More drought in Australia's future as weather patterns change

The Indian Ocean weather pattern that contributed to eastern Australia's intense drought and bushfires is becoming more common because of climate change - and can reach worse extremes.

Sheep on the parched lake floor of the Burrendong Dam.
The reservoir, one of the largest in the Murray Darling Basin,
was down to about 1 per cent full during the worst of the recent drought.

Using coral cores drawn from Indonesian islands, an international research team led by Australians reconstructed climatic conditions in the Indian Ocean over more than 500 years. Of particular interest was a phenomenon known as the positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “More drought in Australia's future as weather patterns change.”