When I was a child and was first diagnosed with hay fever, the doctor told me I would grow out of it. I didn’t ask for a rough date when that might be – I just went away and each year I suffered I hoped…
It’s a good job they come with built-in jumpers.
PA/Niall Carson
If you are one of the many people with a larger than normal heating bill for recent months, you would probably be under the impression that it has been exceptionally cold in the northern hemisphere. We…
Even in Tasmania, it’s been hotter than it should be.
James975/Flickr
Daylight hours are dwindling and our first month of autumn is ending. But in many places, March felt a lot like summer. Get used to it: looking ahead, all indications are that future summers could be just…
Another summer, not quite like the other summers.
Steve Lacy
We all know what to expect from summer in Australia. From December through March it will be hot, there will be storms and floods, and there will be bush fires. It’s been like that for as long as history…
Australia’s latest summer has been significant for weather and for climate.
VIBE Audio
By Blair Trewin, Australian Bureau of Meteorology and Karl Braganza, Australian Bureau of Meteorology
This summer hasn’t just felt hot. It’s been hot. In fact, the summer of 2012-13 is now the hottest on record. Average temperatures beat the record set in the summer of 1997-98, and daytime maximum temperatures…
The Australian media might call them ‘mini-tornadoes’, but they’re just as destructive as the real thing.
AAP Image/Paul Beutel
There is a long-standing myth that Australia doesn’t get tornadoes. This simply isn’t true. Just ask residents of Burnett Heads and Bargara, on Queensland’s southeast coast, or the Melburnians who were…
Residents of Virginia have begun sandbagging against the arrival of Sandy.
EPA/MIchael Reynolds
By Kevin Trenberth, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
As I write this, Hurricane Sandy remains a very large, powerful hurricane. On Sunday afternoon (local time), Sandy brought winds gusting to 103km/h to coastal North Carolina. Heavy rains are already occurring…
Over summer, the US has been dry and hot. It’s not alone.
EPA/Larry W Smith
The 2012 northern hemisphere summer, like its two predecessors, has seen a wide range of climate extremes, many involving heat. In most recent summers there has been at least one part of the world with…
Vulnerable people and places are worst affected by weather-related disasters, especially those most reliant on the land.
Chaim Zvi
Mental health problems cause profound suffering and are worthy of attention for that reason alone. But despite policy and service reform, such problems remain as common, expensive and disabling as they…
Derivatives can allow farmers to reduce their risk by guarding against changes in the weather.
Flickr
By Adam Clements, Queensland University of Technology
For some industries, the weather plays a significant role in determining revenue. Unexpected weather events can often cause significant financial losses. For instance, a drought can yield a severe impact…
A precise weather forecast, months in advance, will never be possible.
Matt Smith
“Prediction is very difficult. Especially about the future” – so said Neils Bohr, the Danish physicist and 1922 Nobel Prize winner.
And you know what? I think the bloke was onto something there, especially…
This past Christmas, Darwin waited with unnecessary nervousness as Cyclone Grant developed to our north. It missed us, but on Boxing Day it dumped 385mm of rain into the Edith River.
The resulting flood…
A satellite picture of Cyclone Yasi from the Japanese weather satellite MTSAT 1R.
German Meteorological Society/DPA
Australia’s Chief Scientist Ian Chubb has more than once described the Australia of the past as a “mendicant country” regarding science.
While this is a controversial, perhaps overly-broad, generalisation…
When it comes to weather, scientists and the media have different understandings of risk.
Ameel Khan
The “reasonable person” would agree that disaster risk is best avoided. Under a changing climate, how exposed people are to risk and how socially and physically vulnerable they are affects how often disasters…
We all want to know how bad the next fire season will be, but working it out isn’t easy.
AFP/Torsten Blackwood
Bushfires are part of the Australian landscape and the psyche of its human inhabitants. This is particularly true as months of hot, dry weather approach.
Recent warnings have predicted a dire summer ahead…
The way scientific success is measured has negatively impacted on the new model army.
Cristof Stache/AFP
Storm clouds are gathering in the world of weather and climate modelling – a discipline that saves lives and property every day and has revolutionised our lives in recent decades.
What we might call the…
We don’t know which storms will turn into deadly tornadoes.
RAGardner4
Everyone loves a good storm. Rolling thunder, a spectacular light show and fat drops of rain that make the earth smell like summer. Although thunderstorms are far more belligerent than your average cloud…
Climate and weather are vital in planning energy generation.
AAP
Billions of energy-investment dollars are exposed to the vagaries of climate. Those billions include dollars committed to or planned for renewable energy generation in this country.
Now a new branch of…
Climate models allow us to look at the planet’s future climate.
Truthout.org
We know the climate is changing because that’s what climate models tell us. But what exactly is a climate model, and are they cutting-edge science or modelling madness?
What is a climate model?
Climate…
In the future, private companies may provide your daily dose of sunshine.
clooky
The world of weather forecasting is still dominated by government agencies and national weather services, but there’s now a steady drip-drip of private forecasters.
While they’re not exactly flooding…
The East African drought is one of the area’s worst in 60 years.
AAP
2010 was the world’s hottest year on record, with global temperatures 0.53°C above the long-term (1961-1990) average.
2011 started with a strong La Niña (perhaps the strongest since 1917), something which…
The humanitarian crisis in the Horn continues to escalate.
EPA/DAI KUROKAWA
While droughts are caused by weather – the failure of the rains – famines are invariably political.
The current famine in southern Somalia should have come as no surprise. Aid agencies have been warning…
With the UN declaring famine in Somalia for the first time since 1992, and other countries in the Horn of Africa suffering critical food shortages, this already unstable region is facing devastation…
Looks the same to me… our personal experiences are not the best indicators of change.
P León/flickr
We see it in the media all the time.
Regular beachgoers who see no evidence for sea-level rise, farmers trusting long-term experience over Bureau of Meteorology forecasting, Antarctic sea-captains whose…
The decade ending 2010 was the warmest on record for Australia.
AAP
CLEARING UP THE CLIMATE DEBATE: Bureau of Meteorology scientist Karl Braganza explains why we know the climate is changing, and what’s causing it.
In public discussions of climate change, the full range…
La Niña brings us rain – global warming makes it worse.
AAP
As six weeks’ rain gets dumped on Sydney in a single day and Queensland cleans up after shocking floods, it’s not surprising people ask if global warming is to blame for our weather woes.
But following…
