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Scientific opinions, global warming & 2010-2011 Pakistan, Brazil, Sri Lanka & Australia flood disasters

by Open-Publishing - Saturday 15 January 2011

International Environment Australia Gideon Polya

Because the day to day weather is highly variable one cannot attribute the severity of any specific weather event (such as the current La Niña-associated Queensland and Eastern and Southern Australian floods) to man-made global warming.

However increased greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution leads successively to global warming, increased sea temperature, increased evaporation and thence to increased precipitation.

Indeed the incidence of floods has greatly increased throughout the world over the last 60 years. Accordingly one cannot ignore the likelihood of a contribution of man-made global warming to extreme precipitation events.

The 2010-2011 Queensland, Australia, flood disaster has so far killed 16 (40 missing), forced thousands from their homes, adversely affected 70 towns and 200,000 people, flooded major parts of the capital city Brisbane, including the Central Business District, and cost circa $13 billion. [1].

This present Queensland and Eastern Australian disaster - coming shortly after the disastrous 2010 Russian heat wave (1/3 of the Russian wheat crop destroyed in fires) and the horrendous 2010 Pakistani floods (24 million homeless) and contemporaneous with the current Brazil floods (500 dead, thousands homeless) and the present Sri Lanka floods (23 dead, 1 million homeless) - has again raised concerns about the connection between man-made global warming from greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and extreme weather events such as floods and drought.

For advice we must turn to expert climate scientists, meteorologists and other informed citizens. At the outset it must be clearly re-iterated that weather is variable and accordingly one cannot say that the severity of a specific event such as the La Niña-associated Queensland floods can be attributed to climate change. However increased precipitation derives from increased sea temperature and increased evaporation and accordingly man-made global warming to a global average of +0.8C above the 1900 value is likely to contribute to extreme precipitation events (more heat means more evaporation and hence more precipitation).

Set out below in the public interest are 24 expert, informed, referenced opinions about the link between global warming and increased precipitation events.

1. The US National Academy of Sciences (2010): “Extreme precipitation is likely to increase as the atmospheric moisture content increases in a warming climate. Typical magnitudes are 3-10per cent per degree C warming, with potentially larger values in the tropics, and in the most extreme events globally.” [2].

2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 2007: “Observations are consistent with physical understanding regarding the expected linkage between water vapour and temperature, and with intensification of precipitation events in a warmer world. Column and upper-tropospheric water vapour have increased, providing important support for the hypothesis of simple physical models that specific humidity increases in a warming world and represents an important positive feedback to climate change. Consistent with rising amounts of water vapour in the atmosphere, there are widespread increases in the numbers of heavy precipitation events and increased likelihood of flooding events in many land regions, even those where there has been a reduction in total precipitation. Observations of changes in ocean salinity independently support the view that the Earth’s hydrologic cycle has changed, in a manner consistent with observations showing greater precipitation and river runoff outside the tropics and subtropics, and increased transfer of freshwater from the ocean to the atmosphere at lower latitudes.” [3].

3. Queensland Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) Report. In 2010 the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) Report to the Queensland Government and the Local Government Association of Queensland advised that "a. an increase in rainfall intensity is likely; b. the available scientific literature indicates this increased rainfall intensity to be in the range of 3-10 per cent per degree of global warming; c. the SAG understands the preference for a single figure to support policy development. More detailed analysis is required to firmly establish such a figure and this work will be undertaken as part of the review of Australia’s Rainfall and Runoff [AR&R]. This document will become the authoritative source of information on the issue when released in 2014. However the SAG would consider a figure of 5% increase in rainfall intensity per degree of global warming reasonable for informing policy development in the interim... Extreme precipitation is likely to increase as the atmospheric moisture content increases in a warming climate…If this recommendation turns out to underestimate the changes (and the evidence produced to date would suggest it will) then further increases will be recommended through revision of the AR&R. Taking this first step now will make these increases more acceptable in the future.” [4].

