Australia’s winter was the warmest on record, the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology said yesterday, marking the latest in a string of records broken worldwide as climate change bites.
Simon Grainger, a senior climatologist for the bureau, said that the average winter temperature across Australia was 16.75oC from June to last month — winter in the Antipodean region.
That is a hair above the previous record of 16.68oC set in 1996.
Australian weather records date back to 1910.
La Nina conditions have caused warm winters and cooler and wetter summer conditions across much of the nation in recent years.
The winter that ended on Thursday saw the second-highest maximum temperatures on record and some of the highest minimum temperatures, too, data from the Bureau of Meteorology showed.
Australian researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change amplifies the risk of natural disasters, such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.
After several wet years, experts are expecting the coming summer to bring the most intense bushfire season since 2019-2020.
During that “Black Summer,” bushfires raged across Australia’s eastern seaboard, razing swathes of forest, killing millions of animals and blanketing cities in noxious smoke.
Earlier this year, Australia also saw the strongest winds the country has ever recorded, as a severe tropical cyclone lashed the country’s northwest. Wind speeds of 289kph were recorded.
Worldwide, temperature records have tumbled in recent years, as climate change makes meteorological conditions more volatile.
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