Climate change lengthens Australian summers by 50% - study

[webfact]

Climate change lengthens Australian summers by 50% - study

By Kate Lamb

 

FILE PHOTO: A swimmer throws a ball in the Pacific Ocean off Sydney's beachside suburb of Bronte, December 14, 2016 during an early summer heatwave as the temperature in Sydney reached 37.1 degrees Celcius on December 14, 2016 according to the Australia's Bureau of Meteorology. REUTERS/Jason Reed

 

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian summers are now effectively twice as long as its winters as climate change has increased temperatures since the middle of the last century, research released in the wake of the nation's unprecedented fire season showed on Monday.

 

The report by the Australia Institute, a Canberra-based think tank, compared data from the past two decades with mid-20th century benchmarks of temperatures at the calendar start of seasons in temperate and sub-tropical parts of the country.

 

Over the last two decades, summer across most of Australia has been on average one month longer than half a century ago, while winter has contracted by an average three weeks.

 

Over the past five years, the analysis showed, Australian summers were on average 50% longer than they were in the mid-twentieth century based on temperature readings.

 

"Our findings are not a projection of what we may see in the future," said Richie Merzian, climate and energy program director at the Australia Institute. "It's happening right now."

 

The report was released as Australia counts the cost of a devastating and lengthy bushfire season that burned nearly 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of bushland, killing 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals.

 

Dubbed a "black summer" by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the unusually prolonged and intense bushfires have increased pressure on the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

 

While the major fires have been contained or extinguished, more than a dozen were still burning at the end of February, which traditionally marks the end of summer in Australia.

 

Scientists have warned that increased temperatures and heatwaves will lead to more dangerous fire seasons and severe weather events, while shorter winters will reduce the window for hazard reduction to mitigate the impact of fires.

 

The Australia Institute report found that some regional areas, such as Port Macquarie on the mid-north coast of New South Wales state, experienced more pronounced shifts, with seven additional weeks of summer. The Port Macquarie region was one of the hardest hit by wildfires in recent months.

 

"Extreme heat events are the most fatal of all natural hazards and have been responsible for more deaths in Australia than all other natural hazards put together," Merzian said.

 

(Reporting by Kate Lamb; editing by Jane Wardell)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-02

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[wendyfromoz]

Rubbish its been a cold summer this year in Melbourne, had the odd few days over 30 Degrees and even used the heater.  It's now 17 degrees.  

[Saint Nick]

waiting for the usual army of deniers and apologists to tell me, how great this is for tourism...

[NoBrainer]

Forget tourism, this would seem to be great news for Australians. After all, who really wants to live in a cold country?

 

People from cold countries all over the world flock to warmer climates every chance they get. You think all those people living in Siberia wouldn't trade Australias summers for their unrelenting winters? They would do it in a heartbeat.

 

All this Climat Change & Global Heating, is all just a fantasy, invented by the left wing nutcases, in order to sell you more fear, and fleece you of your hard earned money.

The earth is a self cleaning ecosystem, and mans activities make zero difference to what is going on, in that system. in another 50 million years, the earth will be the same, no matter what humans think or do. Just as it has been the same for the last four thousand million years.

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by NoBrainer

[marko kok prong]

A bit like the dry season here in the north and northeast,and many central parts,not a drop of rain since end of september and the wet season comes later the last few years.

[marko kok prong]

5 minutes ago, NoBrainer said:

Forget tourism, this would seem to be great news for Australians. After all, who really wants to live in a cold country?

 

People from cold countries all over the world flock to warmer climates every chance they get. You think all those people living in Siberia wouldn't trade Australias summers for their unrelenting winters? They would do it in a heartbeat.

 

All this Climat Change & Global Heating, is all just a fantasy, invented by the left wing nutcases, in order to sell you more fear, and fleece you of your hard earned money.

The earth is a self cleaning ecosystem, and mans activities make zero difference to what is going on, in that system. in another 50 million years, the earth will be the same, no matter what humans think or do. Just as it has been the same for the last four thousand million years.

 

Siberia and the Artic are some of the fastest warming parts of the world.

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, marko kok prong said:

Siberia and the Artic are some of the fastest warming parts of the world.

