by 2020 and will it do the job: how much will the world’s temperatures fall by if Australia cuts its emissions by this much.

Flannery: Look, as I said it will be a very, very small increment.

Bolt: Can you give us a rough figure? A rough figure.

Flannery: Sorry, I can’t because it’s a very complex system and we’re dealing with probabilities here.

Bolt: I’m just trying to get the facts in front of the public so we know what we’re doing. Just unbiased. Is it about, I don’t know, are you talking about a thousandth of a degree? A hundredth of a degree? What sort of rough figure?

Flannery: Just let me finish and say this. If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years because the system is overburdened with CO2 that has to be absorbed and that only happens slowly.

Bolt: That doesn’t seem a good deal. Someone surely must have done the sums that for all these billions of dollars we’re spending in programs that it’s got to have a consequence in terms of cutting the world’s temperature. So you don’t know about Australia, you wouldn’t dispute that it’s within about a thousandth of a degree, around that magnitude, right?

Flannery: It’s going to be slight.

A transcript of my previous interview with Flannery here.

UPDATE

Yesterday we tried to get precisely the same answer (listen here) from Professor John Daley, CEO of the Grattan Institute, which is releasing a report which finds that our state and federal governments tipped $12 billion into emissions-cutting schemes that were close to useless.

You know the story. Humans are burning fossil fuels and because of their actions, the world is now warming at an unprecedented pace. This warming is stressing ecosystems throughout the world with devastating consequences to vegetation from one end of the earth to the other. If we do not act fast, we will destroy the planet and have a tough time facing our grandchildren. We can all hear it now - why didn’t you do something when there was still time to save the Earth?

Two articles have appeared recently in the scientific literature with results that may make us reconsider this entire affair. The first appears in the Journal of Geographical Sciences dealing with worldwide trends in the vigor of vegetation since the early 1980s - the results may surprise you, but they did not surprise us given all that has been written on this subject and certainly covered at World Climate Report.

Three Chinese scientists (all with the last name of Liu) used satellite data to detect changes occurring in vegetation throughout the world. Rather than use the popular satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Liu et al. (a.k.a., Liu3) decided to use the Leaf Area Index (LAI). The scientists explain “LAI, defined as half the total leaf area per unit ground, is directly linked to vegetation activities and comparable among different ecosystems. It has removed the effects of spectral response, illumination and orbit drift during data acquisition. It should be better, at least theoretically, than NDVI as the indicator of vegetation status.” We will certainly trust their judgment.

As seen in their figure below (Figure1), the red colors absolutely dominate indicating an increase in vegetation status! Liu et al. declare:

“Results show that, over the past 26 years, LAI has generally increased at a rate of 0.0013 per year around the globe. The strongest increasing trend is around 0.0032 per year in the middle and northern high latitudes (north of 30°N). LAI has prominently increased in Europe, Siberia, Indian Peninsula, America and south Canada, South region of Sahara, southwest corner of Australia and Kgalagadi Basin; while noticeably decreased in Southeast Asia, southeastern China, central Africa, central and southern South America and arctic areas in North America.”

Quick geography question: where is the “Kgalagadi Basin”? Correct - in the Kalahari Desert of southern Africa.

Figure 1. Spatial distribution of linear trends in estimated LAI from July 1981- December 2006 - enlarged (from Liu et al., 2010)

In commenting on the upward trend in LAI in the mid-to-high latitudes of the Northern Hemispheric, the trio states

“The growth of the vegetation in these middle and high latitude areas is mainly limited by temperature. Many studies correlating NDVI with land surface temperature indicate warming might be the most important factor accounting for the LAI increase in this area. Warming, causes longer active growing season length and higher growth magnitude, therefore leads to increase in LAI in this area.”

We accept their findings - we now believe that warming has been beneficial for vegetation throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere. As we look at the map above, we see red throughout many low latitude areas as well. The gloom and doomers of the climate change issue are not going to be happy with such positive results. Although not discussed in the Liu et al. paper, we cannot help but wonder what role elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations may have played in stimulating plant growth in so many areas of the world? Feel free to examine all of our essays reporting on the biological benefits of elevated CO2, let alone the benefits of warming.

