From the Today I learned files..

They found that three atmospheric patterns converged over the Indian and Pacific Oceans in 2010 and 2011 to drive excessive precipitation over Australia. On average, the continent received almost one foot (300 millimeters) of rain more than normal. The result was widespread flooding. The flooding was in large part prevented from running back into the ocean by Australia’s dry soils and the mountain-ringed topography of the country’s vast interior, called the Outback, leading to the measurable drop in the world’s ocean levels.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/m/news/news.php?release=2013-255#.UvBdQPvLLyV

That’s quite surprising.

If this keeps up we will have our green deserts and save the world from sea level rise.

morrie said:

If this keeps up we will have our green deserts and save the world from sea level rise.

First we have to make it remember to rain.

Must have all fallen in Queensland.

buffy said:

Must have all fallen in Queensland.

and despite what the description maintained, most of which, did run off into the ocean.

Wow. What an amazing piece of research. They used the GRACE gravity instrument to measure the extra mass of Australia.

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MEASURING THE DIFFERENCE

To conduct the research, the scientists turned to three cutting-edge observing instrument systems:

• NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites, which make detailed measurements of Earth’s gravity field. The satellites enable scientists to monitor changes in the mass of continents.

• The Argo global array of 3,000 free-drifting floats that measure the temperature and salinity of the upper 6,000 feet of the world’s oceans.

• Satellite-based altimeters that are continuously calibrated against a network of tide gauges. Scientists subtract seasonal and other variations to closely estimate global sea level changes.

Using these instruments, the researchers found that the mass in Australia and, to a lesser extent, South America began to increase in 2010 as the continents experienced heavy and persistent rain. At the same time, sea levels began to measurably drop.

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from: http://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/10090/global-sea-level-rise-dampened-australia-floods

Thanks Dropbear. :)

Unfortunately the image (below) in the linked paper is distorted (widened – the original aspect ratio was not preserved), but it does show how much extra rain Australia retained, indicated by extra mass:

Caption:

Changes in Australia’s mass as reported by data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites from June 2010 to February 2011. Areas in greens and blues depict the greatest increases in mass, caused by excessive precipitation. The contour lines represent various land surface elevations. A new study co-authored and co-funded by NASA finds extensive flooding in Australia, combined with the continent’s soils and unique topography, were the biggest contributors to the drop in global sea level observed in 2010 and 2011. Credit: NCAR/NASA/JPL-Caltech

Cheers Michael.

TodayILearned is a very interesting page on Reddit

Interesting stuff, so we can sell adelaide’s desal’ plant for scrap now, and get a reduction on our water blls.