[dentstudent (OP)]

I'll keep it simple.

Here is a map of Australia. It is from the Australian Government. It shows the trend in mean temperature change in °C per 10 years over the last 38 years.



Comment, anyone?

[Chemistry4me]

Well it certainly looks like it is getting warmer.

----

Should I be worried?
Are we warming up too?!?!

[Madidus_Scientia]

And it bloody well feels like it too!

[paul.fr]

There can be no denying that the Australian climate is getting hotter, what can be argued is the reason why. Scientists such as Tim Flannery blame it on (man made) climate change, and industrial pollutants from Australian industry, but is that any easy answer?

Someone a lot smarter that I, could, I am sure, pose a good argument that the change could, in part at least, be down to Indian Ocean Dipole. When there is a La Nina event in the indian ocean this should bring an increase in precipitation to Australia but the recent one(S) have failed to do so, this is believed to be down to a positive Indian Ocean Dipole event.

So the once dominant event on the Australian climate, El Nino, may now have to move aside and allow the Indian Ocean Dipole in. What does, or will, that do to the models?

[justaskin]

There can be no denying that the Australian climate is getting hotter, what can be argued is the reason why. Scientists such as Tim Flannery blame it on (man made) climate change, and industrial pollutants from Australian industry, but is that any easy answer?

Someone a lot smarter that I, could, I am sure, pose a good argument that the change could, in part at least, be down to Indian Ocean Dipole. When there is a La Nina event in the indian ocean this should bring an increase in precipitation to Australia but the recent one(S) have failed to do so, this is believed to be down to a positive Indian Ocean Dipole event.

So the once dominant event on the Australian climate, El Nino, may now have to move aside and allow the Indian Ocean Dipole in. What does, or will, that do to the models?

Ah I was wondering how long it would be before old Flummery got a run.The man that said Sydney,Perth and Brisbane would be out of water by now.In America they have the Gore effect.That is were ever Gore goes it is cold.We have something of the same its called the Flannery effect and every were he goes it rains.
Hmm maybe it has missed your attention Paul science you have been replying to me but the top half of Australia is underwater and guess what we are about a year into a La Nina.
I had never heard of the Indian Ocean Dipole and from what I can see of the BOM site no mention of it there.
Also I was of the understanding that our El Nino/La Nina comes from the pacific ocean.

Cheers
justaskin

[yor_on]

Realclimate have an interesting piece on the Australian wildfires.
As always, read the comments from the readers. There are some really interesting facts about the 'burnability' of different types of forest for example.
And as it states "So, did climate change cause these fires?
The simple answer is “No!” Climate change did not start the fires"
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/02/bushfires-and-climate/

[Damo the Optics Monkey]

No, climate change did not start the fires - arsonists, lightning and the stupidity local planning laws started and perpetuated the fires.

Australia has been getting warmer in parts ndeed - one thing you have to remember is that the southeast of Australia has been in drought for over a decade - this in itself is not unusual (fossil evidence suggests that it could go longer).

[justaskin]

Maybe.Maybe not.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=201
Guess it depends on who's data you want to use.

Cheers
justaskin

[Damo the Optics Monkey]

I prefer to use only offical data - to me, this includes data collected from private weather stations.

Opinions mean nothing to me, only data

[yor_on]

Yep Damo, data is the ground on where we all should build or views. But when it comes to how to interpret those data then the debate gets going
But I understand why people aint to happy with IPCC:s conclusions, myself i fear they lean to much to moderate views on this. The strange weather we see now is to me just a transitory phase, and when it has become 'stabilized' I fear we will be to late to really do anything about it. The days of the 'lone ranger' coming to 'save the day' with his new inventions is gone, if it ever existed. We live nowadays on a very small planet, and the 'thygers' that once was thought to be at our Earths unexplored parts are long gone. We need to cooperate and we need to use all ingenuity we can shake forward to make this planet a place for our offspring's.

[paul.fr]

But I understand why people aint to happy with IPCC:s conclusions, myself i fear they lean to much to moderate views on this.

Why do you think that?

The strange weather we see now is to me just a transitory phase, and when it has become 'stabilized'

But the weather is never normal and often strange.

[yor_on]

Paul, what I meant by your first quote was that some see it as, at worst, a worldwide 'global Warming' conspiracy, in America presumably lead by the that 'infamous' person Al Gore? Others seems to find IPCC forecasts as on the dot, for my self I have a feeling that they are a little more optimistic than me

As for the weather, well here in Sweden the winter seems more and more 'displaced' those last years to me, it comes later. And we have had a lot more rain too in the summertime as well as record high temperatures. I don't know where you live, but take a look here http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/ann/global.html#rtemp

[paul.fr]

You can rightly argue that the IPCC are political in their statements, and yes they (probably) do water down some headline grabbing stories just for the American audience, but they do not do the research, they merely review peer reviewed evidence and publish findings based on that (or am I wrong here?)

I can't access that NOAA site, site blockers in place :-(, but as for recent weather seeming strange, well, it is always strange and one or two events or even years weather does not make a pattern. One or two "once in a lifetime" events don't show cyclical patterns or trends, as some may have thought after the recent snow in the UK.

But your observations about seasons coming later, there is some evidence for this, but more noticeably that they are earlier, albeit only by a few days to a week. This is also why "we" prefer to use meteorological start and season ends, IE, winter is 1st of December to 28/29th of February. Spring is 1st of March to 30th of May and so on.