Three years ago in March 2010, southeast Australia was still in the grip of “the big dry” or the “millennium drought” – billed as the worst drought since European settlement. Dams across the Murray-Darling…
South East Queensland’s grid of water treatment plants are meant to drought proof the region, but could help in floods too.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Over the last six years, there have been major investments made in “climate independent” water supplies and other measures to help “drought-proof” most of Australia’s capital cities. These have included…
Last time around, the Victorian Government made too many decisions predicated on a stereotyped idea of Australian drought.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
The notion that Australia is the driest inhabited continent on the planet has created a persistent stereotype. Recent weather shows it to be misguided.
It suits embarrassed planners, myopic politicians…
The waters of the Kimberley in Western Australia have long tempted politicians and engineers wanting to make the drier southern regions bloom.
Flickr/Koala:Bear
Settler Australians have a long history of trying to harness the continent’s great rivers to water the dead heart of the country. Schemes such as those of Bradfield and Idriess in the 1930s and 1940s sought…
The rains came too late for these Texas wheat crops, which are stunted and thin. But there’s more to rising food prices than bad weather.
Flickr/agrilifetoday
Not so long ago, things were looking good. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had announced on the 5th of July that the FAO food price index had been falling for the third consecutive month…
We’re just coming to grips with Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, one of the many climate modes that cause Australia’s wide and wonderful range of climate variability.
mattharvey1/Flickr
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
The climate system operates with a range of discrete modes.
Patrick Hoesly
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
Scientists' job is to brief us on how future climate might affect our lives, even when all the data isn’t in.
Rae Allen
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
Rain’s coming: does that mean there’s no such thing as climate change?
Georgie Sharp
While most people now understand that the enhanced greenhouse effect means a much warmer planet, communicating regional shifts in weather remains a significant challenge.
As with most complex science…
In Victoria, only 10 out of 463 usable gigalitres of stormwater is used per year.
Chesapeake Bay Program
Over the past decade, Australians living in capital cities have dramatically reduced their consumption of water from centralised reservoir systems. This has been achieved through the installation of water…
How do farmers cope with the cycle of floods and droughts?
recoverling/Flickr
It has been a summer of flooding for farmers in northeast Victoria and NSW. Reporters talk about the effect on crops, pastures and yields. But what about the effect on farming households? How do they cope…
No one said it was going to rain like this… or did they?
AAP
Recent wet weather and flooding across eastern Australia has caused many to ask, wasn’t climate change supposed to cause more droughts, not floods? Critics of climate change science have suggested that…
When it comes to weather, scientists and the media have different understandings of risk.
Ameel Khan
The “reasonable person” would agree that disaster risk is best avoided. Under a changing climate, how exposed people are to risk and how socially and physically vulnerable they are affects how often disasters…
The East African drought is one of the area’s worst in 60 years.
AAP
2010 was the world’s hottest year on record, with global temperatures 0.53°C above the long-term (1961-1990) average.
2011 started with a strong La Niña (perhaps the strongest since 1917), something which…
The humanitarian crisis in the Horn continues to escalate.
EPA/DAI KUROKAWA
While droughts are caused by weather – the failure of the rains – famines are invariably political.
The current famine in southern Somalia should have come as no surprise. Aid agencies have been warning…
With the UN declaring famine in Somalia for the first time since 1992, and other countries in the Horn of Africa suffering critical food shortages, this already unstable region is facing devastation…
Much to the chagrin of Australian governments, water managers and farmers, the continent’s signature climate variability and unpredictability has meant that water is generally at the wrong place at the…
The vibrant colours of autumn went missing in years of drought.
Michael Loke
If you’ve been for a leisurely stroll in your local park recently, you’ve probably noticed that autumn is in full swing.
All manner of brightly coloured leaves cover the ground and this fact alone is…