4. Final Report of the Queensland Inland Flooding Study (2010): “ Executive summary. Flooding causes significant impacts on Queensland communities and the economy- and with our changing climate, flooding events are likely to become more frequent and more intense. Effective land use planning will ensure that our communities are ready for the impacts of climate change… Various scientific methodologies were examined to identify benchmark figures fro planning to take account of the projected impacts of climate change on flood risks. These methods were based on the theory that precipitable water in the atmosphere will increase as global temperature increases. Analysis was undertaken to determine the extent of evidence in the Queensland historical record for this physical relationship. This analysis included both land surface temperature and sea surface temperatures. The recent wok of Rafter and Abbes (2010) was also considered, which uses extreme value analyses to calculate the percentage increases of intense rainfall from a suite of Global Climate Models. The project also took into account the recently released report from the US National Academy of Sciences (2010) which concludes that: “Extreme precipitation is likely to increase as the atmospheric moisture content increases in a warming climate. Typical magnitudes are 3-10per cent per degree C warming, with potentially larger values in the tropics, and in the most extreme events globally.” [5].

5. The Queensland Government itself understands the connection between global warming and increased precipitation events while remaining notoriously committed to fossil fuel burning and methanogenic livestock production. The Final Report of the Inland Flooding Study, 2010, was released by Queensland Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones at the Local Government Association of Queensland’s (LGAQ) annual environment conference on the Gold Coast. "What we’re asking is that councils use this science to build into their flood risks an increase in flooding as a consequence of climate change. What we’ll see is rainfall intensity increasing by five per cent, which will mean they’ll need to build that into their flood planning… [ planning for a once-in-a-century flood isn’t enough to protect inland areas in the future]…Instead we’re recommending local governments adopt a climate-change factor for increased rainfall intensity of five per cent per degree of global warming, and incorporate this into local flood studies and planning schemes. This will increase the amount of land considered flood prone over time and enable councils to make informed decisions and provide better advice to residents. This is the first time definitive advice on how to plan for more intense flooding under climate change has been provided in Queensland."[6].

6. Australian Bureau of Meteorology (2010): " Data collected by the Bureau of Meteorology show that the Australian mean rainfall total for 2010 was 690 mm, well above the long-term average of 465 mm. As a result, 2010 was Australia’s wettest year since 2000 and the third-wettest year on record (records commence in 1900). The only month to record a national monthly total below the long term average during 2010 was June. This means that 11 months of the year experienced above average rainfall, an occurrence observed only once previously, in 1973... Based on preliminary data (to November 30), sea surface temperatures in the Australian region during 2010 were +0.54 °C above the 1961 to 1990 average. This is the warmest value on record for the Australian region. Individual high monthly sea surface temperature records were also set during 2010 in March, April, June, September, October and November. Along with favourable hemispheric circulation associated with the 2010 La Niña, very warm sea surface temperatures contributed to the record rainfall and very high humidity across eastern Australia during winter and spring." [7].

7. Professor David Karoly (Professor of Meteorology and an ARC Federation Fellow, University of Melbourne School of Earth Sciences and a lead author of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC) commenting on the 2011 La Niña-connected Queensland floods and climate change: ’’Australia has been known for more than a hundred years as a land of droughts and flooding rains, but what climate change means is Australia becomes a land of more droughts and worse flooding rains… On some measures, it’s the strongest La Niña in recorded history … [but] we also have record-high ocean temperatures in northern Australia, which means more moisture evaporating into the air. And that means lots of heavy rain.’’ [8].

8. Professor David Karoly (Professor of Meteorology and an ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, and a lead author of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC) on Queensland floods, climate change and extreme precipitation: “What gives very heavy rainfall is high Indian Ocean temperatures and La Niña in the Pacific. This year we have both of those, and both are at record highs… (presented data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology shows a marked increase in Australian region December sea temperature: http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=sst&area=aus&season=12&ave_yr=11 ) …This (pronounced long-term warming trend in the waters near Australia) isn’t just climate variability. This is man-made climate change… we can’t say this individual event [in Queensland] is due to long term climate change, but we can say the overall global sea surface temperature increases are due to anthropogenic [man-made] forcings.” [9].

