Wet winter likely as speculation over La Nina and a negative IOD mounts

It is looking more and more likely that Australia could be in for a wet few months going into winter. 

Warm ocean temperatures are encouraging
wet conditions as we move towards winter.

"I think it's a little better than rumours now, which feels like a good thing to say," said Andrew Watkins, head of long-range forecasting at the Bureau of Meteorology.

"There are really strong odds, probably the strongest we've seen since 2016." 

That is particularly welcome news as we head into the southern cropping season. 

A number of regions have already received more than 25 millimetres, considered the trigger for the autumn break required to begin cropping, usually expected around Anzac Day. 

Read the story from the ABC News by Kate Doyle - “Wet winter likely as speculation over La Nina and a negative IOD mounts.”

China Is Doing A Lot Better On Climate Action Than Most People Realize

A friend and on-and-off collaborator on IPOs and technical innovation initiatives just returned from a month in Beijing, where he was applying machine learning against video to speed training in sports. He’s a walker, so he covered up to 20 kilometers a day on the streets of the city. He made two observations that rung true for me, as someone who has been paying attention to China, but from afar.

The first is that the air was clean and the sky was blue. While my friend was there during the cleaner air summer rather than the winter when the air quality is typically at its worst, the improvement in air quality in Chinese cities has been extraordinary over the past decade.

The second was that the streets were incredibly quiet, much quieter than the streets of Vancouver outside the coffee shop we were in as he told me about his trip. It wasn’t that the streets were empty. Quite the opposite. They were packed with cars and people. But virtually all the vehicles were electric. No engine noise. No diesel trucks rumbling past. No motorcycles revving. Just tire noise, which at the lower speeds typical to city streets is very quiet.

Read the story from CleanTechnica by Michael Barnard - “China Is Doing A Lot Better On Climate Action Than Most People Realize."

Winter is coming, and it’s looking mighty mild

After an exceptionally warm and dry autumn, it’s time to look ahead to see what’s in store for winter. 

Autumn rainfall map

The Bureau of Meteorology’s climate outlooks for winter, issued today, shows above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall are likely across southern Australia. While some of us will relish the prospect of a mild winter, the dry isn’t necessarily good news for everyone.

Summer-like conditions continued into early autumn for much of southern Australia, including an exceptional heatwave in early April. Temperatures in autumn were warmer than average across much of the continent. New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria all experienced one of their warmest autumns since at least 1900. Overnight temperatures have also been warmer than average in most parts.

Read the report on The Conversation by a Climatologist with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Jonathan Pollock, and the Manager of Long-range Forecast Services, also from the Bureau, Andrew B. Watkins - “Winter is coming, and it’s looking mighty mild.”

Effects of climate change already present in Regina: University of Regina Professor

According to University of Regina professor Dave Sauchyn, the effects of climate change will look very similar to this winter — only worse.

Climate change will likely bring warmer, drier weather to Saskatchewan.

“A lot of what’s unfolding, scientists have been predicting for decades,” Sauchyn said.

Those predictions include the world warming by two degrees, and increased precipitation from the warmer oceans.

Unfortunately, that precipitation will likely only come to regions near large bodies of water. For the landlocked province in the heart of Canada, it likely means a drier future.

Read the Global News report - “Effects of climate change already present in Regina: U of R prof.”

Finding hope amid the hopeless doom of climate change

After another frigid Canberra winter, I've welcomed the warmer weather with joy. Yet it's increasingly too warm to leave a lasting smile. We are told to brace for punishing summers.

In a new book, Blueprints for a Post-Anthropocene Greenhouse Earth, the Australian National University's Dr Andrew Glikson says there's no turning back the greenhouse clock. He foresees mass extinctions and a breakdown of civilisation. In his book, Defiant Earth, Clive Hamilton of the Canberra-based Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics foresees something even worse: the possibility of our own extinction by an untameable Earth.

