Australian heat wave linked to climate change, report says Studies show these heat events would have occurred only once every 12,300 years without greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, report says. By: Raveena Aulakh Environment, Published on Mon Feb 09 2015 Australia’s scorching heat wave of 2013, which triggered fierce bushfires and broke more than 100 temperature-related records, including one for the country’s hottest day ever recorded, would have been virtually impossible without climate change, a new report says. “The evidence on the link between climate change and extreme heat is stronger than ever and, in fact, is overwhelming,” said the report, adding “there is a ‘calculable’ human influence on the record hot summer of 2012-2013.” It also pointed out that the number of record hot days in Australia has increased strongly since 1950 and particularly sharply in the last two decades. The heat wave of 2013 — which later came to be known as the “angry summer” — would not have happened if it hadn’t been for climate change, Will Steffen, a climate expert and author of the report, told The Australian Associated Press. (Steffen is a member of the Climate Council, an independent, crowd-funded Australian agency that is headed by well-known climate activist Tim Flannery.) Australia experienced its hottest day, month, season and even hottest calendar year in 2013, registering a mean temperature 1.2C above the 1961-90 average. The report, titled Quantifying the Strong Influence of Climate Change on Extreme Heat in Australia, said that recent studies show these heat events would have occurred only once every 12,300 years without greenhouse gas emissions from human activities. The characteristics of the country’s heat waves have also changed from 1950 to 2013, the report said: they have become hotter and are lasting longer. They are also occurring more often and starting earlier. Taking data from various studies, Steffen’s report broke down what the heat wave has meant for different Australian cities: In Sydney, Australia’s most populated city, heat waves now start 19 days earlier. In Canberra, the number of heat-wave days has more than doubled. In Hobart, heat-wave days start 12 days earlier. In Melbourne, the hottest heat-wave day is 2C hotter and the heat wave now starts about 17 days earlier. In Adelaide, the hottest heat-wave day is 4.3C hotter and the number of heat-wave days has almost doubled. The 2013 Australian heat wave made headlines all over the world but it was the Holmes’ family ordeal in early January that went viral and captured the consequences of the unrelenting heat wave. Tim and Tammy Holmes were babysitting their five grandchildren in the small Tasmanian fishing town of Dunally when a wildfire engulfed the town. According to multiple reports, there was no escape for the family, so they ran for the water. Tim took a photograph of the family cowering in the water, with a wall of flames behind them. The Climate Council report said that new research strengthens the case for strong action on climate change. In his blog, Steffen wrote that “carbon emissions must be reduced rapidly and deeply if the worst of extreme heat in the second half of the century is to be avoided.” Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott — who famously called the climate-change argument “absolute crap” in 2009 — survived a leadership challenge from his party on Monday.
Australian history is full of heat waves and brush fires. The Australian soldiers in WW1 regularly told stories about the extreme heat and brush fires back home. There is nothing unusual historically about the heat and brush fires in Australia during 2013.
You mean the "experts" who are being paid to push climate change. Or do you mean the experts who analyzed the data in detail and say that 2013 is nothing unusual when compared to weather in the 1930s and late 1800s.
I also believe that the Earth's temperature has increased since the Little Ice Age (the approximate starting point where AGW cultists blame man for the Earth warming). I believe that the vast majority of the heating was due to the Modern Maximum. We are now starting to enter a cooling period for the Earth. Theoretically, CO2 may cause a miniscule amount of global warming. But the entire greenhouse gas theory is just that - a theory. Greenhouse gases may have zero net effect on the world's temperature. When more than 95% of the greenhouse gas models have been proven wrong, that should tell scientists that the theory is weak at best. But instead of altering their hypothesis, climatologists forge ahead for job security. As far as data tampering, I've read about this for a while. The past has been cooled and the present is being warmed with data adjustments. Almost all of the adjustments go one way ... cooling the past to warming the present. The exact opposite should be done in order to offset the urban heat effect on temperature data. So by cooling the past and warming the present, the data is being manipulated to show new high temperature records. James Hansen pioneered data tampering at GISS; his legacy lives on.
wow... now you are just making crap up. if you could prove that statement with respect to additional co2 you would have a nobel prize and life time rides on Al Gore's plane. additionally you fail to consider the fact that by picking of the IR and warming the upper atmosphere instead of allowing the IR to pass through to the earth's surface... might still be relative cooling.
The vast amount of IR warming the atmosphere from any direction is that which is coming off the surface of the planet.
that may be true, I really don't know and have no reason to look it up as that is irrelevant to the point I made. --- it is also irrelevant to the question of whether adding man made co2 to the mix we already have causes warming, cooling or nothing. we are dealing with complex dynamic systems with negative feedbacks that have cycled for millions of years.