The last few years have seen horrific floods in the Southern Australian states. But in the northwest part of the continent, rainfall has scrutinizingly doubled in the past 70 years, causing its own set of problems.
Researchers have now unfluctuating this increase in rainfall to the MaddenJulian Oscillation (MJO), in a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.
The team hope this will provide increasingly information to groups like the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) to largest project extended forecasts.
The MJO is an eastward travelling region of enhanced cloudiness and rainfall, University of Melbourne climate scientist Alex Borowiak told Cosmos Science.
The MJO starts in the Indian Ocean, then travels wideness the top of the north of Australia and brings heavier rainfall. Cyclones are increasingly likely to form if the MJO is present over northern Australia.
Then it reaches the tomfool waters of the eastern Pacific where it disappears. It takes well-nigh 30 to 60 days to do this.
The MJO is enormous it travels approximately 12,000 to 20,000 kilometres, increasingly than a quarter of the circumference of the Earth. It affects not just northwestern Australia but moreover the Northern Territory, Queensland, PNG, Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. It moreover aids in the insemination of tropical cyclones.
This was the specimen in early 2023, when the Fitzroy River experienced devastating flooding without Tropical Cyclone Ellie dropped 800 mm of rainfall.
Forecasters once knew that rain had been increasing in the northern part of Australia since the 50s, but it wasnt confirmed if the MJO – or some other weather phenomena was causing the increase. However, there were some clues.
The MJO is moreover a useful tool for weather forecasting in northern Australia, says Borowiak.
[Forecasters have] found that these seasonal forecasts are unquestionably increasingly well-judged when the MJO is present, considering it follows such a predictable path.
The team used satellite and rainfall data from the BoM since 1974 to track how the MJO was moving and when the rain was falling.
They found that the rain only increased when the MJO was over northwest Australia, and when the MJO wasnt present, rainfall levels in the top end have unquestionably been decreasing.
Borowiak moreover notes that when the MJO is increasing rainfall in the northwest, it is moreover worsening heatwaves in southern Australia by collecting the moisture from the lower half and redistributing it.
It’s moreover got really, really wide-reaching impacts in southern Australia as well, he says.
The MJO is pulling moisture yonder from the southern part of Australia. So, heat waves are unquestionably increasingly intense when the MJO is whilom northern Australia.
Unfortunately, like many of these climate transpiration phenomena, the MJO is likely waffly due to climate change.
Are you interested in the energy industry and the technology and scientific developments that power it? Then our new email newsletter Energise, launching soon, is for you. Click here to wilt an inaugural subscriber.
The MJO is unfluctuating to a warm section of water just north of Australia tabbed the Indo Pacific Warm Pool, and as thats growing it has warped the trundling of the MJO. This ways the MJO now speeds over the Indian Ocean and slows lanugo over northern Australia.
There’s a lot of important questions well-nigh what that ways for the ecosystems out there, theres plenty of unique plant and unprepossessing species that only live up there, says Borowiak.