I was in the arctic couple of months ago. -18 DegC. They need at least 45 degrees warming to become habitable, bring it on.

[Odysseus123]

4 hours ago, wendyfromoz said:

Rubbish its been a cold summer this year in Melbourne, had the odd few days over 30 Degrees and even used the heater.  It's now 17 degrees.  

Well..as you would probably concede Australia is quite a large place.

 

It takes at least two weeks for any news about Melbourne to reach us in the Port Macquarie region (as mentioned in the article) another week to be digested and an informed reply sent via Cobb and Co...

 

So 5 weeks all round..????

[Barry343]

5 hours ago, Saint Nick said:

waiting for the usual army of deniers and apologists to tell me, how great this is for tourism...

A proven scientific fact in 2018 is that magnetic north has moved the axis of the earth which means some countrie move closer to the sun as in Australia.

 

[TigerandDog]

18 minutes ago, Barry343 said:

A proven scientific fact in 2018 is that magnetic north has moved the axis of the earth which means some countrie move closer to the sun as in Australia.

 

"The poles can also switch places. Scientists can study when this has happened by examining rocks on the ocean floor that retain traces of the field, similar to a recording on a magnetic tape. The last time the poles switched was 780,000 years ago, and it's happened about 400 times in 330 million years. Each reversal takes a thousand years or so to complete, and it takes longer for the shift to take effect at the equator than at the poles. The field has weakened about 10% in the last 150 years. Some scientists think this is a sign of a flip in progress." 

 

 

[timendres]

2 hours ago, NoBrainer said:

All this Climat Change & Global Heating, is all just a fantasy, invented by the left wing nutcases, in order to sell you more fear, and fleece you of your hard earned money.

The earth is a self cleaning ecosystem, and mans activities make zero difference to what is going on, in that system. in another 50 million years, the earth will be the same, no matter what humans think or do. Just as it has been the same for the last four thousand million years.

Denying that polar ice is melting is a fantasy. Unless you believe satellite imagery is also a fantasy.

 

We can disagree on what the core cause of that melting may be.

 

But what we should be agreeing on is that humans are creating too much pollution across the board. Pollution that is not good for anyone or anything. We should all be agreeing that every possible effort should be exerted to reduce pollution. If that happens to help stop global warming, well that is a bonus.

 

There is no way to know what another 50 million years holds for the planet. Just look at the history of the Panama Isthmus to get some idea of how a small change to the planet's surface can make monumental changes to the entire planet's ecosystem. While I share your belief that the earth will continue on long after we humans manage to extinguish ourselves, it is naive to say we have zero impact. We are 7 billion animals, and we are impacting the planet. Whether that impact is positive, negative or inconsequential depends entirely on your perspective.

[Krataiboy]

3 hours ago, marko kok prong said:

Siberia and the Artic are some of the fastest warming parts of the world.

Lucky Siberians. Who wants to freeze their nuts off non-stop?

[Jack Cook]

More Climate Change garbage. An Austrailian think tank - Bwaaaaa Haaaaaaaa Haaaaaaaaa. More like a group who follow the narrative to ensure they keep getting big pay packets and big research grants. Almost impossible to escape this nonsense now.

[Krataiboy]

18 minutes ago, timendres said:

Denying that polar ice is melting is a fantasy. Unless you believe satellite imagery is also a fantasy.

 

We can disagree on what the core cause of that melting may be.

 

But what we should be agreeing on is that humans are creating too much pollution across the board. Pollution that is not good for anyone or anything. We should all be agreeing that every possible effort should be exerted to reduce pollution. If that happens to help stop global warming, well that is a bonus.

 

There is no way to know what another 50 million years holds for the planet. Just look at the history of the Panama Isthmus to get some idea of how a small change to the planet's surface can make monumental changes to the entire planet's ecosystem. While I share your belief that the earth will continue on long after we humans manage to extinguish ourselves, it is naive to say we have zero impact. We are 7 billion animals, and we are impacting the planet. Whether that impact is positive, negative or inconsequential depends entirely on your perspective.

Absolutely agree pollution should be our greatest and most pressing concern, rather than the highly-debatable impact of man the planet's natural warming since the last ice age.

