"Australians are no strangers to blistering weather being a sunburnt country of droughts and flooding rains is baked into our national identity. But since the 2019-20 bushfires, which burned through an area almost the size of the UK, and killed or displaced 3 billion animals, the arrival of warmer weather each year is accompanied by dread. This summer has brought punishing extremes of heat and fire that are brutal even by Australian standards."
"At the end of January, climate scientists identified that the extreme heatwave had been made five times more likely by warming from greenhouse gas emissions. No sooner had they published their findings than the heat was upon us again in a new blast that rewrote the records. Temperatures in the opal-mining town of Andamooka (population: 262) in South Australia reached 50C only the eighth time in recorded history that has happened anywhere in Australia."
A nation long accustomed to droughts and flooding rains has faced worsening extremes since the 2019-20 bushfires that burned an area almost the size of the UK and killed or displaced 3 billion animals. The 2023-24 summer brought punishing heatwaves and fires. Early January saw the most significant heatwave since black summer, with Melbourne reaching 41C, Adelaide 43C and many areas above 45C. On 9 January crews attended almost 200 fires in Victoria under catastrophic conditions, and some blazes burned for more than a month. Climate scientists found the heatwave was made five times more likely by greenhouse gas warming. Record temperatures followed, including 50C at Andamooka.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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