From the University of Melbourne, where being angry about “weather is not climate” isn’t just a science, it’s a way of life:
Human influences through global warming are likely to have played a role in Australia’s recent “angry” hot summer, the hottest in Australia’s observational record, new research has found.
The research led by the University of Melbourne, has shown that global warming increased the chances of Australians experiencing record hot summers such as the summer of 2013, by more than five times.
Lead author, Dr Sophie Lewis from the University of Melbourne and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science said the study showed it was possible to say with more than 90 per cent confidence, that human influences on the atmosphere dramatically increased the likelihood of the extreme summer of 2013.
“Our research has shown that due to greenhouse gas emissions, these types of extreme summers will become even more frequent and more severe in the future,” she said.
The study Anthropogenic contributions to Australia’s record summer temperatures of 2013 has been accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
The study used climate observations and more than 90 climate model simulations of summer temperatures in Australia over the past 100 years.
Professor David Karoly, a co-author on the paper said the observations, coupled with a suite of climate model runs comparing human and natural influences in parallel experiments, indicated we have experienced a very unusual summer at a time when it was not expected.
“This extreme summer is not only remarkable for its record-breaking nature but also because it occurred at a time of weak La Niña to neutral conditions, which generally produce cooler summers,” he said.
“Importantly, our research shows the natural variability of El Niño Southern Oscillation is unlikely to explain the recent record temperatures.”
This analysis of the causes of the record 2013 Australian summer is one of the fastest ever performed worldwide for a significant climate event.
This fast-response analysis was made possible because data from many existing climate models and observations were made available through Centre of Excellence collaborations with CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the National Computational Infrastructure in Australia.
“The new data resource means scientists are able to work on understanding and addressing the problems of extreme climate events sooner,” Professor Karoly said.
The researchers are now turning their attention to other recent extreme climate events.
[UPDATE]: I’m sure Anthony won’t mind if I offer a bit of perspective on the thoroughness of the Australian researchers. This is what the RSS and the MSU satellite records for the lower troposphere have to say about Australia:
Figure U1. Austral summer temperatures. Note that the 2012 summer in the Southern Hemisphere runs from December 2012 to February 2013.
The data is from that marvelous resource, KNMI. Go there, and under “Select a field”, click on “Monthly Observations”. Scroll down to “Lower Troposphere”, and click on either the RSS dataset or the MSU dataset.
When the page comes up, specify the bounding box around Australia (-38 to -11° latitude, 113 to 153° longitude. Click the land only check box, and tell it to generate the data series.
In this case, both satellite datasets agree that there was nothing at all unusual about the 2012 summer. The researchers should at least have noted that fact … assuming that they noticed that fact.
w.
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Or, is it a fever or a cold thats making Mother Gaia angry?
To our friends at WUWT, from Downunder I don’t believe the reshuffle of our PMs will necessarily be good. Rudd the newly recycled PM once infamously said ‘Global climate change is the greatest moral and economic of our time’. I doubt if he has changed much. Cheers from damp and chilly Sydney.
Nick Stokes says: June 27, 2013 at 4:59 pm
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Well mate, I can tell you … I live in the Queensland tropics and that is bullshit, we had a quite unremarkable summer. If anything it was cooler than usual. Everybody here knows that the BoM fudges the data.
1. Didn’t Karoly have to withdraw a recent paper because it was crap?
2. I’ll use the CAGW arguments these bozos like so much: Weather is not climate and Australia is only x% of the globe, so this is local not global.
Streetcred says:
June 27, 2013 at 6:19 pm
Nick Stokes says: June 27, 2013 at 4:59 pm
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Well mate, I can tell you … I live in the Queensland tropics and that is bullshit, we had a quite unremarkable summer. If anything it was cooler than usual. Everybody here knows that the BoM fudges the data.
___________________
Welcome to Nick’s world. of Bull S—.
On the bright side, you’re done with Julia Gillard’s BS.
But now we have KRudd’s BS … hopefully not for long and then the grownups will manage the country again 😉
My quick calc determines 66% is due to noise, and 34 % due to trend. So they are saying global warming has made it around 34% worse (there is no way I would read their crap anyway)?
That is why it was so pivotal to make the claim that most of global warming is human. Yet, if it is only “most”, then at the very least it is 51%. Thus the contribution to the anomalous summer could be as low as 34 times 0.51 = 0.17 deg C .
I very much doubt they can prove anything statistically, so its falsified in my view. Karoly is a loser.
“remarkable for its record-breaking nature but also because it occurred at a time of weak La Niña to neutral conditions”
Actually, that is quite unremarkable, given there are many leads and lags with ENSO effects on temperature. Especially considering El Nino thresholds were present a few months before the event. Not to mention a negative SOI during most of summer (planet Karoly- where the brain cells fail to fire).
It just goes to show that media press releases are carefully worded in order to minimize any honest doubts regarding the research in question. They must be friends with John Cook, propagandist extraordinaire..
The news is touting ‘Perth will get 50C summers’ – blah blah – in the last 5 years, there’s only been a half dozen days a year where the temp was significantly over 40, and only one or two days a year where it was more than 42C. Mostly, it hovers around 33-37C with some blips up and down as you’d expect. To claim temps will leap 8C from the today’s rare maxima is surely alarmist fantasy.
Streetcred says: June 27, 2013 at 6:19 pm
“Well mate, I can tell you … I live in the Queensland tropics and that is bullshit, we had a quite unremarkable summer. If anything it was cooler than usual. Everybody here knows that the BoM fudges the data.”
Qld tropics? Well, the BoM maps show the coast was normal. But Mt Isa. Average max for Jan 2013, 39.9°C. OK, Isa is hot, but ave max for Jan is 36.3°C.
