Australia has recorded a historic winter temperature, with the mercury soaring to 41.6 degrees Celsius in a remote region of its northwest coast on Monday.
New Record Temperature
The Bureau of Meteorology reported the extreme temperature from a military training site at Yampi Sound at 3:37 pm local time, surpassing the previous record by 0.4 degrees Celsius. This reading represents the highest August temperature ever recorded in Australia and sets a new Australia-wide maximum temperature record for any winter month, according to a Bureau of Meteorology spokesperson who spoke to AFP.
Verification and Previous Records
While the record is “provisionally confirmed,” scientists need to verify that the measurement was not influenced by a local anomaly or instrument malfunction before it is officially recognized. The previous record of 41.2 degrees Celsius was recorded in August 2020 at nearby West Roebuck.
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Impact of Climate Change
Average temperatures in Australia have been rising steadily, driven by climate change, which has led to more severe bushfires, floods, droughts, and heatwaves. The antipodean winter spans from early June to late August, and Australia’s climate is heavily affected by three major climate patterns: variations in Indian Ocean temperatures, shifts in the Southern Annular Mode, and changes in Pacific weather patterns, including El Niño and La Niña. These patterns can create extremely hot, dry, or wet conditions across the continent.
Attribution and Future Predictions
The Bureau of Meteorology attributes the winter of 2023 as Australia’s hottest on record to “the combination of major climate influences with global warming.” Looking ahead, climate scientists predict that 2024 will be the hottest year on record for the planet. From January to July, global temperatures were 0.7 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Global Temperature Trends
Recent weeks have seen record temperatures globally, including in the Mediterranean Sea, Norway’s Arctic Svalbard archipelago, and Kyiv in Ukraine, as human-induced carbon emissions continue to rise.
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