Creeping tide set to drown Australian coast

Des Houghton the Courier Mail (Australia): Queenslanders had a glimpse of the future this week when 23 towns and cities were swallowed by floodwaters. The water will recede and a costly clean-up will begin. But brace yourself: it could start all over again with devastating effect, perhaps in coastal areas not yet hit. By the end of this summer there could be inundations to rival the great floods of 1893 and 1974 - so say scientists and historians I spoke to this week.

University of Southern Queensland professor of climatology Roger Stone does not want to buy into the climate change debate at the level of each weather event. But he warns that the turbulent La Nina cycle, not seen strongly in Queensland since the 1970s, is back. ''There is no reason we shouldn't see repeated episodes of this type of weather pattern over northern and eastern Australia over the next two or three months,'' he says.

But in the not-too-distant future, in low-lying coastal zones including the Gold Coast, Cairns, Hervey Bay and Moreton Bay, the waters will not recede. And the inundation won't be rainwater, but seawater. Professor John Cole, the director of the University of Southern Queensland's Centre for Sustainable Business and Development, says climate change and rising sea levels during the next century will mean so-called one-in-100-year severe weather events will happen far more frequently….

A 1925 flood in Fitzmaurice Street, Wagga Wagga, Australia