Here’s how Marree (SA) started the year. 48.4°C, 48.2°C… 48.4°C… 48.2°C!
BoM fudges? You can track every one of those daily numbers to the hourly. When do you think they fudge?
Luther Wu says:une 27, 2013 at 6:30 pm
“Welcome to Nick’s world. of Bull S—.”
I live on the ground, and report what was recorded. All I see offered elsewhere here is lower troposphere.
Nick, this may seem repetitive, but then you know about repetitive….
“your capture of the spurious is only superseded by your hilarity.”
Hint: Consider looking at the real (spelled “complete”) data.
If you look at the temperature anomalies for the last 12 months. Maximums were clearly above average across most of Australia, but minimums weren’t. In fact minimums were well below average across much of the north and east. Both are signatures of decreased cloud cover.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/awap/temp/index.jsp?colour=colour&time=latest&step=0&map=maxanom&period=12month&area=nat
The Australian BoM. That’s the organisation which introduced new temperature graphs with new colours representing new, record, highs and then had to withdraw because they were completely wrong? The organisation that reviewed temperature data from NIWA in New Zealand and had to withdraw it because it was completely wrong? The organisation that has “created” a new way of “measuring” a country-wide average temperature (LOL), but won’t tell anyone how they do it? The organisation that has data on it’s website that contradicts the alarmism in the media and its own media releases?
Talking about increased global temperatures. apparently, a paper just published suggests that ageing stations may be causing a warming bias to creep into maximum daytime temps. Apperantly, age has no measurable affect on night time minimums but a bias up to about 1.6 degC is sometimes seen recorded in daytime maximums when comparing to max daytime temperatures recorded by older stations. See
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/new-paper-finds-that-aging-weather.html
I do not know whether the research is robust. No doubt it is something that Anthony may well look into, but if true this could seriously distort the land thermometer record.
@Nick Stokes. I appreciate your efforts. Every discussion should have push and pull.
prime minister Gillard was kicked out of here office ha ha ha ha she introduced us to a $26 carbon tax we might one day go back to being nomal . PS I heard on the grape vine that she is taking up a post in your GOV’T advising on ways to tax you all into the ground good luck
Nick Stokes says:
June 27, 2013 at 4:59 pm
It may have been cooler in the troposphere, but down here on the ground it was hot. Here’s the BoM report. 1.44°C above average, beating the previous record by 0.21°C.
The troposphere isn’t warming the surface as GHG warming theory predicts. Hence, something else must be. Care to suggest anything other than decreased clouds?
This stuff is simply grist to the MSM. While many here will switch of when they read “data from models” and realise it is total nonsense, those in the MSM who need something to write about to keep the alarm level up will seize upon it.
Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a really effective way to counter this trash and so the information poor will suck it up as gospel.
richard verney says:
June 27, 2013 at 7:53 pm
Talking about increased global temperatures. apparently, a paper just published suggests that ageing stations may be causing a warming bias to creep into maximum daytime temps.
One of Anthony’s co-authors on the Surface Stations paper found the same thing. Anthony also discovered modern paints are less reflective than older coatings.
http://www.climategate.com/stevenson-screen-paint
That’s bullshhh, we had one of the coldest summers ever 2013. Heavy rainfall and flooding. Victoria was hit very badly and still is with storms and floods. Depends where you live, if you live 50 miles from the coast, it does naturally get warmer. But where I live on the Northern Tablelands, NSW, we didn’t get exceptionally high temps, and now we are freezing cold. I live 3500 absl though. We don’t get the name New England for nothing. Even the red center got rain so I don’t know where they are getting their data from? Probably Tim Flannery. And of course they provided some of those academics that provided that poxy climate change commission pamphlet issued by the government, that had a disclaimer added on its accuracy and alleged death threats.
When the coalition government wins the next election, then Tim will have to find a new job, and so will his cohorts. Rudd is now promising to float the carbon tax and reintroduce the ETS that he dumped before being ousted as PM in 2010. After Julia’s campaign promise, that there will be no carbon tax while I head the government, who will believe his weak response to a labor backlash in the polls. He’s struggling to find more credibility for his labor party, that looks as if he might struggle to maintain his own seat.
Even the coastal areas of NSW and South Queenland were cooler than normal. You might get a few hot days, but generally that signals heavy rain is on the way. 3500 ft absl, we live here because we get more rain, and we did this summer, and temps rarely go over 30 C, but temps drop low at night, hence I can’t grow successful tomatoes here. No need for air conditioning, and it is a very healthy climate to live in.
The ‘Hot Summer of 2013’ was really just a hot 10 days in January. However for that period it really was much hotter than normal over much of Eastern NSW reaching 45C in Sydney. Whether that was just a larger than usual fluctuation, or a sign of something to come, is debatable.
> The study used climate observations and more than 90 climate model simulations of summer temperatures in Australia over the past 100 years.
Given that ALL the past IPCC models over estimated the current climate, why shroud anyone believe your model is correct?
Nick Stokes says: June 27, 2013 at 7:02 pm
> Qld tropics? Well, the BoM maps show the coast was normal. But Mt Isa. Average max for Jan 2013, 39.9°C. OK, Isa is hot, but ave max for Jan is 36.3°C.
Here’s how Marree (SA) started the year. 48.4°C, 48.2°C… 48.4°C… 48.2°C!
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Well, the tropics is not limited to the coast only as you clearly know. Do you know much about Australia ? Do you know where Mt Isa is ? Do you know that it is always a ‘gawdawful’ hot place ? ROTLMFAO. ‘Isa is certainly not a proxy for the Australian continental temperatures.