Australians may have to put down with their all hopes of having a break from the prolonged drought they are suffering in many parts of the continent. Mother Nature does not seem to be that merciful.
The theory that — ‘Australia can expect drought-breaking rains within the year’ — by University of New England’s Associated Professor Robert Baker, has been dismissed.
Based on correlations between Earth’s climate and 11-year peaks in the sun’s sunspot activity and switches in the sun’s poles, Professor Baker’s theory claimed that eastern Australia will be experiencing heavy rains later this year and in 2008.
But, Australia’s top peer-reviewed meteorological publication, ‘Australian Meteorological Magazine’, has rejected his paper on the research claiming it to be “significantly flawed”, according to its editor.
Dismissing Prof Baker’s theory, Bureau of Meteorology climate scientist Dr Blair Trewin said,
That was essentially on the grounds that the statistical analysis used in the paper was significantly flawed. The sample of data is too small for that to be a statistically meaningful result.
He further says that the evidence for a link between solar cycles and rain is even very less.