9. Professor David Karoly (Professor of Meteorology and an ARC Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, and a lead author of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC) on Queensland floods, climate change and extreme precipitation: “"What we are seeing over the last 50 years and over the last 100 years is a change in this pattern of extremes with more hot and more wet extremes in northern Australia and more hot and more dry extremes in southern Australia and that pattern is exactly what we would expect from climate change due to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.” [10].

10. Professor Ian Lowe (president of the Australian Conservation Foundation; Professor of Science, Technology and Society and former Head of the School of Science at Griffith University) on the Queensland floods, extreme weather events and man-made global warming: “The Queensland floods are another reminder of what climate science has been telling us for 25 years. As well as a general warming and increasing sea levels, it predicted more frequent extreme events: floods, droughts, heatwaves and severe bushfires. The decline in rainfall in south-western WA and the increasing rainfall in the tropics are exactly what the science has been telling us to expect. It is still too early to say with certainty that climate change is responsible for the strong El Nino event which brought devastating drought to eastern Australia and the equally strong La Niña event which has produced the terrible floods. But they are exactly what climate science has been warning us about. If we don’t want to see more events like the 2009 Victorian bushfires and the floods now happening, we need a concerted program of action to reduce greenhouse pollution.” [11].

11. Professor Ian Lowe (president of the Australian Conservation Foundation; Professor of Science, Technology and Society and former Head of the School of Science at Griffith University, as well as an adjunct professor at Sunshine Coast University and Flinders University) on the Queensland floods: “The Queensland floods are another reminder of what climate science has been telling us for 25 years, like the recent long-running drought, the 2009 heatwaves and the dreadful Victorian bushfires. As well as a general warming, increasing sea levels and altered rainfall patterns, climate modellers confidently predicted more frequent extreme events: floods, droughts, heatwaves and severe bushfires. The decline in rainfall in Western Australia’s south-west and the increasing rainfall in the tropics are exactly what the science has been telling us to expect. It is still too early to say with certainty that climate change is responsible for the strong El Niño event that brought devastating drought to eastern Australia and the equally strong La Niña event that has produced the terrible floods. But they are exactly what climate science has been warning us about since the 1980s.’ [12].

12. Professor Neville Nicholls (an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow, Monash University, Melbourne): "Is the [current] La Nina that strong because of global warming, or is global warming exacerbating the effect of La Niña? Honestly, we don’t know. But just because we don’t now doesn’t mean it’s not happening. You’d have to be a brave person to say it [climate change] is not having some sort of effect. I can guarantee you in the next couple of years people will start looking back at this event and asking was it so unusually strong because of global warming." [13].

13. Professor Will Steffen (executive director of the ANU Climate Change Institute; Australian Government Climate Change Committee member): "As the climate warms, there is more water vapour in the atmosphere. This means that there is a probability that there will more intense rainfall events around the world. There is some evidence that we can see them now. I think the place where the best data is the US." [13].

14. Professor Will Steffen (executive director of the Australian National University’s (ANU) Climate Change Institute) on Queensland floods and global warming: "What we can say about the Queensland floods is there is a strong La Niña, which tends to give this heavy rainfall, but in addition to that there are very high sea surface temperatures… "(In a US study of rainfall in a heavily saturated area over the past 100 years) there’s been a significant increase (in rain in the area) since 1980 consistent with a strong warming. There’s definitely a risk and a growing risk that events of this type will become more frequent as the climate warms. One-in-100-year events would become a one-in-20 or one-in-30-year event as the climate shifts ... we say with some confidence they are becoming more frequent and they will become more frequent in future." [14].

