Scientists from UNSW, UTAS and CSIRO think they know what is causing the drought across Australia. Not global warming, or at least it doesn’t get a run in the news report, but the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
I don’t think this is actually new news, but the scientists are to be published in a peer reviewed journal, so they must have found something differentiating their study from others.
This would appear to be a phenomenon that is independent of global warming – it’s been around for at least 6,500 years – and it contradicts the theory that the Bureau of Metereology prefers, which is to do with the ozone hole in the Arctic which it is claimed is being maintained by global warming because it causes stratospheric cooling which destroys ozone.
February 05, 2009 | Graham
Drought, but no mention of global warming
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Wow! That last paragraph is a doozy, especially the part about the beliefs of BoM…
Does that reflect your understanding of the relevant climate issues? Or, is it some sort of Dada-esque Climate Buzzword Collage, an attempt at a satire expressing your contempt for science?
If the former, then I suggest some more research and some climate-related reading outside of Marohesy. Facts and opinions based in reality are most useful in an important discussion.
I’d criticize the sentence, but it literally is so wrong as to be ‘Not even wrong’; it makes no sense. A mash-up of science-y sounding words into a vaguely plausible sentence, like the dialogue in a cheesy SF show — good enough to impress the average punter, but nonsensical nonetheless.
If the latter, then I applaud the effort but would suggest that it is a bit too subtle and otherwise sounds like pseudo-skeptical crackpottery
Comment by CL — February 6, 2009 @ 12:03 am
Thanks for your “erudite” comment CL. At least it led me to your blog where I discovered your theory of sea rise caused by local temperature fluctuations at Heard Island. Care to elaborate?
Comment by Graham Young — February 6, 2009 @ 6:26 am
To paraphrase, there are eight million influences on the occurrence of drought in Australia, the Indian Ocean Dipole is one of them.
What they’ve done is no more and no less than get a better handle on one manifestation of Earth’s myriad climate system oscillations, which operate over all timescales from diurnal to millennia. Not some either/or gotcha moment. Just another incremental advance in knowledge, quite typical of the way real science works, as opposed to the not even wrong witterings of pig-ignorant bloggers.
Comment by duffer — February 7, 2009 @ 9:54 pm
“and it contradicts the theory that the Bureau of Metereology (sic) prefers,”
So where in the article does it say that?
Comment by Lame Brain — February 21, 2009 @ 9:08 pm