Indian Ocean Dipole linked to global warming in new research by Australian scientists

One of the big drivers of drought in Australia, the Indian Ocean Dipole, is trending towards a more drought-causing positive state due to climate change, according to new research.

Extreme positive Indian Ocean Dipole events have
 been strongly linked to drought in Australia.

Professor Nerilie Abram from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences said the changes were occurring in the Indian Ocean Dipole's (IOD) behaviour. 

"That is going to increase the risk that we will have these very dry and hot years and those are the years where we precondition our landscape to burn," she said.

The 2019 drought occurred at a time where the Indian Ocean Dipole was at a record positive level. 

Extreme positive IOD events have been strongly linked to drought in Australia.

Read the ABC News story by Ben Deacon - “Indian Ocean Dipole linked to global warming in new research by Australian scientists.”

The BOM outlook for the weather over the next three months is ‘neutral’ – here’s what that really means.

Today the Bureau of Meteorology releases its end-of-month seasonal outlook for April to June, updating the initial outlook released on March 15. But you might not have seen much media coverage of it, because we’re not seeing big swings towards the attention-grabbing climate drivers like El Niño or the Indian Ocean Dipole, which can dominate Australia’s climate.

The rainfall outlook map for April–June 2018, issued March 15 (left), shows
most of Australia in the neutral/50:50 range (so coloured white). In contrast, the rainfall outlook map for October 2015 (right) shows a low chance of exceeding the
median (so brown dominates the map).

There are times when the main drivers of our climate are not strong enough to push us towards a season dominated by unusually wet or dry, or hot or cool, weather. This can also happen if different climate drivers are having opposite impacts – they can cancel each other out.

Without a strong push one way or another, our outlook maps are often white. This is a neutral or “50:50” outlook map.

Read the piece on The Conversation - “The BOM outlook for the weather over the next three months is ‘neutral’ – here’s what that really means.”