Back to the Future?

One has to shake one’s head in amazement sometimes at the pronouncements that come from the Climate Change Welfare Lobby. A case in point is John Connor, CEO of The Climate Institute, who periodically shows up in the media to make dire predictions like this:

 “Climate change is not just about warmer weather it’s about wilder weather and the devastating economic costs that we’ve seen from recent floods, bushfires and droughts will mount without decisive action on pollution and climate change.”

Apart from the non-specific and unverifiable nature of these claims (e.g. “wilder weather” – whatever that means), one wonders if these people have even the vaguest sense of history, or have done the most basic of research to establish a baseline for comparison.

The briefest of research would demonstrate that there is nothing unique about the weather events that have been experienced in Australia during the past 10-20 years. Not even close.

A case in point – the following is a newspaper clipping from July 1935, which is a reprint of an article from October 1885. It provides a “thumbnail” description of the major drought and flood events experienced in the first 103 years of European exploration and settlement (1782 – 1885).

DROUGHTS AND FLOODS  FROM 1782 TO 1885 IN EASTERN AUSTRALIA

The following letter to the " Brisbane Courier,'' republished in the "Capricornian " of October 3, 1885, will be read with special interest just now when Queensland has reached the end of one of the most extensive and disastrous of the long dry periods in its history, and particularly by those whose memories carry them back, if not to the droughts, but to the floods which inevitably followed each of them, and notably those of 1864, 1875, and 1918, the last-named the highest and also the most protracted in its record:

The present severe drought serves to remind me of a paper which I read on 5th January, 1864, before the Queensland and Philosophical Society on "Meteorology," and which led to the establishment in this colony of observing stations, until then unknown here; and as this paper, amongst other matter, contained a list of droughts and floods in South-east Australia since the year 1782, it may be of some interest to repeat that part of it now.

From 1782 to 1792 Captain Flinders landed at intervals in various places on the south and east coasts of our continent, and he found traces of drought and bushfires invariably. The year 1788, when New South Wales was first settled, was a year of drought in Sydney. In 1797 a severe drought was observable at Western Port, in Bass' Straits, near where Melbourne was destined, forty years later, to be founded.  

Then came a wet period, and in nearly every year from 1799 to 1806 there were high floods in New South Wales. The Hawkesbury River, it is stated, rose 101 ft. at the town of Windsor: crops were destroyed, wheat cost 80s. a bushel, and there was almost a famine, as may well be imagined. From 1811 until 1826 there were more floods than droughts, and the Hunter River rose 37 ft. in 1820, but from 1826 to 1829 was the longest continuous and recorded drought in Australia, and 4d. a gallon was paid for water in Sydney in 1826. In 1830 came the first great flood for eleven years, and Windsor, on the  Hawkesbury, was once more an island  pro tem.

After this, however, the years were moderately but decidedly dry ones, and 1837, 1838, and 1839 brought a three  years' drought, which almost exterminated the sheep and cattle of Australia and dried up that great " father of waters," the big Murrumbidgee River, itself, leaving the very fish to putrefy in the bed thereof, and anyone who has seen and crossed this river in flood time, ten miles wide (as I have), can imagine what weather it took to dry it up, for the main river, though narrow, is very deep.

Then came more floods after the break-up of this drought, and in 1841 was the highest known flood in this part of the world. The Brisbane and Bremer Rivers were both in flood at once, and the water rose 70 ft at Ipswich. Generally speaking, only one of these two rivers is in flood at one time, and the other relieves it of the backwater, but this time both were involved, and the water, even in Brisbane,   rose to a great height inside the commissariat, now the Government stores,   below the present Immigration Depot. No subsequent flood ever rose higher than 45 ft. at Ipswich, or more than 7 ft. in Brisbane. Since then and after the cutting of the bar and the Seventeen-mile rocks, they do not rise even so high.

From 1841 to 1849 there was rather more rain than was wanted, but the latter half of 1849, all of 1850, and the early part of 1851 gave us another severe drought, and "Black Thursday," 6th February, 1951, "boxed" the scattered bushfires of Victoria into one vast wild blaze before a northerly hurricane which blew coaches and men-of-wars rowing boats over like hat. Farms, buildings, farms, crops, and lives were lost, of   course. This drought broke in May, 1851, and in 1852 came a flood that swept the town of Gundagi, on the Murrumbidgee, away and drowned a score or two of the inhabitants.

The years 1856, 1863, 1864, 1870, 1873, 1875, and 1879 saw floods of more or less height in the Brisbane River, with boats rowing in Mary Street and Stanley Street, taking people out of houses in the first four years named.

The years 1869 and 1877 were dry; 1882 and early in 1883 were wet, and then, after the Java and Sumatra earthquake of August, 1883, came the constant evening glow and iron drought that has scarcely been broken since. The present is, no doubt, one of the periodic heavy droughts (like the 1826 and 1838 ones) which visit us at times and become forgotten in the flood intervals, and it comes to be further complicated by the Krakatoa earthquake of August, 1883, on which occasion the pent-up subterranean gasses, which usually form a comparatively harmless vent in ordinary volcanoes, became, increased and found it needful to burst up a large area of sea and land in order to find escape.

