Global Cooling????

[Bloveld]

It's been shown that industrial air pollution is a factor in both global warming and global cooling. More particals in the air reduce the intensity of the sun, thus acting as a kind of shade cloth. This has only recently started to gain credibility since pan evaporation rates all accross the world have indicated that pan evaporation is dropping and the primary factor in pan evaporation is the intensity of the sun. Everyone is familiar with causes of global warming. There can be no doubt that humans make an impact on the climate, you can't just say that it's completly natural for these things to be happening. It's true though that the earth does have natual cycles of warming and cooling but not to the extent that wayneL is suggesting. Significant environmental changes like that leave lasting evidence, not to mention most cultures would have recorded anything like that (convienient that it was two cultures that have left nothing readable behind). If florida suddently melts or England freezes, then that's a truely significant and unusual even. In nature, changes like that occur over gradually over thousands of years (unless it's volcanic or a meteor).

So what wiped out the mammoths in Siberia and in California?
And what about the megafauna in Australia?
What could explain the Piri Reis map?

Rapid climate change might just be a natural regular occurance.

 

[mit]

So why is weather affected by chaos theory and not climate?

Sorry, I only put down half a thought down. Most of the mainstream modelling agrees that there will be further global warming and the effects wont be pleasant, all of the positive and negative feedback effects are NOT 100% known so how bad it is going to get is unknown. It's a bit like Pascal's wager. We can do nothing because of a couple of lone voices we read in the newspaper it is not going to happen or we can believe the mainstream science and try and get something done.

If we believe the lone voices and they are wrong and the worse case happens then we are f**ked well and truly. If we believe the mainstream science, the worse case is the best case and we have wasted some money cutting back on emissions.

MIT

 

[mit]

So what wiped out the mammoths in Siberia and in California?

People.

And what about the megafauna in Australia?

ditto

What could explain the Piri Reis map?

Eh?

Rapid climate change might just be a natural regular occurance.

Scientists can measure past weather through ice-cores and tree rings etc so have a good idea of weather patterns.

I never ceases to amaze me that people think their opinion is better than others that spend their life studying this stuff. Science is not a democracy or post-modernist (ie there are no truths).

 

[bunyip]

Bunyip,

I remember watching a program about the Mayan or Aztec (can't remeber which) civilization. Apparently they died out well before the Spaniards arrived. The reason they reckoned was because of climate change... and this was thew 14th century (and backed it up with science).

I saw another program where Vikings used to live and FARM in Greenland. They died out because of... you guessed it climate change. Can't farm there even today.

So it seems to be a cycle thing... lot's of scientists actually think this way. The problem is you can only get funding if you are studying global warming. So if you want to mainatain funding you have to support tjhe warming scenario.

Wayne

There's no doubt that it's a 'cycle thing'......it's completely ludicrous when you hear on TV that the current drought is proof of man-made global warming and climate change. Any clear-thinking person can see that in all likelihood there were droughts during the last few thousand years that were more severe than any in the last two hundred years since recordings began. And not just droughts either.....floods, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, cold spells, earthquakes, cyclones......the full range of climatic conditions and naturally occurring events.
Coral core samples taken from the Barrier Reef show that exceptionally severe droughts were as common a few hundred years ago as they are today.
Core sampling of coral reefs enables scientists to look back in time hundreds of years and 'see' what the seasons were like. Coral has 'growth rings' similar to the growth rings that occur in trees. The flow of fresh water from the rivers on to the coral reefs in North Queensland determines the extent of the growth rings that are formed each year. In wet years the growth rings are well formed and obvious, in drier years they're less pronounced, and in drought years they're insignificant although still visible.
By studying the growth rings under a microscope, scientists have established that Australia suffered many particularly savage droughts before European settlement.
In the late 1700's there were a couple of decades that were particularly dry, as indicated by the insignificant growth rings on the coral during that time.

