For those keeping tabs on current climate science, it will not come as a huge surprise that today’s State of the Climate 2014 report compiled by the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology has declared that Australia, along with the rest of the world, is getting warmer, driven largely by climate change.
Among other things, the report notes that Australia’s climate has warmed by 0.9°C since 1910; that the frequency of extreme weather has changed, with more extreme heat and bush fire conditions; that seven of Australia’s 10 warmest years have happened since 1998; that very warm months have occurred at five times the long-term average over the past 15 year; and that by 2070, temperatures will be anywhere between 1°C and 5°C warmer than the 1980-1999 average, depending on future emissions cuts.
What it also noted is that Australia’s very cool months have declined by a third. Since 2001, says the report, “the number of extreme heat records in Australia has outnumbered extreme cool records by almost 3 to 1 for daytime maximum temperatures, and almost 5 to 1 for night-time minimum temperatures.”
This trend is expected to continue, says that report, with Australian temperatures projected to increase further, with more extremely hot days and fewer extremely cool days.
As you can see in the Bureau of Meteorology chart below showing the mean temperature deciles over the past 12 months, there is a distinct absence of the white, green and blue tones that indicate below-average temperatures.
And over the past century (see chart below), the picture’s not much better.
