"Scientists See Climate Change Link To Australian Floods"

"Climate change has likely intensified the monsoon rains that have triggered record floods in Australia's Queensland state, scientists said on Wednesday, with several months of heavy rain and storms still to come.

But while scientists say a warmer world is predicted to lead to more intense droughts and floods, it wasn't yet possible to say if climate change would trigger stronger La Nina and El Nino weather patterns that can cause weather chaos across the globe.

'I think people will end up concluding that at least some of the intensity of the monsoon in Queensland can be attributed to climate change,' said Matthew England of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

'The waters off Australia are the warmest ever measured and those waters provide moisture to the atmosphere for the Queensland and northern Australia monsoon,' he told Reuters."

David Fogarty reports for Reuters January 13, 2011.