The k2p blog

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

An aerial view of the Choke (north and south lagoon) of the Coorong. Photo: David Mariuz

The long wait is almost over at the mouth of Australia’s greatest river. A decade after it last spilt into the sea, the Murray River will reconnect with the Southern Ocean in a matter of days.

The Murray-Darling Basin is having its fourth wettest year (to date) on record, the Bureau of Meteorology said yesterday. The Murray’s famous Lower Lakes – surviving on environmental ”death row” last year – have swollen close to 150 centimetres higher than the nadir of 2009, thanks mostly to summer downpours in northern Australia and the September floods in Victoria.

Chief executive of South Australia’s environment and water department Allan Holmes is bullish about the future, saying the region was already ”an entirely different environment” to the one he was managing six months ago. ”These systems, provided you don’t tip them over the edge, are enormously resilient and they come back with a vengeance,” he said.

Just a month ago The plight of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin was being attributed to climate change:

“Australian climate scientists see the country as ‘extremely vulnerable’ to climate change and the Murray-Darling Basin as a ground zero for global warming. Climate change advisors to Australia’s government have warned that agricultural production in the basin could fall by up to 92% by 2100”.

“Global warming will trigger more frequent and severe droughts, as well as more devastating bushfires, cyclones and floods”–Kathy Marks.

Tags: climate change, environment, Murray-Darling Basin, Southern Ocean

This entry was posted on October 1, 2010 at 8:24 pm and is filed under Alarmism, Environment, Science, Weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.