‘Getting close': El Nino event seen as not far off as Sydney sizzles

The hot start to November may be a taste of the summer to come with meteorologists watching a Pacific Ocean that is being primed for an El Nino event.

Early season heat in Sydney - and the growing prospect of an El Nino.

Sydney backed up Friday's scorcher with another day in the mid-30s across the basin before a weak cool change arrived on Saturday afternoon.

According to Weatherzone, NSW averaged 34 degrees on Friday, the hottest this early in the warming season in at least two decades.

"In the past 20 years, the previous earliest in the season the state had got this hot was the 12th November, in 2009," Brett Dutschke, senior meteorologist with Weatherzone, said.

Read the story from The Age by Peter Hannam - “‘Getting close': El Nino event seen as not far off as Sydney sizzles.”

Global warming could accelerate towards 1.5℃ if the Pacific gets cranky

Global warming is rapidly approaching 1.5℃, but according to our new research, conditions in the Pacific Ocean over the coming decades will determine how fast we get there.

In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, we use climate model simulations to quantify how fast global average temperatures will reach 1.5℃ above the pre-industrial average – one of the crucial benchmarks of the Paris Climate Agreement.

The Paris deal calls for governments to pursue the aim of keeping global warming below 1.5℃. But our results suggest that we could hit that level before the end of the next decade if the Pacific Ocean moves into a state we have nicknamed the “cranky uncle” for its effects on global temperatures.

Read the paper on The Conversation - “Global warming could accelerate towards 1.5℃ if the Pacific gets cranky.”

Australia’s climate in 2016 – a year of two halves as El Niño unwound

For Australia’s climate, 2016 was a year of two halves. The year started with one of the strongest El Niño events on record in place in the Pacific Ocean, and the opening months of 2016 were generally hot and dry, especially in northern and eastern Australia.

From May onwards there was a dramatic change in the pattern, with heavy rain and flooding a regular feature of the middle months of the year.

Overall temperatures were the fourth warmest on record in 2016, capping off Australia’s hottest decade. We track these events and more in the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate summary released today.

Read the thoughts of a climate scientist with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Blair Trewin, on The Conversation - “Australia’s climate in 2016 – a year of two halves as El Niño unwound.”

Report posts 'grim picture' of world's 2015 climate

Blatant - this chart illustrates conclusively
the Australia's temperatures are rising.

The State of the Climate in 2015 report, led by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was released yesterday. Unfortunately, it paints a grim picture of the world’s climate last year.

For a second consecutive year the globe experienced its hottest year on record, beating the 2014 record by more than 0.1℃. From May 2015 onwards, each month set a temperature record for that particular month, a pattern that has yet to end.

The record-breaking temperature anomaly in 2015 (around 1℃ higher, on average, than what would be expected in a world without humans) was in large part due to human-caused climate change. A small fraction of the heat was because of a major El Niño event, which developed midway through 2015 and ran into this year.

During El Niño events we see warmer sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. A resulting transfer of heat from the ocean into the lower atmosphere causes a temporary warming effect. In La Niña seasons, the opposite happens

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Climate Extremes Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, Andrew King, and a Research Fellow from the University of New South Wales, Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick -  “State of the Climate 2015: global warming and El Niño sent records tumbling.”

El Niño weakening, potentially setting the stage for prolonged drought

Federal climate scientists say the near-record El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean have peaked and are slowly waning.

Forecasters now say conditions are likely to flip to their opposite phase, known as La Niña by late summer or early fall, which could set the stage for another drier-than-normal winter and prolonged drought in California.

"We are reasonably confident that there will be a La Niña," says Huug van den Dool, seasonal forecaster at NOAA's ClimatePrediction Center, "but we plead ignorance as to whether this is going to be a small, moderate, or strong La Niña."

Read the SFGate story “El Niño weakening, potentially setting the stage for prolonged drought.”

Climate change laps at the front door of Torres Strait Islands

Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, extreme weather and destructive king tides have put the low-lying archipelago on the front line of climate change. As Australia negotiates with other countries at the Paris talks, some of its own people need practical help now, before it’s too late.