Hamilton writes it will probably be hundreds of thousands of years before most of the large reserves of carbon released during the human age can be rendered immobile again. People have rivalled the great forces of nature so much that we have changed the functions of the planet for an era. The Arctic is vanishing as is the Greenland ice sheet. This won't be reversed for tens of thousand of years.

While drifting into unparalleled catastrophe, I want to cling to hope, be slow to admit that all the facts are in, that all the doors have been tried and all is defeated. But how?

Read the comment by Toni Hassan in today’s Melbourne Age - “Finding hope amid the hopeless doom of climate change.”

Australia’s record-breaking winter warmth linked to climate change

On the first day of spring, it’s time to take stock of the winter that was. It may have felt cold, but Australia’s winter had the highest average daytime temperatures on record. It was also the driest in 15 years.

This winter had some extreme low and high temperatures. 

Back at the start of winter the Bureau of Meteorology forecast a warm, dry season. That proved accurate, as winter has turned out both warmer and drier than average.

While we haven’t seen anything close to the weather extremes experienced in other parts of the world, including devastating rainfalls in Niger, the southern US and the Indian subcontinent all in the past week, we have seen a few interesting weather extremes over the past few months across Australia.

Read the piece on The Conversation by a Climate Extremes Research Fellow from the University of Melbourne, Andrew King -  “Australia’s record-breaking winter warmth linked to climate change.”

BOM: Australia's hottest winter on record, maximum temperatures up nearly 2C on the long-term average

Winter in Australia this year was hot and dry with the average maximum temperature up nearly 2 degrees Celsius above the long-term trend.

Higher temperatures and low rainfall dominated
Australia's winter weather patterns.

The 2017 winter was the hottest since 1910 when national records began, according to Bureau of Meteorology figures released today.

The average maximum daily temperature recorded across all Australian recording locations for June, July and August 2017 was 23.7C.

That is a whopping 1.9C degrees above the baseline 1961 to 1990 average of 21.8C and smashes the previous record of 23.4C set in 2009.

Read the ABC News story - “BOM: Australia's hottest winter on record, maximum temperatures up nearly 2C on the long-term average.”

Call it the Southern California drought. Rain and snow end Northern California water woes

A week of powerful storms in Northern California
 has significantly eased the state’s water shortage.

What was once a statewide drought this week became a Southern California drought.

A week of powerful storms has significantly eased the state’s water shortage, pulling nearly all of Northern California out of drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

The  report underscores what experts have been saying for several months. As a series of storms have hit Northern California this winter, the drought picture there is improving, but water supply remains a concern in Southern California and the Central Valley.

More than 40% of the state is no longer in a drought, according to the data released Thursday.

Perhaps most striking, a giant swath of the state was declared to have no signs of abnormal dryness at all. The percentage of the state that fell into that category nearly doubled from 18% last week to almost 35% after the storm.

Read the Los Angeles Times story - “Call it the Southern California drought. Rain and snow end Northern California water woes.”

We're heading for warmer and wetter times

(Climate change is unfolding pretty much as predicted – it’s following the script. The denialists will cherry-pick this outcome, pointing that the rain illustrates weaknesses in the climate change case failing to acknowledge that the predicted warmth is precisely what the climate scientists warned us about what was coming.

This increase in temperatures has impacts that unsettle many aspects of life, among them that the colder months are usually sufficient to stop some destructive pests and viruses in their tracks; the drop in temperatures enrich many farming activities; warmer nights often make it more difficult for people to sleep and subsequently their health deteriorates; and whatever positives may claim are clearly outweighed by the negatives – Robert McLean)



The chance of exceeding median
 minimum temperatures around the state.

Victoria is in for a warmer than usual start to winter and a wetter finish, according to the Bureau of Meteorology's latest season forecast.

The bureau has released its climate outlook, which predicts median temperatures and rainfall around the country, for the months of May, June, and July.

According to the forecast, there is an 80 per cent chance minimum temperatures around almost all of the state will be higher than usual over the three months.

Read the Melbourne Age story - “Climate outlook predicts warmer, wetter winter for parts of Victoria.”