Australia record-breaking heat wave bushfires rage as temperatures hit 54C
Australia just had the warmest Spring on record, the current heat wave is the largest ever recorded, and 2013 was the warmest year on record.
Record breaking temperatures were set.
– Australia just had the warmest Spring on record
– The current heat wave is the largest ever recorded
– 2013 was the warmest year on record
John Nairn from the weather bureau says several outback towns had temperatures well into the 40s. “Our temperatures have been near record, the highest temperature we had was at Moomba at 49.3 degrees but a lot of centres up there are pushing up around that 50 mark,” he said. “It is unusually hot. It’s at least 15 degrees above the average up there at the moment and those are pretty unusual temperatures.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-02/records-tumble-as-central-australia-swelters/5182712
Professor Karoly: “In the model experiments, it is not possible to reach such a temperature record due to natural climate variations alone”
“While many climate extremes cannot be directly attributed to a changing climate, the burden of extremes Australia is experiencing is a product of climate change and requires a coordinated national response.”
The 2013 record high is also remarkable because it occurred not in an El Nino year (where a warm ocean current can push up temperatures), but a normal year. http://www.businessinsider.com.au/more-extremes-of-heat-wind-floods-bushfires-on-the-agenda-after-australias-hottest-year-2014-1
Australia records its warmest spring
The spring of 2013 has been Australia’s warmest on record. Mean temperatures for the season were 1.57C above the 1961-1990 average, surpassing the previous record of 1.43C (set in 2006) by 0.14C. Daytime maximum temperatures were also the highest on record, coming in 2.07C above average and 0.24C above the previous record (also set in 2006), while overnight minimum temperatures were the fourth-warmest on record.
The warmth was most dramatic in September, which saw a mean temperature anomaly of +2.75C, setting a new monthly record by more than a degree. October was also a very warm month, 1.43C above average.
Heatwave expected to hit one-third of Australia over Christmas
This is the first protracted heatwave of the spring-summer period over such a large area.
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2013
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