Exact climate change contribution to floods won't be clear for a decade, say scientists

Ben Cubby in the Sydney Morning Herald: The floods inundating northern NSW and Queensland are likely to have been driven in part by human-induced climate change - although the precise extent of this influence won't be known for another decade. Leading climate researchers said the frequency of El Nino and La Nina events that bring drought and flood to Australia seems to have increased in the past 30 years, even though such events have been occurring independently of human influence for far longer.

''It's completely naive to exclude climate change as a contributor to the floods because of the rapid warming of the oceans, but we are not yet at the stage where we can be too specific about individual events,'' a climate researcher at the University of NSW, Matthew England, said.

The El Nino/La Nina-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, is a cycle caused by warm sea-surface temperatures and air-pressure changes, and is a principal driver of weather in the southern hemisphere. Unusually, Australia has endured two La Ninas in the past 18 months, leading to the nation recording the wettest two-year period since instrumental records began in the 1880s.

''Some of the main El Nino and La Nina reconstructions available show a significant trend in the cycles over the past century and particularly in the last 30 years,'' Professor England said. ''We are getting more El Nino and La Nina events. 'One thing that's certain is that the water north of Australia has warmed about 0.7 degrees above the long-term average. For this key region, we are in the situation now where the long-term trend is as significant as natural variability.''

Recent studies overseas have drawn similar conclusions. A paper published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change reported an increased frequency of ENSO in the past 30 years...

A 4WD crosses the rising Boyne River east of Durong in Queensland, shot by Sweetbixkid, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Floods threaten Queensland town's levees

Alison Rourke in the Guardian (UK): Thousands of residents of the rural Queensland town of St George are waiting anxiously to see if the town's levees will hold up to a record flood. About 3,000 of the town's residents left on Sunday after a mandatory evacuation order was issued in the biggest operation of its kind in Queensland's history.

On Monday, emergency crews scrambled to complete a 2.5-mile (4km) dirt levee around the town, 300 miles west of Brisbane. It is thought the levee will hold water from the rising Balonne river up to 14.7 metres. The river is predicted to peak at around 14.5 metres on Tuesday, down from original forecasts of 15 metres.

The district's mayor, Donna Stewart, said she was confident the levee would hold. "The picture is not as grim as what it was looking this time yesterday," she told the ABC. "I'm very confident that the levee bank that we've constructed at 14.7 metres will keep the water out of the major part of the town."

Residents stranded on remote properties outside the town centre were assured by Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, they would be looked after. "Can I say to everybody who is out there, many of whom I know are isolated, that we know where you are, we haven't forgotten you, and while you may not have seen anybody yet there is air support and there are food supplies and you haven't been forgotten," she said.

A prominent member of the opposition coalition party, National's senator Barnaby Joyce, lives in St George. "It is so quiet that it's a little disturbing," he told ABC radio. "There is something that sounds a little bit like the sea but it is not actually the sea, it's a river and it is just outside the back door." Extra police have been brought in to patrol the town....

Balonne River floods over a bridge in the St. George district, ca. 1941. When it comes to flooding, the past is the template

Plan bans risky Queensland coastal development

NineMSN (Australia): The Queensland government has moved to protect more coastal areas from development, with dangerous storm surges likely to be more frequent in future. The new, consistent approach to coastal planning is aimed at stopping more coastline and communities becoming vulnerable to erosion and inundation, associated with climate change and severe weather events.

It comes after a summer where low lying communities were evacuated due to storm surges associated with Cyclone Yasi. The Queensland Coastal Plan asks planners to factor in a sea level rise of 80 centimetres by the end of the century, using new technology to map coastal hazard areas along the coastline.

It bans urban development in areas deemed "high hazard" - those projected to be permanently affected by sea level rise or temporarily hit by storm surges to a depth greater than one metre in 2100. The strategy will also preserve public access to the coast and require an adaptation plan from councils before existing development is intensified in high hazard areas.

