The wind speeds inside east coast lows are generally slower than those of their relative, the tropical cyclone. (Indeed the systems are so closely related that one infamous 2001 “hybrid” low is now referred to in meteorological circles as The Duck, as some argued it should have been classified as a cyclone – if it walks like a duck, etc.) Unlike cyclones, though, it is the rain these systems carry that tends to kill. The slower they move, the longer they linger, the more rain they dump.

What’s this got to do with Guterres? Well, in the simplest terms, says climate scientist Will Steffen, for every 1 degree it warms, the atmosphere can hold 7 per cent more moisture, all of which is fodder for the monster lows that prowl our coast. Climate change is making severe weather more severe.

Scientists and meteorologists are rightly hesitant to attribute specific weather events to the trend of global warming. But Steffen, a member of the Climate Council and former director of the Australian National University Climate Change Institute, notes as climate models improve and the data used to feed them grows, attribution science is rapidly improving.

Loading

He has no doubt that east coast lows are getting worse as climate change hits harder.

The world, the IPCC reports tell us, has already warmed 1.1 degrees. Parts of Australia have already warmed 1.4 degrees. Rainfall is increasing in intensity in some areas even as it recedes in others.

Jeffery Callaghan, formerly the head of the Severe Weather Section of the Bureau of Meteorology in Queensland, analysed data going back to 1860 for a paper he co-authored in 2016 which identified a 50 per cent increase in the incidence of the systems.

He believes we still need to improve our understanding of the role of El Nino and La Nina weather patterns before we point to warming as the sole cause.

But while the proof might not be there, the evidence is in. Climate change is making life harder, more dangerous and vastly more expensive in those parts of this country already susceptible to extreme weather, including the east cast territory of the low-pressure system.

In the view of the IPCC this suggests that Australia, and the rest of the world, should not only be reducing emissions to mitigate climate, but adapting our built environments for resilience in a more dangerous climate. This means reconsidering not only how we build but where we build.

Loading

And the meteorologist Anthony Cornelius reckons we should also consider naming the lows that batter us, just as we do cyclones that typically hit further north. That way, perhaps we’d keep better data on them and take them more seriously as they approached.

After all, if it looks like a duck...

A guide to the environment, what’s happening to it, what’s being done about it and what it means for the future. Sign up to our fortnightly Clear Air newsletter here.