Few people would argue that the planet has warmed to some extent over the past three decades, and many people feel that humans caused at least some part of this warming through their consumption of fossil fuels. Well, hold the fort because our second featured article does not arrive at that conclusion whatsoever. The article was written by two scientists from Taiwan and was published recently in Atmospheric Science Letters. Lo and Hsu begin stating:

“The global mean temperature has been rising more abruptly over the past 30 years, compared with that in the previous 50-100 years. This recent warming has occurred in most areas on Earth, becoming a truly global phenomenon. The sudden acceleration of warming, which is particularly evident in the winter Northern Hemisphere (NH), can be linked with the observation of widespread abrupt changes in the late 1980s. The nature of the late 1980s’ warming and its relationship with the dominant teleconnection patterns such as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are explored in this study.”

We knew we would like this - nothing better than scientists explaining warming with teleconnections related things that operate largely without any association to the buildup of greenhouse gases. The authors conducted sophisticated research with climate models and greenhouse gas scenarios developed by the United Nations’ IPCC group. They found that warming in the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere was highly related to the two teleconnections, and it led them to conclude (hold your breath) that their results “do not support the scenario that the emerging influence of the AO-like pattern in the late 1980s can be attributed to the anthropogenic greenhouse effect.” Indeed, they conclude that what we are seeing “can be attributed to natural variability.”

OK. The earth warmed over the past 30 years. We agree (although that has largely slowed down or even stopped in the past 10 years). Atmospheric CO2 has increased. We agree. The rise in CO2 caused the warming - not according to Lo and Hsu. The warming caused vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere to thrive - Liu et al. think so.

You get the message - warming and elevated CO2 are not combining to destroy the planet’s vegetation. Quite to the contrary, they may be a blessing!

References: Lo, T.-T. and H.-H. Hsu. 2010. Change in the dominant decadal patterns and the late 1980s abrupt warming in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric Science Letters, 11, 210-215.

Liu, S., R. Liu, and Y. Liu. 2010. Spatial and temporal variation of global LAI during 1981–2006. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 20, 323-332.

If the Harp seal were being found to be migrating northward, then their migration north would be blamed on “human-caused-global-warming.” Why, the poor critters are being driven from their natural habitat by evil humans burning fossil fuels and they’re having to crowd ever closer to the North Pole as the waters of the northern Atlantic warm too much for their comfort. However, a recent AP story, “Harp Seals From Canada Take a Liking to U.S. Waters” claims “no clear explanation” for a southward migration of the Harp seal! Could it be because of global cooling?

According to Wikipedia:  The Harp Seal or Saddleback seal is a species of earless seal native to the northernmost Atlantic Ocean and adjacent parts of the Arctic Ocean. It now belongs to the monotypic genus Pagophilus. Its scientific name, Pagophilus groenlandicus, means “ice-lover from Greenland”, and its synonym, Phoca groenlandica means “Greenland seal”.

The Associated Press (AP) in a recent story appearing at FOXNews.com, revealed (excerpts):

Harp seals from Canada are showing up in U.S. waters in greater numbers and farther south than usual, and biologists want to know why.

They could be making their way south because of climatic conditions or perhaps in search of food, Waring said.

Within 24 hours, we find a related story by Marnie MacLean, NECN, wherein speculation emerges that decreased ice from changing climate (aka, human-caused-global-warming), may be to blame (excerpts):

Marine biologists say they are seeing an unusual trend [with] well over 100 adult harp seal sightings from Maine all the way to North Carolina.

Tilburg believes the seals are a visible sign of the larger problem of climate change, and while there have been variations in ice and temperatures before it’s not been at this scale.

Here we once again have “global warming” (you know, the warming supposedly caused predominantly by humans burning fossil fuels) being subtly blamed for what otherwise would be added to evidence of progressively colder Northern Hemisphere winters indicating climate cooling! If seals are being found further south, why is there no speculation that it just might be that their migration reflects a cooling of the northern Atlantic waters from recent colder winters in that region?

Speculation of this sort is never balanced. It is always produced in support of the deeply-flawed and dying theory of human-caused-global-warming.

Fanatics never give up.

For more on recent cold winters:  The Current Wisdom: Overplaying the Human Contribution to Recent Weather Extremes by Patrick J. Michaels, PhD.

For striking evidence for the collapse of “human-caused-global-warming” theory:  Ten Major Failures of So-called Consensus Science by Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow

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Biography - Bob Webster

A lifelong interest in meteorology and climatology spurred his strong interest in science. Bob earned his degree in Mathematics at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1964.