Post by lee on Oct 31st, 2019 at 4:16pm
Wednesday 19th June -"this may not be what you expect to hear. but as far as the climate scientists know there is no link between climate change and drought.
That may not be what you read in the newspapers and sometimes hear commented, but there is no reason a priori why climate change should made the landscape more arid.
If you look at the Bureau of Meteorology data over the whole of the last one hundred years there’s no trend in data. There is no drying trend. There’s been a trend in the last twenty years, but there’s been no trend in the last hundred years, and that’s an expression on how variable Australian rainfall climate is.
There are in some regions but not in other regions.
So the fundamental problem we have is that we don’t understand what causes droughts.
Much more interesting, We don’t know what stops a drought. We know it’s rain, but we don’t know what lines up to create drought breaking rains.”
https://soundcloud.com/sydneyenvironmentinstitute/adapting-climate-science-for-business
(Starts at 1;10)
Now -
"Andy Pitman says ‘misspoken’ statement has been used by Alan Jones, Chris Kenny and Andrew Bolt to dismiss links between climate change and drought
A leading Australian climate scientist has said his views have been misrepresented by conservative media commentators, who have used a “misspoken” statement to dismiss the links between climate change and drought.
Prof Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the University of New South Wales, has told Guardian Australia there are clear links between human-caused climate change and drought, but these links are indirect."
"He told Guardian Australia: “I misspoke – I missed a word in my statement and that’s my fault. I should have said no ‘direct’ link.
“I’m confident in the statement that there is no direct link between climate change and drought. I’m equally certain that for some regions there’s an indirect effect of human-induced climate change on drought because of the change in rainfall patterns.”
He said increases in temperatures caused by human activity would also make the impacts of drought worse.
He said: “Background warming does mean that when you get a drought, the system is more stressed than it otherwise would be.” "
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/25/climate-scientist-says-sky-news-commentators-misrepresented-his-views-on-drought
One slide from the Professor's talk -
The slide bears only a passing similarity to his amended views, but is in line with what was originally said.
That may not be what you read in the newspapers and sometimes hear commented, but there is no reason a priori why climate change should made the landscape more arid.
If you look at the Bureau of Meteorology data over the whole of the last one hundred years there’s no trend in data. There is no drying trend. There’s been a trend in the last twenty years, but there’s been no trend in the last hundred years, and that’s an expression on how variable Australian rainfall climate is.
There are in some regions but not in other regions.
So the fundamental problem we have is that we don’t understand what causes droughts.
Much more interesting, We don’t know what stops a drought. We know it’s rain, but we don’t know what lines up to create drought breaking rains.”
https://soundcloud.com/sydneyenvironmentinstitute/adapting-climate-science-for-business
(Starts at 1;10)
Now -
"Andy Pitman says ‘misspoken’ statement has been used by Alan Jones, Chris Kenny and Andrew Bolt to dismiss links between climate change and drought
A leading Australian climate scientist has said his views have been misrepresented by conservative media commentators, who have used a “misspoken” statement to dismiss the links between climate change and drought.
Prof Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the University of New South Wales, has told Guardian Australia there are clear links between human-caused climate change and drought, but these links are indirect."
"He told Guardian Australia: “I misspoke – I missed a word in my statement and that’s my fault. I should have said no ‘direct’ link.
“I’m confident in the statement that there is no direct link between climate change and drought. I’m equally certain that for some regions there’s an indirect effect of human-induced climate change on drought because of the change in rainfall patterns.”
He said increases in temperatures caused by human activity would also make the impacts of drought worse.
He said: “Background warming does mean that when you get a drought, the system is more stressed than it otherwise would be.” "
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/25/climate-scientist-says-sky-news-commentators-misrepresented-his-views-on-drought
One slide from the Professor's talk -
The slide bears only a passing similarity to his amended views, but is in line with what was originally said.
