Nature, not humans, blamed for Australia drought

0 Comments | AFP, December, 2006

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australia's devastating drought is far more likely to be part of a natural cycle than a result of the man-made greenhouse effect, an Australian climate scientist has said. Barrie Hunt, a researcher with government science agency CSIRO, dismissed suggestions that global warming, believed to be caused by carbon emissions, is responsible for the "Big Dry" gripping much of south-eastern Australia.

"It is very, very highly likely that what we are seeing at the moment is natural climatic variability," Hunt told the Australian newspaper. After studying a CSIRO model of Australia's natural climate patterns over the past 10,000 years, Hunt said the current drought, whose severity has led some scientists to label it a once in a millennium event, was by no means unique....