15. Professor Matthew England (joint director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW) on record high temperatures and Queensland floods: “Climate change has seen a warming of waters globally, and the waters north of Australia are an important part of the climate system for Australia’s monsoon rains. They are at their warmest ever measured and we cannot exclude climate change from contributing to this warmth, (and) if it is very warm there this enhances evaporation into the atmosphere, creating moist air… Climate change projections are pointing to more frequent extreme events, that’s to say more flooding events, more droughts and fires, but whether Australia as a nation sees many more flooding events or not is still a little bit more complex to pin down." [14].

16. Professor Barry Brook (Foundation Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change and Director of Climate Science at The Environment Institute, University of Adelaide) on the Queensland disaster and global warming: “The period 2010-2011 has seen record rainfall and rural flooding events in Australia. This has culminated this week with the 3rd largest city, Brisbane, being struck by severely damaging and costly urban floods, inundating the central business district and overwhelming many thousands of homes and businesses…:The point of this post is not to try to attribute these extreme weather events directly to climate change, although I think there is a real influence at work here. A major factor is one of the strongest La Niñas on record… Climate change, left unabated, will increase the frequency and severity of natural disasters. More and more energy is being trapped within the Earth system (see figure to the right), and it has to be expressed somewhere, sometime. The laws of physical science dictate nothing less. And it will, in turn, hit the Australian and World economy hard. Those economic rationalists among us should heed the reminder that these latest natural events have delivered. Avoided global heating is avoided cost (with the worst-case scenarios being incalculable). For the general populace’s opinion on climate change, what will the latest events do? I can’t be sure of course, but I suspect that it will, in many, awaken within them a deep-seated horror — “...this could happen to me”. This personal demon, fed by the graphic reporting we now get on such events, might well do more than anything else to catalyse a community consensus for real, effective and urgent action to eliminate fossil fuels.” [15, 16].

17. Ellen Sandell (national director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and joint Banksia young environmentalist of the year in 2009) re the Queensland flood disaster: “We know that any one single extreme weather event cannot be attributed just to climate change. But we can look at the climate models and predictions, which all say that in a climate-changed world extreme weather events will become more frequent and intense. The La Niña phenomenon, the major cause of the increased rain in south-east Queensland, gets stronger as sea surface temperatures increase. Warmer air also holds more water than colder air, and this water eventually has to come down somewhere. Hence increased rain and floods…I don’t want to live in the kind of world we are previewing right now. We need fundamental change, and it starts with a price on pollution that rids our economy of polluting energy and creates clean energy instead. It starts with increased funding for healthy, renewable energy. It starts with a serious commitment from all political parties to do what is right and significantly reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.I hope some good can come out of this tragedy, and that we use it to have the conversation about what we are going to do this year to make these solutions a reality.” [17].

18. Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library (that provides carefully researched infomation to members of the Australian Federal Parliament) : “Are extreme weather events—severe storms, flooding, droughts, heat waves or extremely violent cyclones—becoming more common? The answer appears to be ’yes’. Trends towards more powerful storms and hotter, longer dry periods have been observed, according to the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report, and this trend is projected to continue.” [18].


19. Professor John Holdren (Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Director of the Woods Hole Research Center; recent Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and President Obama’s chief scientific adviser)
on climatic disruption (2008): “”Incidence of floods is up almost everywhere…(figure: Major floods per decade 1950-2000; number of events per decade on a 0 to 350 scale plotted by decade) …There’s a consistent 50-year upward trend in every region except Oceania” [note: data source Milennium Ecosystem Assessment; histograms show that 2000s/1950s ratio about 10 (Americas), 4 (Europe), 10 (Africa), 6.5 (Asia); not shown, Fiji suffered its worst floods in decades in January 2009 with 11 dead and 9,000 evacuated]. [19].

20. GRID-Arendal (a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP): “Number of flood events by continent and decade since 1950. Roughly 17% of all the urban land in the United States is located in the 100-year flood zone. Likewise, in Japan about 50% of the population lives on floodplains, which cover only 10% of the land area. In Bangladesh, the percentage of floodprone areas is much higher and inundation of more than half of the country is not uncommon.” [note: data source Milennium Ecosystem Assessment; histograms show that 2000s/1950s ratio about 10 (Americas), 4 (Europe), 10 (Africa), 6.5 (Asia)]. [20].