 

Dirty air outside and inside our homes kills up to eight million people a year worldwide and ruins the health of many more. Our seas are becoming sewers, our landscapes litter-strewn rubbish dumps.

 

The mass media never bothered telling us that the luckless citizens of smoggy Wuhan were dropping like flies with pneumonia and other particulate-related ailments long before the corona virus scare catapulted them into the headlines. 

 

Never mind saving the planet for future generations. Let's start by cleaning it up so it's fit for those of us already living on it!

 

 

[Stargeezr]

In Canadas arctic, there are still some tree trunks lying around, from the last time the Earth warmed itself up. Unfortunately, this time around the enviro people will try convince everyone

else, that it is our fault. If the Earth is heating itself up, with such things as volcanoes

and other undersea eruptions, then mankind is not the only reason for the warmup, and

we should not be taxed or otherwise penalized for what is not our fault.

Go talk with a dozen real scientists, please. Not the David Suzukis of the world.

Geezer

[wombat]

 all that is doing is proving what we were taught in science class in high school...
 

The Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the sun. But this tilt changes during a cycle , The tilt of the axis varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. Because this tilt changes, the seasons as we know them become exaggerated.

 

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by wombat

[Nyezhov]

7 hours ago, Saint Nick said:

waiting for the usual army of deniers and apologists to tell me, how great this is for tourism...

As opposed to the usual army of fascistic Climate Change Chicken Littles? OK, Its great for tourism and agriculture. Hows that?

Edited March 2, 2020 by Nyezhov

[Nyezhov]

3 minutes ago, wombat said:

 all that is doing is proving what we were taught in science class in high school...
 

The Earth's axis is tilted 23.5 degrees from the plane of its orbit around the sun. But this tilt changes during a cycle , The tilt of the axis varies between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. Because this tilt changes, the seasons as we know them become exaggerated.

 

 

Im usually not a meme dude but that one is so spot on.

[MickGC]

7 hours ago, wendyfromoz said:

Rubbish its been a cold summer this year in Melbourne, had the odd few days over 30 Degrees and even used the heater.  It's now 17 degrees.  

Yeah but Melbourne is located down on the ar-se end of Australia much nearer the Antarctic than most of the rest of the continent. Why wouldn't it be colder there. It's been a hot summer everywhere else in the country.

[Krataiboy]

5 hours ago, marko kok prong said:

Siberia and the Artic are some of the fastest warming parts of the world.

Now a three and a half minute reality check. . . 

https://realclimatescience.com/2020/03/new-video-usa-today-grants-the-arctic-a-20-year-reprieve/

[GreasyFingers]

8 hours ago, Saint Nick said:

waiting for the usual army of deniers and apologists to tell me, how great this is for tourism...

Have not lives in Oz for 8 years but back then the seasons were different by 3 weeks on average to what they were when I grew up if you cared to think about those things. So what is new, just 8 years too late.

[brokenbone]

the holocene era we live in is still one of the coldest earth have ever witnessed,

and what is worse, co2 is at alarming low levels,

at the peak of last glacial period it sunk to an all time low of 180 ppm co2,

which resulted in the death of plants at higher elevations.

fact is earth atmosphere has dropped on an average 37.000 ton co2 per year

for over half a billion years now, and if there was ever anything unsustainable for

life on earth, this is it, wake up and take action, recycle co2 back into

atmosphere where it rightly belong, before we all go extinct

[brokenbone]

6 minutes ago, rhyddid said:

No worry Aussie right wing prime minister say, climate change is not true !

more specifically, climate has changed throughout the entire earth history

since we got an atmosphere, and its a good thing as long as it doesnt get colder,

and recycling co2 to sustainable levels makes no significant temperature changes

 

[Sujo]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:31 AM, wendyfromoz said:

Rubbish its been a cold summer this year in Melbourne, had the odd few days over 30 Degrees and even used the heater.  It's now 17 degrees.  

Learn the difference between climate and weather.

[brokenbone]

rule nr.1: if its record hot its climate, if its record cold its weather

[rabas]

48 minutes ago, Sujo said:

Learn the difference between climate and weather.

Did you know climate and weather are intimately related?

[DrTuner]

1 hour ago, Sujo said:

Learn the difference between climate and weather.

It's climate if you're looking for a research grant, weather if you look out the window.