Sure it's been chilly, but heat records have been tumbling

S

Sophie Lewis - Research
Fellow in the Geophysical
 Fluid Dynamics group
at the Research School
of Earth Sciences.

pring feels like a welcome relief from an Australian winter that felt very cold and very long. Melbourne has just shivered through its coldest winter in 26 years and Canberra hibernated through more cold nights than any winter since 1997.

But while it felt cold, it turns out we’ve just become accustomed to unusually warm conditions. My new study online in Geophysical Research Letters (with my colleague Andrew King) shows that Australia has been losing out on cold temperature records over the past 55 years.

Read Sophie Lewis’s report on The Conversation - “Sure, winter felt chilly, but Australia is setting new heat records at 12 times the rate of cold ones”.