 

The sea-wall built by locals
 at Saibai to keep the sea
at bay during the rainy season..

Mebai Warusam sits under his stilt-supported house, facing the Pacific Ocean’s turquoise waters lapping 50 metres from his front gate. At 91, born and raised on the island of Saibai in the Torres Strait, he is an elder visitors and locals turn to for knowledge.

A few years ago, he says, researchers from down south travelled to Saibai. “They said, ‘If water comes right through this island, what you will do?’ I said, ‘I will never move from this island.’” “I will jump on my boat, tie that rope on a wongai tree. I will live here; I will die here.”

Patimah Waia, a teacher, underlines the point. “People are now realising that global warming [is happening] and water is rising and Saibai is low … some people, even though they realise its global warming that causes the water to rise, are so much in love with the place that they don’t want to leave.”

Read The Guardian story - “'We're sinking here': climate change laps at front door of Torres Strait Islands.”

Climate change keeps Micah on the move

M

icah Puia lives in a shanty town on a dirty beach in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. He is 11 years old, and has lived here all his life.

He sleeps in a raised fibro hut with his grandparents and several cousins, attends second grade at a local school and swims in the mouth of the Mataniko River, alongside the community's cotes of pigs and chooks, and where the waterway dumps into the Pacific Ocean.

According to some here, Micah has spent his whole life as a climate change refugee. And he will soon be forced to move.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age by Adam Morton and Tom Arup - “Paris 2015: As UN climate change talks start, islanders consider a life on the move.”

El Niño dulls Graincorp's profit forecast

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raincorp has slashed its full year profit forecast and warned that dry El Nino conditions in eastern Australia are likely to eat into future earnings.

Eastern Australia's biggest grain handler group cut its underlying profit forecast for fiscal 2014/15 to $45 million, just six months after saying it was on track to produce a result between $45 million and $60 million.

It also predicted net profit will fall to $32 million from $50 million in 2013/14 after facing intense competition and lower grain production.

Adding to Graincorp's woes, the Bureau of Meteorology has forecast drier and hotter conditions across much of eastern Australia linked to the El Nino weather pattern - a shift in sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.

Read the SBS story - “El Nino dry to harm Graincorp earnings.”

Only freak weather event can avoid record breaking hot October

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arring a freak weather event, this month will set a new record for the average daily maximum temperature in October across Australia.

Tom Arup.

For the record not to be broken it would take something insanely unlikely – a large volcano erupting somewhere on Australia's east coast, for example – pushing temperatures on Saturday below zero.

Of course, there is always chaos and variability involved in weather. And the current El Niño event in the Pacific Ocean is a factor.

Read Tom Arup’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “October to be the hottest on record – and global warming is likely to blame”.

New wind patterns cause longer flights worsening climate change

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onger flights would burn more fuel and contribute more to climate change, a study suggests

Flights over the Pacific Ocean have gotten longer due to climate change-related changes in wind patterns, a shift that could be mirrored in other regions across the globe, according to new research.

Air travel currently accounts for more than 3% of the carbon emissions driving human-caused climate change, and the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests a feedback loop where longer flight times lead to greater carbon emissions and vice versa. If flight lengths continue to grow as climate change intensifies, so will the industry’s carbon emissions.

Read the Time story - “How Climate Change Could Make Your Flights Longer”.

The 'pause' in global warming explained by Australian-led team

Strong winds in the Pacific Ocean
have been attributed to the
"pause" in global warming.

A claimed “pause” in global warming has been explained.

Scientists have explained the claim through a greater understanding of strong winds in the Pacific Ocean.

The rate of global warming over the past 15 years had slowed and recently almost stalled giving fresh legitimacy to the arguments of climate change skeptics.

However, an Australian-led team of researchers has found that strong winds in the Pacific Ocean are most likely behind the hiatus.

A story from the ABC headed: “Global warming: Australian scientists find explanation for pause in rising temperatures” explains what is happening.