21. GRID-Arendal (a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP): “ Number of Disasters per Year. Trends in number of reported disasters. Much of the increase in the number of hazardous events reported is probably due to significant improvements in information access and also to population growth, but the number of floods and cyclones reported is still rising compared to earthquakes. Is global warming affecting the frequency of natural hazards? (Sources CRED Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2006, 2007) [note: Figure shows that floods increased 6 fold from 1980 to 2007 whereas earthquakes scarcely increased at all). [21].

22. Professor Vicky Pope (head of climate change advice at the Met Office, UK) explains how a warmer world is a wetter world (2011): "As the average global temperature increases one would expect the moisture content of the atmosphere to rise, due to more evaporation from the sea surface. For every 1C sea surface temperature rise, atmospheric moisture over the oceans increases by 6-8%. Also in general, as more energy and moisture is put into the atmosphere [by warming], the likelihood of storms, hurricanes and tornadoes increases." [22].

23. CSIRO-Bureau of Meteorology. The present Australian floods have been caused by the current La Niña phenomenon but have occurred in the context of an increase in sea surface temperature due to man-made global warming. Thus the Australian CSIRO-Bureau of Meteorology report “The State of the Climate” (2010) states that “Sea surface temperatures around Australia have increased by about 0.4oC in the past 50 years... Australian average temperatures are projected t rise buy 0.6oC to 1.5oC by 2030. If global greenhouse emissions continue to grow at rates consistent with past trends, warming is projected to be in the range of 2.2oC to 5.0oC by 2070… there is a greater than 90% certainty that increase in greenhouse gas emissions have caused most of the global warming since the mid-20th century. International research shows that it is extremely unlikely that the observed warming could be explained by natural causes alone. Evidence of human influence has been detected in ocean warming, sea level rise, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns. CSIRO research has found that higher greenhouse gas levels are likely to have caused about half of the winter rainfall reduction in south-west Western Australia.” [23].

24. Phillip Sutton (convenor of the Climate Emergency Network (CEN) and author with David Spratt of “Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action”: http://www.scribepublications.com.a... ) has commented thus on the Queensland flood disaster and man-made global warming on behalf of CEN: ““The Climate Emergency Network is calling on the Australian Federal and State governments to heed the message of the current disastrous Queensland floods and commit to urgent and effective action to end the plunge into catastrophic climate change and to restore a safe climate. Failure to do so will lead to a future of even more extreme floods, droughts and bushfires, occurring more often. Australia’s weather has always been highly variable but climate change is exaggerating the extremes. Hot weather is becoming hotter and dry weather is becoming drier. More water is taken from the land and sea into the atmosphere, so that when it does rain, it rains harder. It’s time for Australian politicians, and the public, to stop ignoring the undeniable evidence and to join the dots. Climate change is not the sole cause of these events but it is certainly increasing their devastating effects. For several decades extreme weather events have become more common and more intense – exactly as climate scientists predicted. And now across the world communities are suffering not just extreme but catastrophic weather-driven disasters. And what is really scary is that this is all happening with a global temperature increase of less than 1°C. World leaders have agreed to limit climate change to an increase of 2 degrees but have failed to take action that can achieve even that. It is generally acknowledged that the world is currently on track to an increase of at least 4 degrees, unless strong action is taken. We are facing a climate emergency now with a warming of less than 1°C and emergency action needs to be taken without further delay to cool the earth. To cool the earth we need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the air and we need to take the excess carbon dioxide out of the air. Such action will have to be taken urgently, on a national and global scale.” [24].

Conclusions.

Because the day to day weather is highly variable one cannot attribute any specific weather event (such as the current Queensland and Eastern Australian floods) to man-made global warming. However increased precipitation will derive from increased sea temperature and consequently increased evaporation and accordingly one cannot exclude the likelihood of a contribution of man-made global warming to such extreme precipitation events. Man—made global warming has already been associated with huge increases in the incidence of flooding and other climatic disruptions around the world over the last half century or so. The message is clear: what is needed, as stated by Professor Barry Brook, is: “real, effective and urgent action to eliminate fossil fuels”.

