Reply to Lindsay Leake (February 6): Lindsay, I’ve tried to show you the latest data for BOM rainfall and where we received our rainfall from over the past 120 years. I’ve also linked to the very bad droughts over the past 1000 years and Vance et al have found that the 12th century (CO2 levels then were 280ppm) was the worst period for droughts and one drought lasted 39 years.

The Millennium drought period was typical over the past 1000-year (high-resolution) study and the past 120 years is mostly a period of higher rainfall compared to earlier times. And 2010 was the highest rainfall recorded in the Murray- Darling Basin since 1900 and 2016 was also an MDB flood year.