While the cyclical nature of climate is well proven, the question is whether or not industrial and exhaust emissions are speeding up global warming.
Some scientists answer that question with a definite 'yes', while other scientists say 'no'.

Maybe as you say Wayne, the 'yes' opinion predominates because that's the best way to attract funding.

Bunyip

 

[Smurf1976]

If we believe the mainstream science, the worse case is the best case and we have wasted some money cutting back on emissions.

MIT

Depending on how emissions are reduced, we could waste a lot more than money. The transfer of global economic power (reducing emissions in the West whilst allowing unconstrained growth in China) and world dominance being one of them. Creating a vastly larger nuclear power industry with most countries having operating reactors being another. Depleting the world's supply of natural gas (on which human food production is absolutely dependent due to its role as fertilizer feedstock) being another.

I'm in favour of reducing emissions as long as it's a genuine reduction. Simply shifting emissions from Australia or the US to China does nothing to fix the problem. Indeed with the added global trade it would make matters worse (due to freight transport emissions). Also there's a valid argument that going nuclear or gas, both of which come with massive problems of their own, isn't a good solution even though it cuts emissions. A similar argument could be made in relation to biofuels - clearing the forests to massively expand agriculture (or simply buring the wood) comes at a huge environmental price.

Cut emissions certainly. But not by means of solving one problem and creating another.

 

[dubiousinfo]

I currently have a simple test. Find out what the majority of scientists believe in a subject and trust that this is what best fits the current data.

The majority of scientists once believed the world to be flat.

 

[bunyip]

Depending on how emissions are reduced, we could waste a lot more than money. The transfer of global economic power (reducing emissions in the West whilst allowing unconstrained growth in China) and world dominance being one of them. Creating a vastly larger nuclear power industry with most countries having operating reactors being another. Depleting the world's supply of natural gas (on which human food production is absolutely dependent due to its role as fertilizer feedstock) being another.

I'm in favour of reducing emissions as long as it's a genuine reduction. Simply shifting emissions from Australia or the US to China does nothing to fix the problem. Indeed with the added global trade it would make matters worse (due to freight transport emissions). Also there's a valid argument that going nuclear or gas, both of which come with massive problems of their own, isn't a good solution even though it cuts emissions. A similar argument could be made in relation to biofuels - clearing the forests to massively expand agriculture (or simply buring the wood) comes at a huge environmental price.

Cut emissions certainly. But not by means of solving one problem and creating another.

Smurf

That's a good point. There's little to be gained by reducing our relatively small amount of industrial emissions in Australia, while huge countries like India and China are rapidly increasing theirs, and we're helping them to do so.
Last week during my trip to North Queensland I visited the worlds largest coal export terminal at Hay Point, just south of Mackay.
The scale of this operation is staggering. Six ships can be loaded simultaneously at the rate of 4,000 to 6,000 tonnes of coal per ship per hour.
The loading goes on 24/7 every week of the year. That's roughly 5 million tonnes of coal each week that's shipped out of Australia to be burnt in factories and power stations around the world. Clearly this produces a staggering amount of industrial emissions. And we in Australia, by supplying the coal, are indirectly but willingly participating in the production of these emissions.
And we're not going to stop doing it.....it's just too lucrative a business for us.

Bunyip

 

[Smurf1976]

And we in Australia, by supplying the coal, are indirectly but willingly participating in the production of these emissions.
And we're not going to stop doing it.....it's just too lucrative a business for us.

Bunyip

And with plenty of coal in the world, if we don't mine it then somebody else will. We are by no means the dominant holder of coal reserves.

But as for actual climate, take a look at this link. The focus is cloud seeding but contains some pretty startling figures as to rainfall. In short, something drastic happened in 1976 as both WA and Tas (and elsewhere) have recorded significantly lower rainfall ever since. The decline in WA is dramatic to say the least although it is not insignificant in Tasmania (cloud seeding has substantially offset the decline in Tas so in a "natural" scenario the decline would be worse).