State Environment Minister Kate Jones said the plan took the long-term view that was needed. "Councils will be able to better plan for the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events, not just over the next few decades but over the next 100 years," she said….

A piece of north Queensland coast, shot by Peter Ellis, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Floods continue to batter Australia

The Guardian (UK) via Associated Press: Flash floods swept through a Queensland community today, killing one woman, trapping others in cars and leaving some clinging to trees in a region battling its worst flooding in decades. The torrent of muddy water swamped the city of Toowoomba, west of the state capital, Brisbane, killing one female pedestrian, a state police spokeswoman said.

Video footage of the scene shows a man clutching a tree as the water sweeps down a street, pushing vehicles off the road, into each other and flinging one van into trees. "We've had multiple calls requesting urgent assistance from people caught in vehicles, caught on the street, caught in flood ways," Queensland's deputy police commissioner, Ian Stewart, said. "This has just evolved. There has been no warning of this event."

The state has been devastated by weeks of heavy rain and overflowing rivers. Eleven people have died since late November and about 200,000 have been affected by the floods. Roads and rail lines have been cut off, the coal mine industry has virtually shut down, and cattle farming across a large part of the state is at a standstill….

Children playing in a flooded street at Breakfast Creek, Queensland, in 1938

Record floods swamp Australia's northeast

Daniel Munoz in Reuters: Large parts of Australia's coastal northeast disappeared under floodwaters on Sunday in a spreading disaster that has brought some of the highest floods on record and forced thousands from their homes. Queensland State Treasurer Andrew Fraser described the floods as a "disaster of biblical proportions" and said the ultimate cost would exceed A$1 billion (1.02 billion).

As forecasters predicted months of more rain, hundreds of residents in the town of Rockhampton, 600 km (370 miles) north of the Queensland state capital Brisbane, fled homes amid rising waters which are expected to reach over 30 feet deep in coming days.

Local Mayor Brad Carter said the town was "like an island." Across the state, the floods have affected around 200,000 people and inundated thousands of properties. "You can look down a street for a kilometer and see nothing but water," Carter told Reuters by telephone from Rockhampton, a town of 77,000 people. "You see people in boats moving their material in and out of houses."

One person was confirmed dead in the floods on Sunday, while an intense search was under way for a second missing. Floodwaters were receding in some areas, leaving a mammoth cleanup job, but other areas were still collecting runoff from the Christmas deluge brought by the La Nina weather pattern….

A flooded street in Townsville, Queensland, from over a year ago. Shot by Rob and Stephanie Levy, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Flood fears in new Queensland plan

Tony Moore in the Brisbane Times: A private car parking station for Buranda and eight storey residential and office blocks next to flood-prone Norman Creek at Stones Corner would be allowed under plans to go before Brisbane City Council today.

The draft Eastern Suburbs Neighbourhood Plan, which will guide the future growth of Stones Corner, Buranda and Coorparoo near the new busway, will be debated this afternoon and is expected to be passed along party lines. Local Labor councillor Helen Abrahams said higher density buildings did not fit into the problematic Norman Creek area.

"Everyone knows how notorious Norman Creek is for flooding," she said. "With climate change impacts leading to more severe local storms, the Renewal strategy should be providing more parkland to manage flooding." Cr Abrahams questioned if the extra run-off from the extra rooftops and roadways would add to the storm flow through the area….

[One interesting comment on the story:]
…. I am a Stones Corner resident and my concern is more that the sewerage systems cannot support the current density and has not been able to for many years. Look at the manhole cover outside my home to see piles of toilet paper and look under my house where it comes up through the drainage traps. The council told me some years ago the problem is that the sewerage system is original and old so before the council spends big bucks on prettying up the surface perhaps they could spend some on renewing or update the infrastructure before Stones Corner residents drown in their own effluent.

Aerial view of the Brisbane River, Queensland, Australia, with Norman Creek in the lower left quadrant. Shot by Greg O'Beirne, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license