Driest September on record through Murray-Darling Basin

The severity of drought in NSW has been backed up by Bureau of Meteorology data that shows that last month was the driest September in the Murray Darling Basin on record.

 Drought impacted crops are a common sight
 through the Murray-Darling Basin this year.

Many centres in the region recorded no rainfall for September at a time when falls are critical for crop development.

The data is compiled using an aggregation of rainfall data across the BOM’s network of weather stations and can be averaged out to a regional basis.

Worryingly, the record dry comes without a major climate driver pushing the weather towards drier conditions.

Read the farmonline story by Gregor Heard -  “Driest September on record through Murray-Darling Basin.”

Climate Change Fingerprints Confirmed in Lucifer’s Wicked Heat: Europe’s Record Hot Summer Made Much Worse by Human Activity.

Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, senior
researcher at the Royal Netherlands
 Meteorological Institute (KNMI).

Scientists with World Weather Attribution (WWA), using a combination of observed temperature data and climate models, have concluded that human-caused climate change made the record-breaking 2017 summer temperatures in the Euro-Mediterranean region at least 10 times more likely. WWA is an international coalition of scientists focused on assessing possible climate change in uences on extreme weather events.

“We found clear evidence of human influence on this summer’s record warmth — both in the overall summer temperatures and in the heat wave dubbed Lucifer,” said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, senior researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). "In many towns and cities across Southern Europe, there is now a one in 10 chance of seeing a heat wave as hot as we saw during this past summer every summer,” van Oldenborgh added. “In the early 1900s, a summer like the one we just experienced would have been extremely rare.”

Read the World Weather Attribution story “Climate Change Fingerprints Confirmed in Lucifer’s Wicked Heat: Europe’s Record Hot Summer Made Much Worse by Human Activity.”

'Normal', it seems, is no longer normal

“

Normal” in relation to the climate is quickly losing it meaning.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says there is an urgent need to incorporate global warming into decision making.

In a story published on June 1, the WMO said it will introduce a new a two-tier approach to the 30-year baselines for climate data to take into account the rapid pace of climate change as well as the operational needs for up to date climate information.

“Because the climate varies naturally from year to year, climatologists use standard 30-year averages of temperatures, precipitation and other variables to put, for example, the magnitude of a current heatwave or rainstorm into historical context.

“These 30-year historical averages are called “climate normals” and can be calculated at the local, national or global levels,” is reports.

Read the WMO story - “New Two-Tier approach on ‘climate normals’”.

Proposed carbon emissions were set to save lives

N

ew carbon emissions standards that were proposed last year for coal-fired power plants in the United States would substantially improve human health and prevent more than 3,000 premature deaths per year, according to a new study.

The study, led by researchers at Syracuse and Harvard Universities, used modeling to predict the effect on human health of changes to national carbon standards for power plants. The researchers calculated three different outcomes using data from the Census Bureau and detailed maps of the more than 2,400 fossil-fuel power plants across the country.

The model with the biggest health benefit was the one that most closely resembled the changes that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed in a rule in June.

Read The New York Times story here: “E.P.A. Carbon Emissions Plan Could Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds”.

Met Office explains 'climate change'

The term 'climate change' refers to a change in the average state of our climate and/or the variability of its properties.

While there are noticeable highs and lows in year to year data, over longer periods of time there is a discernible warming trend across the globe.

The United Kingdom’s Met Office explains “climate change”.