The climate IS changing. Question is what effects come next and what was so special about the 1976 divide?

As for cloud seeding, it's time to end the "it doesn't work" nonsense and make more use of it IMO. It's a proven technology that just happens to also be relatively cheap.

http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/files/ISsubcs.pdf

 

[moola]

I don't know what you're talking about, the wether forcast is correct about 95% of the time in Darwin. 27o and no rain in the dry season. 30o and pissing down in the wet season. Oh to be a meteorologist in Darwin.

Oh, and BTW. I dispise that concept of the 'green / nuclear lobby'. It's marketing, and you can forget about that 'green' part. The environmental advantages are very short term. It's to make the now domesticated middle class greenies feel better about the fact that the government isn't interested in real low environmental impact energy sources. If you disagree then why don't you take the nuclear waste instead of dumping it in the NT. No one here want's it here and the federal government is just taking advantage of the fact that we aren't a state to off load it on us with out a choice (that's not democracy). Despite popular belief, just because the malls are 1500kms apart doesn't mean the NT is a desert wasteland.

The media has a whole lot to balance on their plate. On one hand, condemn Iran for wanting nuclear power plants. On the other hand, telling everyone we need nuclear plants, they are safe, and oh, by the way, we're just going to sell a few thousand tons of uranium to the Chinese for their safe Nuclear power plants, 'cos we can trust them (Hahaha they got busted farming human organs but they wont build nukes with our uranium, bah! Hahahaha!). It's known as doublethink, being able to hold two conflicting concepts in your mind at the same time and believing both of them fully without question. And you'll need that to survive in the coming decades (see ya in hell ).

The only problem with safe energy sources is that their suply can't be centralised. Power is exactly that and it needs to be kept under strict control. Just look at what's happening in Germany, one of the few countries that has policies and even laws to promote alternative energy production. Individuals and communities are producing all their own power. How are you going to play games with them like Enron did to California by switching off the power from time to time? The are self suficient. Can you imagine what would happen if that kind of self suficiency met a culture like what US have? People would build little Mad Max style fortresses and they would bring out the national guard the FBI and the ATF for some old fashion napalming and chemical wepons testing. The fact that people would feel that they need to build armed fortresses is a fault with the society in my opinion, not the technology. But still, that's the future we are heading for. I only wish we could have sided strongly with the EU somehow and ditched America. They are determined to take the whole world down with them it seems. And they will claim they are the greatest and are fighting for freedom to the bitter end. I know who I'd like to see conviceted for war crimes... oops wrong forums. :horse:

 

[Bloveld]

Scientists can measure past weather through ice-cores and tree rings etc so have a good idea of weather patterns.

I never ceases to amaze me that people think their opinion is better than others that spend their life studying this stuff. Science is not a democracy or post-modernist (ie there are no truths).

So far you have put up several theories as facts.
One theory of mamoth extinction is hunting by humans. But in Africa, where supposedly humans started off, elephants and rhinos survived. So why were humans capable of wiping out similar animals in America and Asia but not Africa.

I dont know if your last comment was aimed at me. But so far you have put foward several opinions whereas I have asked questions and suggested possibilities.
A scientist can spend his career believing in a certain theories, then next week something can be dug up that blows away all previous theories.

Actually I am proud not to call myself a scientist, because I can ask stupid questions, believe anecdotal evidence and use my common sense. Scientists can only use observable and repeatable facts.

Anyway you just keep playing it safe, listen to the majority, keep the blinkers on. Fortunately there will always be guys like Galileo, Newton, Columbus and my favourite Ignaz Semmelweis. They werent crowd followers.

Piri Reis Map. Well you could of put it into Google. But dont bother, its a map of Antarctica drawn 300 years before Antarctica was discovered. So therefore scientifically impossible. Just something for us dreamers to think about.



