Australia Has its Hottest September as Fire Threat Grows
Parts of Australia experienced temperatures that were nearly 10°F above average this September, which was Australia's hottest on September record. Credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Warmer-than-average days are projected across much of Australia through the end of the year. That means Australia could be on pace to have its warmest year on record. Credit: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
A wildfire in 2007 burns in the Australian outback. Credit: fvanrenterghem/flickr
By Brian Kahn Published: October 3rd, 2013, Last Updated: October 3rd, 2013
Winter may just be ending in Australia, but temperatures are already summerlike. September was one for the record books, with hot temperatures that baked the country from the outback to the coasts and made this the hottest September in the country’s 104 years of record-keeping. The warm start to Australia’s spring keeps the country on a path to having its warmest year on record [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/australia-has-hottest-summer-on-record-consistent-with-global-warming-15679 ]. Following a wet winter, warmer-than-average conditions have also put parts of the country on watch for yet another intense wildfire season.
Nationally, September temperatures averaged nearly 5°F above normal. That beat the previous hottest September, set in 1983, by a full 2°F. This September also happened to be the most anomalously warm month of record, narrowly edging April 2005 by 0.2°F. In other words, Australia has never had a month so freakishly above average.
The unusually warm weather wasn’t isolated to a specific part of the country. Of the eight states and territories in Australia, six experienced record-high average temperatures. However, the two regions where records weren’t set, Tasmania and Western Australia, weren’t far behind. This was Tasmania’s third warmest September and Western Australia’s fourth warmest.
Though September was record-setting, August also had a notable ending. On August 31, the last day of winter, average temperatures reached 85.9°F. That’s the warmest last day of winter recorded in Australia.
The summer of 2013 ended up being Australia's hottest on record [ http://www.climatecentral.org/news/australia-has-hottest-summer-on-record-consistent-with-global-warming-15679 ], and since January, monthly temperatures have stayed above normal. The average temperature for the year-to-date is 2.8°F above normal. If the year ended today, this would be Australia's hottest year-to-date, putting it ahead of 2005 by a full half a degree Fahrenheit.
But the year will roll on for three more months, and there’s little relief in site. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting warmer-than-average conditions through year's end [ http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/ahead/temps_ahead.shtml ] for much of the country. A small part of Australia’s interior is forecast to have near normal temperatures, but that’s little consolation given that 85 percent of the country’s population lives within 31 miles of the coast.
More ominous than the warm weather itself is what could come with it. According to the Bushfire Cooperative Research Center [ http://www.bushfirecrc.com/ ], areas along the east and west coasts of Australia are forecast to have an above-normal bushfire season after a wet winter helped build vegetation. The persistently warmer-than-average conditions this spring have helped dry those grasses and build fuel for fires.
While the hot start to the spring hasn’t been attributed to climate change, the trend is consistent with what one would expect. Will Steffen, a scientist with the Australian Climate Council, told the Sydney Morning Herald [ http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/climate-council-reports-warmest-september-on-record-20131003-2uv76.html ] that ocean surface temperatures around Australia are up to 5.4°F above normal for this time of year, and that could be one of the drivers behind the high temperatures over land. Such ocean temperatures may be due to a combination of natural climate variability and long-term manmade climate change.
People never seem to question science when it underlies something easily valued — like iPhones and other handheld devices. We either take it for granted or celebrate science-based products like G.P.S., Global Positioning Systems, which guide drivers and pilots and allow heavy machinery or a farmer’s tractor to be operated with a precision that approaches ballet. And people are always eager to take advantage of the latest advances in medicine.
Science seems to be only questioned when people dislike the implications of scientific results. This is especially true when it comes to environmental science, and particularly climate change, where the obfuscating of scientific findings and the bowing to short-term special interests has grown rampant in recent years.
There will certainly be a lot of obfuscation around the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the body charged by the United Nations to monitor information on climate change — and especially involving the results demonstrating a leveling-off of global temperature in the last 15 years.
But the complete candor and transparency of the panel’s findings should be recognized and applauded. This is science sticking with the facts. It does not mean that global warming is not a problem; indeed it is a really big problem.
Does the leveling-off of temperatures mean that the climate models used to track them are seriously flawed? Not really. It is important to remember that models are used so that we can understand where the Earth system is headed.
Even though they use the most powerful computers extant, models will always be simpler than the climate system itself. We use them because we don’t want to run the experiment of elevating greenhouse gas concentrations and discovering decades hence that humanity has a first-class disaster on its hands. Models are not perfect but whenever they depart from reality scientists then refine them.
In this particular case, it would appear that the oceans have been taking up more heat than previously thought. Since the oceans make up 71 percent of the planet, this is probably the consequence of a slightly different temporary behavior of a major current. There is considerable likelihood that at some point the ocean will release some of this recently absorbed heat.
What this finding does not do is obviate the gravity of climate change or the venerable science (established in 1896) demonstrating the fundamental heat-trapping properties of greenhouse gases — the so-called greenhouse effect.
The nay-sayers like to quibble over details, such as the rate at which sea level will rise, but they completely ignore the reality that the last time the planet was 2 degrees warmer the oceans were four to six meters higher.
We may not know the rate, but the endpoint is set: large parts of coastal areas will be under water, many island nations as well as the site of the 1992 Earth Summit and last year’s Rio+20 sequel will have vanished.
The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said people are “entitled to their own opinions not their own facts.” Any debate involving science should be kept in the scientific arena.
That is not to say that science doesn’t make mistakes. But we do have a culture of questioning and testing scientific results that fosters self-correction.
As a scientist concerned with conserving the extraordinary variety of life on Earth so fundamental to our wellbeing, nothing would delight me more than to be corrected by scientific results demonstrating that all is well with biological diversity. But this is not the case.
It is time to restore the role of science to a respected place and reserve debate for understanding the implications of scientific results, and therefore appropriate policy to address the challenges and opportunities revealed by science. Not to do so would be tantamount to a toreador turning his back on a raging bull.
Thomas Lovejoy is professor of science and public policy at George Mason University and biodiversity chairman at the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment.
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