El Niño, Irrigation Dams and Stopbanks: Examining the Repercussions of the 1876--78 El Niño in Australia and New Zealand (2008)
In this article I focus on some aspects of the 1876-78 El Niño in Australia and New Zealand. It has become very clear from my study that despite the newspaper reports cited above, in this El Niño as in others, not only were the weather effects far from uniform across the globe, or in the southern hemisphere, but even within Australia and New Zealand the weather in 1876- 78 was notably uneven. There are three principal points I will argue. The first is the variability of El Niños both spatially and chronologically. In India, China and New Zealand 1877 and 1878 were the most affected years. In Australia it was 1876 and/or 1877 that showed significant rainfall changes in most regions, and only in a minority of places did 1878 show signs of a rainfall deficit. Second, that while there was drought in Australia it was not one of the most serious since European settlement, and had less impact than those that preceded and followed. It was erratic, profound in some places, but relatively short and sometimes mild in its impact. The third point is that the principal effects of the El Niño in New Zealand in some regions were often the opposite of what has normally been described -- not droughts but high precipitation and floods.
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