The Semmelweis Reflex:

Mob behavior found among primates and larval hominids on undeveloped
planets, in which a discovery of important scientific fact is punished rather than rewarded. Named after Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, ... physician who discovered the cause of puerperal fever, a now-obsolete disease which, in Semmelweis's primitive era, yearly killed a vast number of women in childbirth. Semmelweis was fired from his hospital, expelled from his medical society, denounced and ridiculed widely, reduced to abject poverty and finally died in a madhouse.

-Timothy Leary from "The Game of Life"

 

[2020hindsight]

Weather Forecasters get it wrong due to the "butterfly effect" (chaos theory) not due to errors in their theory. The greenhouse effect is real and the vast majority of scientists believe it to be so....... And the popular press loves controversy and giving a "balanced" view........The people who push Greenhouse gas denial....know this and have been successful in casting doubt on work by people who spend their lives studying the science.....I currently have a simple test. Find out what the majority of scientists believe in a subject and trust that this is what best fits the current data.

No doubt in my mind either, mit. And if you want anyone to second your motion, just ask any farmer west of Katoomba.

There's another minor point - We should act now in any case. The ramifications of being wrong on this are horrific. Worst case scenario if we act now and the "optimists" and/or "those in (maliciious) denial" have accidentaly got it right, is that we will have stalled things for maybe a generation, and heck we'll apologise. Either way we should ACT NOW. Otherwise the kids in the generation after the next will kill us - and in any case it's much harder to push up daisies when they are drought affected. :70:

There is a precedent for acting cautiously when there is doubt - Exhibit A - the Y2K preparations. Let's revisit that one - overdone for sure - by a factor of 5, but at least the "end of the world as we know it" was avoided.:evilburn: :viking:

Coming back to the first point - farmers. I was driving out near Hay the other day, and I asked a truck driver what he thought of AWB and what was the mood in the bush about whether the outcome of copious wheat sales over the last few years justified the means, etc. His reply (in a characteristic aussie drawl) - "Dont know mate - Ive got grapes on board" :sheep:

 

[2020hindsight]

....Piri Reis Map. ... its a map of Antarctica drawn 300 years before Antarctica was discovered. So therefore scientifically impossible. Just something for us dreamers to think about.

The Semmelweis Reflex:.....fired from his hospital, expelled from his medical society, denounced and ridiculed widely, reduced to abject poverty and finally died in a madhouse.

Bloved, I seem to recall reading that Hindmarsh Island (SA) shouldn't get a bridge etc because of "5000 year old secret women's business" and that, sure enough, if you got in a helicopter and went up a thousand feet or so, you could make out the rough shape of male genetalia. :boy:
Which just goes to prove that aboriginal women mastered flight 5000 years ago. (Whereis.com). The jury is still out on whether the men could fly as well, but you'd have to agree that the east coast of aus vaguely resembled a breast yes? :girl:

Mate, I think Galileo 1564 - 1642 takes the cake for the Semmelweis award, at least for the 17th century - over his opinion that the Earth revolved round the sun, although the church insisted otherwise. "G was forced to recant his views and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. Following his recantation, Gis said to have murmured Eppur si Muove (still itmoves). He was finally cleared of heresy by a Vatican commission in 1992!" Who said the church wasnt heavily into forgiveness.

But (another point) it took Einstein to set him straight on a few incidentals, like the fact that the universe was all warped, etc. You know, some people still dont believe all that relativity stuff! - dont know why, Einstein explained it so simply

Old Galileo would take out his telescope, stare at the shadows on Venus,
Calmly predicted the sun was the centre instead of the pope or his genus,
Einstein went on to say, stare out for long enough - something quite horrid and heinous -
the back of our heads somehow comes into view, and turn around quickly, we've seen us.

Newton explained if you sat under apple trees, apples would fall on your head,
personally I can relate to that theory, gladly I'd take it as read.
Einstein went on to say, if one explodes then E = m times c squared,
So now I eat apples exceedingly carefully, and bunches in treetops I dread.

