Extreme Temperature Diary- January 3rd, 2019/ Topic: Australia In The Crosshairs Of Global Warming

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Thursday January 3rd… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊. 

Australia In The Crosshairs Of Global Warming

Even before the dawn of carbon pollution affecting worldwide climate during the late 19th into the 20th century Australia was quite a warm, arid continent.  Basically the heart of this relatively small continent, which could also be described geographically as an extremely large island, is desert with the edges seeing enough moisture and precipitation for forest and grassland growth. European settlers found a Mediterranean like climate in the southern coast and a semi-tropical climate on the northern coast with the desert Outback in between. Now due to global warming that Outback appears to be expanding. As we know now global climate change works such that arid regions become drier, and prior moist areas on the planet receive more precipitation. All areas grow hotter with those in desert or arid locations outside of polar regions seeing the highest warming trends. This puts Australia in the crosshairs for more rapid climate change than larger continents, so this country can be viewed as a proverbial canary in a coal mine for climate change effects.

Granted, my first paragraph of this post could be backed up with many a chart and graph, but for brevities’ sake let’s just present as evidence this week’s weather. It’s only been a few days since I did a post on Australia due to their early summer anomalous heat: https://guyonclimate.com/2018/12/29/extreme-temperature-diary-december-29th-2018-topic-more-australian-heat/ What I am seeing from Etienne Kapikian of France today, as far as heat goes, is breathtaking:

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has been putting out some great videos on the current heat wave and any cyclones affecting northern and southern coastal areas of the continent:

Today a whopper of an upper ridge is affecting all but northeast Australia, which is responsible for excess heat:

 

Obviously where there is more record heat there is more fire. It’s no surprise that since the turn of this century incidents of wildfire have been growing as the Outback tries to eat into coastal areas. This time around one territory has been forced to issue this:

Also, with higher temperatures comes higher evaporation rates putting Australia in the crosshairs for strains in drinking water supplies:

This blog since 2017 mainly concentrates on “Extreme Temperatures” from the United States. Starting this year I’ll endeavor to post more worldwide ETs when I see them. I’ll be adding to this post later today as more information comes out of Australia.

Here is a big ET from earlier today:

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Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have  put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity.)

(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.) 

The Climate Guy

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