Australia Just Experienced Its Second-Hottest Summer on Record, With Temperatures Almost 2 C Hotter Than Average

The 2019/20 hearth season was Australia’s second-hottest summer season on document, the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has mentioned.

According to Australian Associated Press, nationwide imply temperatures have been 1.88 C above the yearly common. The most temperature was 2.11 C greater than normal and the minimal temperature exceeded the norm by 1.64 C.

This follows issues the nation is experiencing summers a month longer than they have been previously, and twice so long as the typical winter.

“Australia warms slightly more than the global average,” Karl Braganza, Manager of Climate Monitoring at BOM, advised audiences at a Senate estimates committee within the nation’s capital, Canberra, on Monday.

The remainder of the world has warmed, on common, 1.1 C or so above pre-industrial ranges. Meanwhile, common temperatures in Australia have soared by some 1.4 C.

If the world experiences a 3.4 C warming by 2100—the high-end projection given in a UN report printed final 12 months—temperatures in Australia will enhance by 4 C, mentioned Braganza.

The BOM’s warnings come because the Australia Institute Climate & Energy Program printed findings exhibiting Australian summers are drastically longer than they was once. At the identical time, the nation’s winters are shrinking.

The workforce behind the report in contrast summers and winters between 1999 and 2018 to the mid-twentieth century benchmark. In simply many years, the summer season season has elevated by 31 days. The winter season has misplaced 23.

But in some areas, the change is much more excessive. Summers of Port Macquarie in New South Wales are actually seven weeks longer than they have been fifty-odd years in the past.

“Temperatures which were considered a regular three-month summer in the 1950s, now span from early to mid-November all the way to mid-March,” Richie Merzian, Climate & Energy Program Director on the Australia Institute, mentioned in an announcement.

“Our findings are not a projection of what we may see in the future. It’s happening right now.”

Experts warn modifications like these can have devastating penalties—as we noticed this 12 months through the bushfire season.

Scientists described it as a “fiery wake-up call for climate science,” saying it was extra extreme than what could be simulated on present fashions.

Hundreds of hundreds of thousands of animals perished and dozens of individuals died through the 2019/20 hearth season, which has seen 1000’s of houses burn to the bottom and round a fifth of Australia’s forests scorched.

Researchers of a paper printed in Nature discovered “there is no doubt” that document temperatures over the past 12 months couldn’t have occurred with out human affect, “and that under a scenario where emissions continue to grow, such a year would be average by 2040 and exceptionally cool by 2060.”

“As summers get longer and the opportunity for fires to ignite expands, the window to enforce bush management strategies (i.e. winter) gets narrower,” mentioned Merzian. As warming continues, the issue is just anticipated to worsen.

“Australia is currently experiencing an average of 1 degree of global warming and Summers have extended by around a month,” mentioned Merzian.

“The Australian Government’s current emission reduction targets are aligned with 3 to 4 degrees of warming, which leaves young Australians facing ever-lengthening summers with significant consequences.”