A new Climate Council reports shows Australia has endured another summer of searing temperatures, with more than 150 weather records broken.
The Climate Council’s latest Angry Summer report analyses climate data from across the country for the 2013-2014 summer.
Releasing the report Climate Council chair Professor Tim Flannery said the scorching summer was part of an overall trend of more extreme weather events in Australia, and called for action on cutting carbon emissions.
“The latest summer was an another example of climate change tearing through the record books,” he said in a statement.
“If we want to stop them getting worse this is the critical decade for action.”
The report said the South Australian capital Adelaide experienced 13 days above 40 degrees Celsius, including five days in a row above 42°C.
The South Australian capital also had its hottest ever February day, reaching 44.7°C.
While South Australia was described as the summer’s “ground zero”, it was also the driest summer on record for 38 places in New South Wales and 45 in Queensland, while Sydney had its driest summer in 27 years.
Melbourne had its hottest 24-hour period, with an average temperature of 35.5°C, and Perth had its hottest-ever night and its second-hottest summer on record.
The council’s Professor Lesley Hughes said the hotter, drier weather conditions were heightening the risks of bushfires.
“Bushfires, if they’re started, are able to carry and spread faster, and more seriously and more intensely, the hotter and drier the conditions,” Professor Hughes said.
“So if we have really hot days, dry weather that’s dried out the fuel, those are the conditions that are conducive to bushfires spreading and causing really serious impacts.”
Victoria’s February fires burnt 280,000 hectares of land.
Professor Hughes, from Macquarie University, said the weather patterns were clearly due to climate change and governments need to address it as an issue.
“We’re having difficulty dealing with it now; our children and grandchildren will be having a great deal more difficulty dealing with it in decades to come,” she said.
“It’s consistent with the predictions of what happens as the globe warms up.
“Climate change is making the whole weather system different to what it used to be and along with that is an increase in extreme events.”
The council says the nature of heatwaves is changing, and they are now tending to start earlier, last longer and occur more frequently.
Some of the records were for above-average rain, which fell over parts of Cape York Peninsula, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and along South Australia’s coast.
The report called for “urgent and deep reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases” to stabilise the climate.
2013-14 summer records included:
- 11 days above 42°C in Adelaide
- Driest summer for 45 places in Qld and 38 in NSW
- Sydney’s driest summer in 27 years
- 20 days above 35°C in Canberra
Source: Climate Council
