Climate warming has filled our atmosphere with extra moisture, according to a new study. The enormous rain and record-breaking floods that have wrecked Australia’s east coast this year may be here to stay.
The conveyor belt of ocean currents is starting to’slow down,’ producing long-lasting La Nia weather patterns, according to a paper published in the Nature Climate Change journal by the University of New South Wales.
Summers in La Nia may be perceived as chilly and damp by Australians,’ according to the survey.
‘However, as a result of climate change’s long-term warming trend, their biggest effects will be flooding rain, particularly in the east.’
Last month, Sydney’s total rainfall shattered a 132-year-old record, reaching 1,500mm faster than it had ever been seen before.
Thousands of homes and properties in Northern NSW and South East Queensland have been damaged by La Nia weather conditions, with low-lying areas left devastated by the apparently unending downpours in 2021 and 2022.
The melting of polar ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica is one unmistakable effect of global warming, according to the paper.
‘When these ice caps melt, massive volumes of freshwater are dumped into the oceans, making water more buoyant and limiting thick water sinking at high latitudes.’
This means that Atlantic currents, which keep Europe’s climate moderate by transporting large amounts of warm tropical water to the North Atlantic, are collapsing.
‘The first thing the model simulations indicated was that, in the absence of the Atlantic overturning, a tremendous pile up of heat forms immediately south of the Equator (near Australia),’ according to the report.
‘This excess of tropical Atlantic heat pushes more warm moist air into the upper troposphere (around 10 kilometres into the atmosphere), causing dry air to descend over the east Pacific.
‘The descending air then strengthens trade winds, which pushes warm water towards the Indonesian seas. And this helps put the tropical Pacific into a La Niña-like state.’
At the same time, the phenomena is generating record-breaking drought and major bushfires across the southwest of North America, wreaking havoc on emergency services and the agriculture industry.
Although the scenario appears severe, the authors of the research claim that efforts can be made to alleviate the possible disaster.
‘We can avoid these shifts by developing a new low-carbon economy,’ according to the research.
‘Doing so will alter the path of Earth’s climatic history for the second time in less than a century – this time for the better.’