Abnormally warm ocean water helped fuel the weather system’s rapid intensification, said Steve Turton, an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity.
Sea surface temperatures brewing about 1–3 degrees above average also helped fan Tropical Cyclone Alfred and May’s flood disaster, Turton said. Warmer oceans turbocharge the energy of a storm and supply weather systems with moisture, boosting the chance of heavy rain.
Warm water stretching down the coast on Tuesday.Credit: Bureau of Meteorology
“That pool of warm water off the coast will certainly be providing additional energy into this system and increases the risk for more rapid intensification and flash flooding,” he said.
About 90 per cent of the Earth’s extra heat caused by the burning of fossil fuels is trapped within the ocean.
The precise effect climate change exerts on these weather systems isn’t clear, but it’s safe to say the very high ocean temperatures have intensified conditions, said climate scientist Dr Martin Jucker.
“We still don’t really understand why such systems stay close to the coast for a long time, and why some of these systems move very slowly or even stall at one given location,” Jucker, from the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW, said.
“As noted by the NSW 2022 Flood Inquiry, more research needs to be done to understand these weather events, and to be able to estimate their behaviour in the future.”
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