So, when someone like John Connor states that we can expect “wilder weather”, what does he mean, exactly?

 “Wilder”, or more “economically devastating” than:

• The Murrumbidgee River completely drying up (1839) ?
• Both the Brisbane and Bremer rivers flooding at the same time (1841) ?
• Bushfires across a significant part of Victoria (1851) ?
• A town being completely washed away (1852) ?

And that’s just the first 100 years.

Perhaps once Mr. Connor has taken the opportunity to read a bit of history, he can enlighten us on this matter.

A Short World History of Extreme Climate Variability (1837)

HOT SUMMERS AND COLD WINTERS.

"The present summer having been one of the hottest known for many years, perhaps the following short account of a few remarkable winters and summers (selected from longer lists) may not be uninteresting to the general reader.

 In the year 401 A.D., the Black Sea was entirely frozen over, and in 462 the Danube; and so thorough that Theodomer marched over with an army. Again, in 763 not only the Black Sea but the Strait of the Dardanelles also. The snow in some places rose fifty feet, and the ice was so heaped up in the cities as to push down the walls; yet the summer was so hot that the springs dried up.

In 870 the heat was so intense that near Worms, the reapers dropped dead in the fields; and in 874 the winter was so long and severe that the snow continued to fall from the beginning of November to the end of March, and encumbered the ground so much that the forests were inaccessible for the supply of fuel.

1067 the cold was so intense that most of the travellers in Germany were frozen to death on the road, and in 1072 the heat was so intense that both man and animals were struck dead. In 1130 the earth yawned with drought; springs and rivers disappeared, and even the Rhine was dried up in Alsace; but in 1133 the winter was so cold that the Po was frozen from Cremona to the sea; heaps of snow rendered the roads impassable; wine casks were burst, and even the trees split up by the action of the frost, with immense noise.

In 1232 the heat was so great, especially in Germany, that the eggs were roasted in the sand; but in 1234 a forest was killed by the frost at Ravenna, and in 1236 the Danube was frozen to the bottom. In 1292 the Rhine was frozen over at Breysach and bore loaded waggons, and one sheet of ice extended from Norway to Jutland; yet 1293 was extremely hot, and both the Rhine and Danube were dried up.

The year 1408 was one of the coldest winters ever remembered; the Baltic was frozen over, and wolves came across the ice into Jutland. In 1434 snow fell for forty days without interruption, and in 1468 the winter was so severe in Flanders, that the wine distributed to the soldiers was cut into pieces with hatchets, and the same happened in 1554, the wine being frozen into solid lumps. In 1556 the drought was so great the springs failed, and wheat rose in England from 8s. to 53s. a quarter.

In 1621 and 1622 all the rivers of Europe were frozen. A sheet of ice covered the Hellespont, and the Venetian fleet was choked up in the lagoons of the Adriatic. In 1658 Charles X. crossed the ice from Holstein to Denmark with his whole army, foot, and horse, followed by his baggage and artillery. In 1684 many forest trees, and even the oaks in England, were split by the frost. Most of the hollies were killed; almost all the birds perished; and coaches drove along the Thames, which was covered with ice eleven inches thick.

In 1709 occurred "the cold winter," when all the rivers and lakes of Europe were frozen, and even the seas to the distance of several miles from the shore. The frost penetrated three feet into the ground; birds and wild beasts were strewed dead in the fields; and men perished by thousands in their houses. The Adriatic was quite frozen over; and even the coast about Genoa.

The winter of 1716 was nearly as severe, and a fair was held on the Thames. Yet in 1718, the weather was extremely hot and dry all over Europe. The air felt so oppressive that all the theatres were shut in Paris, and scarcely any rain fell for nine months. The following year was equally hot, and the thermometer rose to 98 degrees of Fahrenheit. In some places the fruit trees blossomed two or three times.

The winter of 1740 was scarcely inferior in severity to that of 1709. The snow lay eight or ten feet deep in Spain and Portugal; all the lakes in England froze; and many trees were killed by the frost. The year 1746 was remarkably hot; the grass withered and the leaves dropped from the trees, while 1754 was both hot and cold. Next winter was so severe that in England the strongest ale, exposed to the air in a class, was covered, in less than a quarter of an hour, with ice an eighth of an inch thick.

The winter of 1776 was so severe that the Danube bore ice five feet thick below Vienna. Wine froze in the cellars of France and Holland; many people were frostbitten, and vast numbers of birds and fishes perished. The summer of 1811 was very hot and dry, the winter of 1812 remarkably severe; the one was remarkable for its vintage, the other for the disastrous campaign of Napoleon in Russia."

Published in the Hobart Mercury, Saturday 23 June 1866, and the Adelaide Advertiser, Tuesday 4 September 1868.  They are reprints of articles that were published in the late 1830s, such as the Baltimore American. The original source of the data is a periodical called The Parterre, published on 21 January, 1837 (pages 30-33).