Australia floods a glimpse of warmer future

[Barrett808]

Though you can't make a direct link between Australia's killer floods and climate change, they do hold a warning for the future: Scientists predict such extreme weather events will increase both in intensity and frequency as the planet warms.

Raging floodwaters have swamped thousands of homes and businesses in Queensland, leaving at least 25 people dead and dozens more missing since late November. Rail lines and highways have been washed away in what is shaping up to become Australia's costliest natural disaster.

The flooding follows a spate of severe natural disasters in the past year. While the most deadly was Haiti's earthquake, extreme weather also killed thousands of people across the globe, including a scorching heat wave that choked Russia in the summer and devastating floods that engulfed more than 60,000 square miles (150,000 square kilometers) in Pakistan.

"The Earth is delivering a message to us. And the message is that more extreme weather is becoming the norm rather than the exception," said John Magrath, a climate change researcher at British charity Oxfam. ...

Australia floods a glimpse of warmer future

[kestrel91316]

1. Aw, cmon, it's all good! Australia is a desert - they can USE the water.

The all-at-once thing is a bit of a problem, but what the heck.

[XemaSab]

2. I deeply suspect that some areas will be much wetter

Perhaps even California.