So, climate change is a key factor in changing weather patterns. Wow! Who knew? Stop the presses!

Bruce
Aint that something! Have they only now discovered that climate changes?
All the climate change in the world does not prove a strong human cause. It only proves that climate changes.

So, climate change is a key factor in changing weather patterns. Wow! Who knew? Stop the presses!

Alternatively (and probably more correctly): Changing weather patterns result in climate change(as climate is just averaged weather).

Total rainfall is similiar for the intervals they chose to use in the report, so there must be an increase at other times of the year.

When is it now wetter in Victoria?

Total Rain (mm) 511, 494, 595
Autumn Rain (mm) 98, 116, 149

Professor De Decker has shown by Core samples taken in Southern Australia that this area has been drying out for at least 5,000 years, so no cars , planes, and factories involved here.
It just so happens that the 50's and the 70's were a very wet period, so no surprise there either.
BTW you can watch a catalyst video about De Decker's research on 15-2-07, very interesting.

It’s clear the depth of climate change was not appreciated widely enough given the extent of town water restrictions and the ongoing discussion over rural allocations.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/tag/water/default_8.htm

The pretty city of Orange in NSW is the latest casualty.

“The sabbath has become a day of bucket-hauling exertion in Orange”

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/05/18/1211049068468.html.

Does anyone know whats happening in south Africa, & to a lesser extent south America?

Hasbeen: "...to lesser extent in South America?"
Not much ever ever happens in that neck of the woods!

http://news.google.com/news?q=Chile&rls=com.microsoft:en-au:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SUNA&um=1&sa=X&oi=news_group&resnum=12&ct=title

Crikey there's even some Australian news!
And sometimes a volcano lets fly!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354282,00.html

Other than that,yeah, not much.

Jen has a good point. What has happened in the other seasons?

And what else would one expect when the point of comparison is a period of El Nino, a 1 in 100 year drought?

And it is all very well to say that this is consistent with the climate muddles but there is just one problem, the temperatures over this past decade are NOT consistent with the climate muddles.

So now we have the climate mafia cruising through seasonal portions of local climate data to cherry pick the bits that are most anomalous to the means and consistent with climate muddles? Give us a break.

And remember, Victoria is only 3.2% of the country. Meanwhile, there is an area of about 25% of the continent in northern WA that has a very significant positive annual rainfall anomaly.

See http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=anomaly&area=aus&period=12month®ion=aus&time=latest

Then see the 3 year anomaly at
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=anomaly&area=aus&period=36month®ion=aus&time=latest

It's remarkable isn't it. Groundbreaking work on mechanisms behind significant changes in southern Australian rainfall gets this sort of drivelly response. Sort of the equivalent of unravelling the EL Nino story and you get random stray shots of irrelevance like "cherry pick the bits that are most anomalous to the means and consistent with climate muddles?" Outstanding analysis. Brilliant. No wonder there are earthquakes you know. Go on - ask why.

Neville: "It just so happens that the 50's and the 70's were a very wet period, so no surprise there either."

Correlates nicely with the ENSO patterns.
http://icecap.us/docs/change/ocean_cycle_forecasts.pdf

Major changes in high pressure systems, blocking patterns, onshore flow, ocean currents and temperature, Antarctica circulation - obs, models and analysis are interlinked into an evolving story. Not even a tad of curiosity? What a wasted press release.

How about they compare it the rainfall from 1900 to 1920. BTW I remember the rain in the fifties and later. The excessive rain was blamed on the bomb by most. There were rail gangs building up the track between trains. The hills oozed mud it was very wet. Between the wars rainfall was supposed to be influenced by women smoking probably a more plausible explanation than current crop.

The front page article on our Canberra Times today regarding Orange says -

"For two weeks now, the
regional centre in the NSW
Central West has been on
unprecedented Stage 5
restrictions, which ban the use
of potable water outside,
except with buckets between
noon and 1pm on Sundays" also

"Goulburn has been there,
done that, making national
headlines in 2005 when it
adopted Stage 5 restrictions,
amid dire predictions the city
would otherwise run dry"

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/caring-for-a-driedup-orange/776494.aspx

I see the "signal" from Alarmist Creep is still lost in the "noise".

Climate change in this region of the globe continues to be more about drought than temperature.

Energy from hydro is less than it was.

"Hydro Tasmania says a $220 million dollar injection from the State Government will ease the pressure of drought on its bottom line"

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/27/2257051.htm?site=idx-tas

The study is interesting, but when you graph cumulative SOI since 1870, you see that Australia had a low rainfall regime until about 1920. Then, as La Nina years dominated, rainfall increased until the mid 1970's (around +1000). Since then, El Nino's have dominated and the cumulative SOI has gone right back to where it was early last century (around -100). The study needs to examine a longer period of data. SE Australia's rainfall is strongly tied to the SOI, which itself appears to have long term variation unrelated to so called "climate change".

However these studies have identified factors other than El Nino - factors that also suppress rainfall in neutral years too (those not El Nino or La Nina). Why droughts have been multi-year.

Yes, year after year after year.

"Aint that something! Have they only now discovered that climate changes? "

I wish denialists could get their story straight. Anthony Watts still can't decide if it's even changing.

Let's not forget that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has slopped a huge body of warm water to the western Pacific. The increase in temperature is about 1.2 degrees.

The cycle time is about 40 years, so it will be warm on the north east coast of Australia for quite a long time.

The PDO is a well documented natural phenomenon, nothing to do with AGW.

- where's the data to support that ! The PDO actually stops El Nino events?

Ocean gyres and southern circulation patterns have moved long before the PDO moved.

SJT said: "I wish denialists could get their story straight. Anthony Watts still can't decide if it's even changing."
Maybe it's because the warmers' arguments have so many flaws it's easy to pick them and concentrate on just a few.

“Maybe it's because the warmers' arguments have so many flaws it's easy to pick them and concentrate on just a few”

Let’s concentrate on average rainfall over time since climate change is not only about temperature.

Given the input about drought and water restrictions, what’s up with our climate can easily be measured by inflows to water storages in major catchments relative to our expectations of their yields.

Btw SJT; A Watts n Co are not renowned for their expertise on water storage and distribution even in blog circles (IMO) however please correct me if I’m wrong on that score.

Too much argument is limited by poor imagination on the analysis front.

I moved to Canberra in the mid-1950's. Lake George had water. Road maps at the time showed "Lake George (usually dry)" or "Lake George (almost always dry)".

After 20 years or so of water in Lake George, road maps were changed to delete the reference to the lake's "normal" state.

By the early/mid 1990's I understand that the lake dried out again (I had moved overseas)and has remained more or less dry ever since.

I wonder if anyone has done a correlation of the lake's water level with PDO, or SOI, or ENSO, or sunspots, or CO2, or political party in power, or the level of Blue Lake at Mt Gambier (locals believed at one time that the two lakes were somehow connected!)

It's the combination of the report findings in the lead article with more El Nino events. All adds up over time. Needs a big La Nina reset. Hasn't happened.