Harrison mastered the Royal Naval timepiece, his clocks milli-second to none.
One twin-son sailor could trip to the tropics (you just point the clock to the sun).
Einstein went on to explain in great detail that, were this twin shot from a gun,
Then speed-of-light-logic decrees when he flew past, his brother was old but him young.

I like the idea of fishing, spin a few yarns and wide tails,
I like to make believe holding my fishes to show they were damned nearly whales.
Einstein would have me face forward, (given the windspeed in gales),
Otherwise fishes would foreshorten speedwise - imagine! elliptical scales!

Black holes are mean cosmic cannibals - eating up prodigal Suns,
Light rays refuse to escape from their surface, mmm, much like by burnt raisin buns,
Einstein explained it quite simply - "teaspoonfuls weigh in the tons",
dense as Mum's rockcakes! can you imagine it? crushed by a handful of crumbs.

Then there's our old friend prof Heizenburg - He of "Uncertainty Theory",
States in a nutshell precision in speed means that place and position get bleary.
That should imply if you're speed is up high enough - probably make cyclecops teary,
"Sir you were booked at precisely mak 1.5, streetname's been entered as "query"".

Hard to imagine how they would have felt, exPlaining to men (stubborn mules),
after they'd preached of their black-holed uncertaintised, relative fringe-dwelling rules,
Can't youjust picture it, Einstein and Herzy, wobbling around on barstools.
"...Audience larfed ven there vasn't a joke - Mein Gott, vot a kreat pack of fools!". :millhouse :bart:

 

[Smurf1976]

Oh, and BTW. I dispise that concept of the 'green / nuclear lobby'. It's marketing, and you can forget about that 'green' part. The environmental advantages are very short term. It's to make the now domesticated middle class greenies feel better about the fact that the government isn't interested in real low environmental impact energy sources. If you disagree then why don't you take the nuclear waste instead of dumping it in the NT. No one here want's it here and the federal government is just taking advantage of the fact that we aren't a state to off load it on us with out a choice (that's not democracy). Despite popular belief, just because the malls are 1500kms apart doesn't mean the NT is a desert wasteland.

The media has a whole lot to balance on their plate. On one hand, condemn Iran for wanting nuclear power plants. On the other hand, telling everyone we need nuclear plants, they are safe, and oh, by the way, we're just going to sell a few thousand tons of uranium to the Chinese for their safe Nuclear power plants, 'cos we can trust them (Hahaha they got busted farming human organs but they wont build nukes with our uranium, bah! Hahahaha!). It's known as doublethink, being able to hold two conflicting concepts in your mind at the same time and believing both of them fully without question. And you'll need that to survive in the coming decades (see ya in hell ).

By "Green" I mean as in the political party, closely allied organisations such as The Wilderness Society (TWS) and their international equivalents.

It is a fact that what is now the Australian Greens was originally formed for the express purpose of opposing large scale renewable energy production. It has continued to do so at various times right up to the present day with moderate success. Last time I checked (not long ago), the official line was that they support renewable energy, but not on a large scale.

Now, if you oppose renewables on a scale large enough to actually be a real alternative and you also support ratification of the Kyoto Protocol then by default you are supporting nuclear energy as the only remaining option. Either that or you are proposing a reduction in energy use in the West to virtually zero (given the growth of China etc).

My point is about the politics of global warming / cooling rather than the environment. With the exception of the renewable energy industry itself, there is basically nobody with a plan to actually reduce emissions. Mainstream politicians, whether they be Labor, Liberal, Green or whatever, may seek to reduce emissions from one source but tend to promote a greater increase somewhere else. That's the track record of practically every Australian politician on the issue, Greens included.

My personal view is that nothing will be done in practice to reduce emissions on a meaningful scale until it is too late. It just doesn't seem likely in practice IMO. So it would therefore make sense for Australia to be planning to adapt to the consequences of what seems inevitable. The scale of adaption is such that the cost, both financial and human, of (for example) World War II will seem like a trivial event.

