The value of hindsight, or how to say "I told you so" without ever having done so

On the 9th of March, 2010, the opposition (Liberal National Party) called for a reduction of the flood mitigation capacity of Wivenhoe dam to enhance Brisbane's water supply.  Not content with a review of options, Mr Seeney (LNP Shadow Minister for Natural Resources) demanded that extra water be retained until the completion of any review.  "It would be absurd", he said, "to release water from Wivenhoe until all options are thoroughly investigated."   The LNP renewed its calls after Wivenhoe dissipated a flood event in early October of 2010.   Then Lawrence Springborg renewed the call on December 20th, in the middle of yet another flood event, from which Wivenhoe again protected Brisbane.

These calls represented the ideal time for anyone to argue for enhanced flood mitigation at Wivenhoe.  Those such as Andrew Dragun, who now believes that water should have been released to prevent the risk of flooding, said nothing.  He thought it was far more important to attack the Federal Governments Murray Darling Basin Scheme.  Hedley Thomas, who has run so hard on this story for the Australian, ignored the story.  And Michael O'Brien, the engineer who has so publicly condemned the dam operators was not to be heard. Their wisdom, it appears, is exclusively 20-20 hindsight.

Let's put this in context.

2011 and History: How big was Brisbane's flood of 13/1/2011

In this post I will be returning again to the size of the Brisbane Flood.  The reason for discussing these issues again is that  I have some new and interesting information, and also because these issues continue to be revisited by people who are trying to drum up a witch hunt against either the dam operators or the state government (or both).

After-math 2

It is now long enough after the Brisbane floods for the vultures to start circling.  With 20-20 hindsight they are certain that SEQ Water (the authority managing Wivenhoe Dam) should have done things diferently, and that if they had done so, there would have been no flood worth talking about.

I disagree!

After-math!

The Brisbane flood peak is over, and the peak was below that predicted on Tuesday, though one meter higher than that predicted when I made my last post on the floods.  Unfortunately the flooding in the capital has drawn focus away from victims who have suffered far more from the floods: those west of the range whose towns have been flooded, two, three and in one case five times in less than a month (and who in many cases were also flooded in March); and above all, those in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley who faced the devastation of the "inland instant tsunamis".

It has also allowed AGW deniers to start playing there predictable, but disappointing game of "blame the victims".  The floods, we are told, was only so bad because because of inadequate mitigation, poorly managed.  And only a problem at all because fools built houses on flood plains.   Oh, and above all else, the flood did not exceed what commonly occurs due to natural variability.

Under Brisbane Waters?

I have been holding of blogging on the Queensland floods for a week or so, now.  I thought I might wait for a more appropriate time.  This seems like an appropriate time:






Brave New Climate - Qld Floods Highlight the cost of climate extremes (Link added 14/1)

Getting it wrong: George White's argument against AGW (Pt 2)

Continuing my critique of George White's argument against AGW*, I must first note its general structure.  After the introduction, White proceeds to analyse the various energy flows into, and out of the the Earth's atmosphere as revealed by satellite data.  He does this in the sections on Albedo Effects and Energy Flux.  He then mounts an argument that Thermal Lag does not influence the rate at which the Earth warms or cools due to changes in forcings.  White claims this result is itself an argument against AGW, but this is not so.  Rather, if he could make his case, it would be a necessary auxiliary hypothesis to the argument he mounts in his introduction, and to a lesser extent, his second argument.    That second argument uses the same data and an unusual method to determine the Earth's climate sensitivity, and is presented in the section on Climate Sensitivity.  I had hoped to deal with both of those discussions in one post, but on reflection I will require two (making this a four part series).

Hypocrisy at Climate Clash

Although I will not normally make a policy of commenting on other blogs, in this case I will make an exception.

Until recently, I have been an active participant in the Climate Clash blog maintained Dr Ed Berry.  I had withdrawn from that site, in part because of the inconsistent moderation by Dr Berry which, in practise, gave open slather to opponents of AGW to insult both pro-AGW participants on the board, and noted defenders of AGW, both academic and in the blogosphere.