{"id":2888,"date":"2015-12-13T21:00:24","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T03:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=2888"},"modified":"2015-12-13T21:00:24","modified_gmt":"2015-12-14T03:00:24","slug":"water-water-water-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/12\/13\/water-water-water-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"Water, Water, Water: Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve been hearing about El Ni\u00f1o, the band of warm Pacific water that can affect weather patterns – but what of the sibling, La Ni\u00f1a<\/strong><\/em><\/a>?\u00a0 NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (paywall) relays a warning<\/a> for Australia:<\/p>\n

Queensland could face devastating floods rivalling those seen in 2010-11 in just a year\u2019s time, as the effects of climate change and an impending La Ni\u00f1a weather event combine.<\/p>\n

La Ni\u00f1a brings warm water to the ocean around Queensland, and with it comes rain. Fresh research now shows that the effects of climate change made the flood-causing rains three times more likely that year. …<\/p>\n

Queensland might not have to wait to get a taste of this future. The world is in the grip of one of the strongest El Ni\u00f1os on record<\/a>. And extreme El Ni\u00f1os usually flip within a year to become their opposites, La Ni\u00f1as \u2013 which are then often extreme themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would predict an extreme La Ni\u00f1a developing by next year this time,\u201d says [Wenju] Cai<\/a> [of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra, Australia]. \u201cIt is highly likely that January 2017 could see floods similar to those in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Caroline] Ummenhofer<\/a> [of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts] says that predicting La Ni\u00f1a is difficult, but agrees it\u2019s a worrying possibility that one might happen next year and bring a repeat of the devastating floods.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

La Ni\u00f1a is, according to the Wikipedia article,<\/p>\n

During a period of La Ni\u00f1a, the sea surface temperature<\/a> across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean<\/a> will be lower than normal by 3\u20135\u00a0\u00b0C.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology<\/strong><\/em>, rainfall was a little slow<\/a> in 2014:<\/p>\n

Queensland experienced its equal-third-warmest year on record\u00a0in 2014, with below-average rainfall recorded across the southeast, southwest and parts of the northern interior of the State.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Downpours are rarely usful, however. Just for fun, here’s a map<\/a> Australian rainfall:<\/p>\n

\"Total<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ve been hearing about El Ni\u00f1o, the band of warm Pacific water that can affect weather patterns – but what of the sibling, La Ni\u00f1a?\u00a0 NewScientist (paywall) relays a warning for Australia: Queensland could face devastating floods rivalling those seen in 2010-11 in just a year\u2019s time, as the effects \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2888"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2891,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2888\/revisions\/2891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}