As the northern hemisphere slides into winter the southern hemisphere is sliding into summer or, in the case of Australia, diving into summer. On 6 October, Melbourne hit 35°C, breaking records for the hottest start to this month, while Sydney and Adelaide have had a string of days over 30°C.
But for Australians this record-breaking heat is starting to become familiar. A study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters , shows that since 2000 hot record-breaking events on average have outnumbered cold record-breaking events by 12 to one. Climate simulations show this imbalance would not occur under natural climate variability, and that human-caused warming is behind the plethora of hot records.
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Source: Guardian Environment