KATHY McLEISH: Many people would remember Queensland as being very wet in summer are we returning to that?
ROGER STONE: Returning's probably a strong expression but certainly we're seeing for this year for this summer a similar pattern to the ones that many of us can remember back in the 1950's, 1955, 1956 and also around 1970 and 73, 74. So back in the 50's and 70's yes we had quite a few of these patterns. So for those of us that can remember those days, Queensland in summer was pretty wet and areas went under water quite easily, and we had to prepare for a lot of rain. So that was fairly typical back in those days.
KATHY McLEISH: With the onset of climate change are we seeing more extreme weather patterns?
ROGER STONE: It's more that the models suggest that we'll see more extreme patterns. It's easy to jump on a few extreme events and claim that's climate change but unfortunately we can't do that with just one event. But certainly because we only have 100 years of records its easily, it's easy to find an extreme event in there. But certainly the model suggests more extreme precipitation, more extreme rainfall, in south east Queensland actually. Certainly some of the CSIRO models suggests that we have more of these intense events, and I'm sure the water resource agencies and the people responsible for dams are aware of that and so that the construction of the engineering has to take note of the climate claim projections from some of the better climate change models from around the world.
KATHY McLEISH: What about the rest of Queensland? Is everybody in for a big wet?
ROGER STONE: Well, normally it's most of eastern Australia so we're already seeing northern Victoria have heavy rain and considerable flooding so certainly yes, northern Australia and northern Queensland and the rest of us in most of Queensland are subject to this increased risk. So the potential for tropical cyclones in the Coral Sea of course are there and there's a few more of them in this time of year and yes, all the major catchments in Queensland are vulnerable to this particular type of pattern. So, it's not just the Brisbane Valley and not just the Brisbane River, it's the Mary River, it's the Fitzroy, it's the Dawson, it's the Pioneer River around Mackay and so on, right up and down the Queensland Coast and inland as well.
KATHY McLEISH: So for a long term outlook it's a matter of reassessing the weather patterns next autumn?
ROGER STONE: Most of these years, I need to emphasise this; most of these types of years persist through to about autumn. So most of these types of patterns rather most of these types of patterns tend to persist through to autumn. The climate year tends to run autumn to autumn, not January to December, it's not like the calendar year. So the patterns that lock in around early winter tend to stay there right through to the following autumn. So, we had warning of this back in about May, June that this type of pattern was starting to develop and it's just fulfilling the text books if you like.