What happens if, for example, a cyclone hits Brisbane or Sydney completely runs out of water? For that matter, if the incredible lack of rain this Winter is any indication then we're in for some very serious fires this Summer. We could easily end up with much of NSW, Vic and Tas burnt to the ground. We're talking about conditions far worse than previous records if it doesn't rain soon. Whether or not it is due to climate change, it is an example of man's absolute vulnerability in the event that change does occur.

 

[bunyip]

No doubt in my mind either, mit. And if you want anyone to second your motion, just ask any farmer west of Katoomba.

The farmers out west of Katoomba wouldn't have a clue. Sure they're copping a run of dry seasons, just like farmers in many other areas of Australia.
But if they were farming hundred of years ago, long before factories and cars and industrial emissions, they'd still be copping a dry run. There's proof that over the past several hundred years, Australia suffered many droughts of similar severity to the present drought.
There's also proof that hundreds of years ago Australia was hammered by cyclones far more powerful than any we've copped in the last two hundred years since official records began.
Presumably, these super cyclones were accompanied by super floods that were far bigger than any floods in recorded history.

The weather events we're experiencing now.....droughts, floods, cyclones, heat waves, cold snaps etc, are all just par for the course, a natural and recurring part of the Australian climatic cycle.

Please note that I am NOT dismissing industrial emissions and the accompanying greenhouse effect as being inconsequential to the climate and the environment.
Far from it.....the problem is in all likelihood very real (in spite of the disagreement among scientist and researchers) and needs to be addressed if we are to avoid destroying our environment.

I'm simply pointing out that any climatic event we see today is only a repeat of what this country has experienced hundreds or even thousands of times over the last few million years.
It's naive to blame the greenhouse effect for every severe climatic event that we experience in the present day and age.

Bunyip

 

[2020hindsight]

It's naive to blame the greenhouse effect for every severe climatic event that we experience in the present day and age.Bunyip

OK Mate, I'll be naive, and you can be the teacher - and (assuming that you're not in agreement with the ghist/tenet of my post i.e. immediate and drastic action to address this problem), then let's meet in 50 years, and see if we then agree which one of us should have done the listening

 

[2020hindsight]

BTW, when the scientists are saying in all sincerity that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant distaster will pale into insignificance compared to the effects of global warming, and that nuclear is miles ahead in the final analysis of "the greater good", then you have to start appreciating the gravity of the situation.
Personally I've been through 3 phases on this nuclear debate - in favour in the old days when global warming was a new topic, against after Chernobyl when it became obvious that humans are possibly too stupid to "go there", and now in favour again, because the prospects for the world, and the coasts, and the forests are exponentially going downhill.
As they say, civilisation leaves large footprints, my friend - they're called deserts. :evilburn:
I just hope the next generation forgive us.

 

[bunyip]

OK Mate, I'll be naive, and you can be the teacher - and (assuming that you're not in agreement with the ghist/tenet of my post i.e. immediate and drastic action to address this problem), then let's meet in 50 years, and see if we then agree which one of us should have done the listening

I suggest you read my post again.....mate. Particularly the part that I've reproduced below inside the quotation marks.....

"Please note that I am NOT dismissing industrial emissions and the accompanying greenhouse effect as being inconsequential to the climate and the environment.
Far from it.....the problem is in all likelihood very real (in spite of the disagreement among scientist and researchers) and needs to be addressed if we are to avoid destroying our environment."

Does this sound like I'm disagreeing with the gist of your post?
Not at all. I stated clearly that I believe the problem is in all likelihood very real and we need to do something about it.

The part of your post that I do disagree with, however, is your silly comment about the farmers west of Katoomba. Without actually saying so, you're clearly implying that the tough time they're having with droughts is a result of the greenhouse effect caused by industrial pollution.

