Floods have wreaked havoc in North Queensland. It's a frightening glimpse of what's to come
SBS NewsDec 18, 2023
In the northeastern Australian state of Queensland, severe flooding closed off villages and forced disaster survivors to their rooftops, forcing hundreds of people to be evacuated, officials said on Monday.
Ex-tropical cyclone Jasper's has resulted in thousands of residents without power for days, stranded with washed-out roads. More rain is anticipated as the weather system slowly passes across the Cape York Peninsula to the west.
2023 will very likely go down as the warmest year on record. For every degree Celsius that the average world temperature rises, there can be an extra 7% of water vapor in the atmosphere, which is released as torrential downpours. Climate change has increased the likelihood of flooding and excessive rainfall. As the atmosphere gets warmer, extreme weather conditions like cyclones will intensify. Australia will need to work on adapting to increasingly extreme weather, but are state and local government agencies ready?
It's easy to dismiss extreme weather events, including cyclones, as a consequence of climate change. However, in reality, they're usually influenced by a myriad of factors and interrelated processes. More research is needed before establishing any direct causal link between the two.
There's a 20% chance that there will be a 5-year period with an average global temperature >3.6˚C warmer than the 1861-1880 baseline before 2100, according to the Metaculus prediction community.