Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for January 2011

Snowy Hydro – Water Management: Part 3, by Max Talbot

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“THE 75 year Snowy Water Licence (issued in 2002) provides flexibility to Snowy Hydro to store and release the Scheme’s water resource for electricity production and derivative trading and sub-optimises the use of the water for irrigation, communities and the environment.

“It also falls short of providing optimum regulation of the combined Snowy Scheme, Murray and Murrumbidgee River storages.

“It needs to be extensively revised and fully integrated with the yet to be developed Murray – Darling Basin Plan so as to optimise the regulation of the combined Snowy and Murray – Darling systems.”   

These are the conclusion of Max Talbot, former Executive Officer at Snowy Hydro, and Operations Engineer Snowy Mountains Council. 

Mr Talbot recently updated a document ‘Snowy Hydro – The Business’ penned in 2008 and has generously given permission for me to publish this document as a four part series.  Following is Part 3 – concerning Water Management.

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Queensland Premier establishes Commission of Inquiry into flood disaster

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Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has launched a statewide independent Commission of Inquiry to forensically examine Queensland’s unprecedented flood disaster.

Ms Bligh said the Commission would be headed by widely respected Queensland Justice Cate Holmes with Deputy Commissioners Jim O’Sullivan, a former Queensland Police Commissioner and Phil Cummins, an international expert on dams.

She said the Commission of Inquiry, approved by Cabinet today and appointed by the Queensland Governor after a special Executive Council meeting, would deliver an interim report in August 2011, and its final report by January 2012.

The Premier said the Inquiry would have the powers of a Royal Commission, would take public submissions from across Queensland and would make recommendations in its interim report for future wet seasons.

“The last three weeks have been truly shocking for all Queenslanders and now is the time to forensically examine the devastating chain of events and the aftermath,” Ms Bligh said.

The Commission will be asked to inquire into and report on:

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Time to Reject AGW – And Bob Brown

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EVER the opportunist, Bob Brown, Leader of the Australian Greens, yesterday blamed the Brisbane floods on the coal industry for causing global warming. 

But there is no correlation between atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and rainfall or flooding, as measured by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, anywhere in Australia. 

There is, however, a correlation between patterns in the major atmospheric-oceanic oscillations and flood events. 

Stewart Franks, a hydrologist at the University of Newcastle, has shown that the usefulness of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) as a predictor of flooding depends on whether or not a more complex phenomenon also measured by sea surface temperatures known as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) is in a positive or negative phase. 

In a series of peer-reviewed papers published in the best international journals since 2003, Professor Franks has shown that when the IPO is negative, as it was from 1946 to 1977, then there is a much greater chance that there will be flooding rains if a La Nina forms. 

The IPO started to go negative in 1999, but an El Nino formed in 2001, and seven years of mostly drought followed – sustained by the El Nino conditions.  

In February 2009, Professor Franks commented at this weblog that the Australian climate showed signs of entering another wet phase and warned that governments should prepare for a return to a 20-40 year period where La Nina dominates.

Just over a year later, in April 2010, the negative IPO now entrenched, a strong La Nina began to form and flooding rains followed.

Indeed the explanation for the recent devastating flooding is not carbon dioxide, but inadequate infrastructure and warning systems in the face of a combination of La Nina conditions during a negative IPO, a monsoon trough and already saturated catchments.

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Better Planning for Extreme Floods Possible: A Note from Stewart Franks
February 27th, 2009
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/2009/02/better-planning-for-extreme-floods-possible/

On Abandoning the Scientific Method, Continued

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 In his 2005 book entitled ‘A Big Fix: Radical solutions for Australia’s environmental crisis’ Ian Lowe suggests that the global environmental situation is so desperate we abandon the traditional scientific method in favor of sustainability science.

Professor Lowe explains that sustainability science differs fundamentally from most science as we know it: ‘The traditional scientific method is based on sequential phases of inquiry, conceptualising the problem, collecting data, developing theories, then applying the results. … Sustainability science will have to employ new methods, such as semi-quantitative modelling of qualitative data, or inverse approaches that work backwards from undesirable consequences to identify better ways to progress’. 

This is really the ‘Chicken Little Principle’. If I say the sky is falling, then there is no time to go through the normal rigor of the scientific method, because by that time, the sky will have fallen.

Now Kevin Trenberth, a lead author of the IPCC reports and key protagonist in the Climategate emails, is suggesting climate scientists abandon the null hypothesis.

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Wivenhoe Dam and Brisbane Flood Mitigation: A Note from Tony

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 WITH respect to what has happened in this major flood disaster in Brisbane, the role played by the huge Wivenhoe Dam in this flood will be called into question, and as the cleanup is starting now, many more questions will be asked in the wash up, if you’ll excuse the lame pun, and a lot of those questions will have political ramifications.

There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that this monster dam played an absolutely crucial role in preventing what could have been an even worse disaster. I have mentioned earlier that this huge dam held back water that would have made this flood something not worth even contemplating.

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Flood Crisis Consistent with Accentuated Hydrological Cycle: A Note from Luke Walker

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Yesterday David Karoly from Melbourne University’s school of earth sciences told the Sydney Morning Herald that while individual events could not be attributed to climate change, the wild extremes being experienced on the continent were in keeping with scientists’ forecasts of more flooding associated with increased heavy rain events and more droughts as a result of high temperatures and more evaporation.

”On some measures, it’s the strongest La Nina in recorded history … [but] we also have record-high ocean temperatures in northern Australia, which means more moisture evaporating into the air,” he said. ”And that means lots of heavy rain.”

Regular commentator at this blog Luke is of a similar opinion and sent me two charts as supporting information.  Click on the images for a larger, better view.

Luke writes about the charts:

“The first shows the 3pm vapour pressure (VP) averaged over eastern Australian the 3pm vapour – a measure of humidity.   As one can see there is some correlation with eastern Australian rainfall.

“Also shown is Australian tropical sea surface temperatures (SST) averaged for the same period with vapour pressure at 3pm.

“Both SSTs and VP are the highest for the 2010 period – highest since 1970.

“These data are consistent with an enhanced AGW hydrological cycle i.e. much greater atmospheric water content and source of convection.

“I am not saying that AGW caused this La Nina but the data are consistent with AGW adding to the propensity for rainfall as suggested by CSIRO studies and AGW theory.

“Interestingly these January 2011 Brisbane and Fitzroy floods were not caused by tropical cyclones.

“The charts should be of interest to serious sceptics.”

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Relevant CSIRO Report:
Abbs, D.J., McInnes, K.L. and Rafter, T. 2007, The impact of climate change on extreme rainfall and coastal sea levels over South East Queensland, Part 2: A high-resolution modelling study of the effect of climate change on the intensity of extreme rainfall events, CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research – A report prepared for the Gold Coast City Council
http://www.hpsc.csiro.au/users/abb029/Seth_Westra/GCCC_Phase2_final.pdf

Comment from David Karoly http://www.smh.com.au/environment/fates-conspire-to-concoct-a-recipe-for-disaster-20110111-19mp7.html