If your thinking was a little more balanced and if you had more knowledge of Australia's climatic history, you'd know that, regardless of the opinions of the farmers west of Katoomba, severe droughts just like we're currently experiencing are a normal part of our climate and have been for many hundreds, and likely thousands, of years.

Therefore, while it's reasonable to surmise that the current severe drought across Australia could be partly attributable to the greenhouse effect, it's equally reasonable to assume that the drought may be just a normal part of a naturally recurring climatic cycle.

Bunyip

 

[smoothsatin]

Really? Do you think they will survive in a post consumerist economy?

I don't think the post consumerist society is coming soon, actually the deeper we get into profit maximisation as the foundation of our economy, the further entrenched we will become as a consumerist society.

What do you think will replace consumption? I mean i know what i would like, and i am sure you know what youwould like, but i mean realistically? Most peoples primary info sources (ie mainstream media) are increasingly dumbed down, which will tend to make us more boring and sheltered, so an intellectual revolution and rejection of materialism is unlikely any time soon.

What are peoples thoughts?

 

[wayneL]

I don't think the post consumerist society is coming soon, actually the deeper we get into profit maximisation as the foundation of our economy, the further entrenched we will become as a consumerist society.

What do you think will replace consumption? I mean i know what i would like, and i am sure you know what youwould like, but i mean realistically? Most peoples primary info sources (ie mainstream media) are increasingly dumbed down, which will tend to make us more boring and sheltered, so an intellectual revolution and rejection of materialism is unlikely any time soon.

What are peoples thoughts?

I is unlikely to be an intentional transformation

 

[Smurf1976]

We're dealing with the future here. As such, we can make all sorts of predictions, based on proper science or otherwise, but there is no certainty.

The only way to prove that something will or will not occur in the future, unless you are able to prove that it is physically impossible, is to wait for some future date to arrive and see if it has or has not happened. Agreed with the notion that it could be too late by the time there is firm proof of global warming, but the argument stands that there can be no proof until it actually occurs.

One problem is lack of long term data. We just don't have 100,000 years of records to know what the natural variability of the climate is. Depending on location, records span less than a human lifetime up to a few centuries. That's just not enough data for the full range of natural variation to have been recorded, hence new "records" will from time to time be reached.

That a new high temperature record is reached when the data only goes back 100 years is proof of nothing other than that it didn't get this hot in the past 100 years. Whether or not it has ever been that hot before is unknown.

However, with proper scientific and mathematical processes, it is possible to expand recorded data to estimate what short term variations would have occurred in the past assuming the general climate were comparable to that in the available records. This general process of expanding on known records where firm data does not exist is known as "synthetic data generation". It's not perfect by any means but it is useful.

Synthetic data generation is used extensively in, amongst other things, the hydro-electric industry in Tasmania. The basic approach is along the lines that just because certain lotto numbers came up last week, they are no more or less likely to come up again this week. In other words, probability.

Using this approach, whilst the rainfall over the past 9 years has been below average it has not fallen outside of the expected range on the basis of running literally thousands of simulations. Dry, but no drier than the available 90 years of records and the 1000 years of theoretical data produced from them would suggest is likely to occur from time to time. For that matter, the extremes of the records since 1914 haven't been breached either, at least not on an annual basis (the shorter the time frame, the less valid the observation in this context - one month with zero rain is very much less relevant than 12 months with zero rain).

That said, there is the issue of the unexplained rainfall trend change since 1975 observed in SW Western Australia, Tasmania and elsewhere. Something has changed, and it did so abruptly in the mid-1970's. Question is what and why? It may or may not have been simply a natural variation, but the period since 1975 has been very different (lack of high rainfall events) compared to the previous 60 years. It is the suddeness and severity of the change (more than a 50% reduction in water availability in SW WA) which makes this one stand out. Also it is heavily seasonal with the peak drop off in rain being around February and no effect observed in Spring.