From Jennifer Marohasy

By jennifer

Southeast Queensland has experienced heavy rain with storms dumping more than 80mm in some parts, causing widespread flash flooding.   I am sorry for everyone who has been flooded.   It can be devastating – flooding and losing things.

Totals of 80 mm, 86 mm and 70 mm in just a few hours are being quoted in the mainstream news as though this is a lot.

In reality southeast Queensland, especially the Brisbane catchment has always and often experienced heavy rain.  The highest 24-hour rainfall total for anywhere in Australia is 907 mm at Crohamhurst, in the Brisbane catchment, recorded on February 3, 1893.

No error in those numbers if you read eighteen ninety-three.   We had some very wet days back more than 100 years ago, and probably the very wettest year on record is 1974.    But as a civilization we like to pretend otherwise.

We like to pretend there is something special about modern weather, and that we are somehow to blame.  This has more to do with the human condition, than the actual weather that tends to follow cycles.

There is a letter in today’s The Australian newspaper, entitled ‘The pretend game’ it refers to politics and a culture of ‘pretending’ in the name of political correctness, especially at universities and also in Canberra.    Reference is made to men pretending to be women, pretending to power the nation with renewables, and pretending all cultures are equally good, etcetera.  Of course, no mention is made of all the pretending about the weather being special, and our fault.

There is another letter, also in the newspaper, right next to the letter about all the pretending.  It is about the Bureau of Meteorology and forecasting the weather, which is also very much pretend.  If the Bureau was serious about weather and climate forecasting it would give up with its pretend General Circulation Models.   John Abbot writes:

Weather and climate forecasts using Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly artificial neural networks (ANNs), are more reliable and skilful than traditional methods using General Circulation Models (GCMs).  I have been publishing in the international peer-reviewed literature and running courses for Indonesian meteorologists, demonstrating the technique for over a decade.   I first visited the Australian Bureau of Meteorology with Jennifer Marohasy in August 2011, to show the skill of my monthly forecasts using AI, relative to the Bureau’s using General Circulation Models that attempt to mimic the physical process.  These are the same models used by the IPCC and have proven unable to forecasting more than 4 days in advance.

The Bureau has steadfastly refused to consider AI despite it showing a capacity to produce skilful location-specific rainfall forecasts from one day (models developed by Google) to 18 months in advance (models developed by Abbot and Marohasy).

In ‘BOM out of climate driver confusion’ (Weekend Australian page 3), Karl Braganza claims an inability to forecast because of climate change.  In the same article, University of Melbourne weather researcher Kimberley Reid claims GCMs (physical models) are better than historical precedence.   The reality is that Australia, and much of the West, is being left behind as China, Indonesia and others move to weather forecasting using AI.

Dr John Abbot, Senior Fellow, Institute of Public Affairs

Indeed, it is time that those managing different key institutions across the West, not only, but also weather bureaus were held to account for the choices they make when it comes to not only, but especially weather and climate forecasting.

It is no secret that Andrew Johnson, the current head of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, was a political appointment.  He was reappointed for a further five-year term in 2021 despite the Bureau’s dismissal record of weather and climate forecasting.

***

The photograph at the top/feature image was taken of me ten years ago by a photographer at The Australian, that is when journalist Graham Lloyd published a series of articles in The Australian newspaper about the need for reliable historical temperature and rainfall data.  We were hopeful, so hopeful, that Tony Abbott, back then the Prime Minister of Australia was going to do something about all the deceit and pretending.   Instead, he did nothing.   Of course, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.