References.

[1]. 2010-2011 Queensland floods, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010%E... .

[2]. US National Academy of Sciences, quoted in “Increasing Queensland’s resilience to inland flooding in a changing climate: Final Report of the Inland Flooding Study”, 2010: http://www.climatechange.qld.gov.au... .

[3]. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, 2007, Climate Change 2007: Working Party 1: The Physical Science Basis, T.3.4 Consistency Among Observations, http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and... .

[4]. Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) report “Increasing Queensland’s resilience to inland flooding in a changing climate. Derivation of a rainfall intensity figure to inform an effective interim policy approach to managing inland flooding risks in a changing climate”, November 2010: http://www.climatechange.qld.gov.au... .

[5]. Increasing Queensland’s resilience to inland flooding in a changing climate: Final Report of the Inland Flooding Study, 2010: http://www.climatechange.qld.gov.au... .

[6]. Tony Bartlett, “Climate change the new flood risk for Qld”, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 November 2010: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-new... .

[7]. Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Annual Australian Climate Statement 2011, 5 January 2011: http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements... .

[8]. David Karoly quoted in Bridie Smith, “Fates conspire to concoct a recipe for disaster”, The Age, 12 January 2010: http://www.theage.com.au/environmen... .

[9]. David Karoly quoted in Alyson Kenward, “Ocean temperatures show possible climate change connection to Australian flooding”, Global Climate Change (GCC) News Brief, 13 January 2011: http://hendrawanm.wordpress.com/201... .

[10]. Professor David Karoly interviewed by ABC News on Queensland floods, “Climate expert says more extreme weather likely”, ABC News, 31 December 2010: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/20... .

[11]. Ian Lowe, “Queensland floods: a message from our president Professor Ian Lowe”, Australian Conservation Foundation, 12 January 2011: http://www.acfonline.org.au/article... .

[12]. Ian Lowe, “Drowning in a hothouse”, The Age On-line National Times, 14 January 2011: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/so... .

[13]. Neville Nicholls and Will Steffen quoted in Joe Kelly, “Global warming will cause further extreme weather events, climate change chief says”, The Australian, 11 January 2011: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat... .

[14]. Will Steffen and Matthew England quoted in La Nina, global warming to blame for floods, NZ Herald, 13 January 2011: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/new... .

[15]. Barry Brook, “Qld floods highlight the cost of climate extremes”, Brave New Climate, 12 January 2011: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/01/... .

[16]. Barry Brook, “Queensland floods highlight the cost of climate extremes”, Energy Collective, 12 January 2011: http://theenergycollective.com/barr... .

[17]. Ellen Sandell, “It’s time to talk of climate change”, The Age On-line National Times, 14 January 2011: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/so... .

[18]. Parliament of Australia, Parliamentary Library, “More extreme weather”: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/... .

[19]. Dr John Holdren (2008), “The Science of Climatic Disruption” (power point lecture): http://www.usclimateaction.org/user....

[20]. GRID-Arendal (a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme ,UNEP): “Number of flood events by continent and decade since 1950”: http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/num... .

[21]. GRID-Arendal (a collaborating centre of the United Nations Environment Programme ,UNEP): “Number of Disasters per Year”: http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/num... .

[22]. Vicky Pope, quoted in Damien Carrington, “”Australian floods: La Nina to blame”, Guardian, 11 January 2011: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environme... .

[23]. see CSIRO-Bureau of Meteorology , “The State of the Climate”, 2010: http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pvfo.pdf .

[24]. Phillip Sutton, Climate Emergency Network media release, quoted by Gideon Polya, “Climate Emergency Network, La Niña, Climate Change & Queensland flood disaster - stop burning coal & gas”, Bellaciao, 15 January 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?ar... .