It has been a decade for this basin in a danger to be drying out, which has widely been attributed to global warming.
However, in the manuscript we submitted to Water Resources Research last July when this drought was persisting, we discovered a very interesting characteristic -- randomness of annual precipitation over MDB (Murray Darling Basin) using 1900-2008 observational data. This randomness dominates the variability of rainfall over MDB. Based on the randomness, we expect equal possibility to become drier or wetter in the future, and estimate the range of changes in mean annual precipitation at different levels of possibility. Just by the chance, the change in P over 30-years climatic period, could be as large as 11%, which could be translated into 29% change in runoff.
A stunning fact is that the annual rainfall of 2010 is 795.6 mm/a, as reported today. It is the wettest year over the last 110 years!
The forcings causing this rainfall variability, whether they are induced by human or nature, should also behave randomly as does the rain over MDB.
No year mm/a
1 2010 795.6
2 1956 786.53
3 1950 779.85
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