Australia is not investing enough in climate monitoring capabilities, potentially leaving farmers and other vulnerable communities high and dry when trying to access crucial weather information.
The stereotype of the conventionally attractive female weather reporter is alive and well on Australian television.
Azuzl/shutterstock.com
The weather segment at the end of news bulletins has stuck to a familiar format for more than 50 years. But the question of who should actually present the weather has been in a constant state of flux.
What exactly does research say on heatwaves and hot days?
AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie told Q&A that heatwaves were ‘worsening’ in Australia and ‘hot days’ had doubled in the last 50 years. Let’s take a look at the evidence.
Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie, speaking on Q&A.
Q&A
Michael Courts, The Conversation e Lucinda Beaman, The Conversation
Response from a spokesperson from the Climate Council in relation to an article on CEO Amanda McKenzie’s claims about worsening heatwaves and increasing numbers of hot days in Australia.
Old weather diaries are becoming important in climate research.
Linden Ashcroft/State Library of New South Wales
High-quality climate records only go back to the start of the 20th century. But using handwritten letters, journals and tables, researchers have access to data going back to the 18th century.
Cape Grim, on the northwest tip of Tasmania, is exposed to some of the cleanest air in the world.
CSIRO/Bureau of Meteorology
Severe storms bring a complex mixture of weather conditions, often in a very localised area. This unpredictability can make them very damaging, and very hard to study too.
Australia’s oceans are heating up.
Richard Rydge/Flickr
The new State of the Climate report outlines Australia’s rising temperatures and its regional rainfall declines - and the trends that are locked in for the coming few decades due to greenhouse emissions.
Tropical Cyclone Carlos approaches Western Australia in February 2011.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Flickr
It’s no surprise that China represents a cyber threat to Australia. But the government has been reluctant to state this fact and needs to respond more decisively.
Galileo was right, but that doesn’t mean his fans are.
Justus Sustermans/Wikimedia Commons
One Nation Senator-elect Malcolm Roberts lauds Galileo as a hero who turned scientific consensus on its head. But the ‘Galileo gambit’ is just one weapon in the climate conspiracists’ arsenal.
A satellite image of the 2004 boxing day tsunami striking the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka. Could a similar tsunami hit Australia?
AAP
Atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements at Tasmania’s Cape Grim and Antarctica’s Casy Station have now officially passed 400 parts per million and are likely to stay above that for decades to come.
CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall fronts senate estimates in February.
AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
Sydney is in the process of smashing the record for the longest run of days above 26°C. Weather, El Nino and climate change are all playing their part.
CSIRO’s decision a decade ago to merge its marine and atmospheric research set the stage for a national climate research plan.
CSIRO/Wikimedia Commons
CSIRO was instrumental in creating a unified plan for all of Australia’s climate research. The latest round of cuts would see that collaboration fall apart.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
Australia image from www.shutterstock.com
Former PM’s business advisor Maurice Newman recently claimed that satellite temperature data tell a different story to data collected on the ground. He’s right - but that’s how it’s meant to be.
Rural southern Australia has been drying out over the past several decades. Pictured here, Burra in South Australia.
David Jones
Australia is the land of drought of flooding rains, driven by events such as El Nino. But despite this variability, some parts of Australia are clearly drying out.
Despite a decade of drought and declining rainfall in parts of Australia, there’s still plenty of water to go around.
Maroondah reservoir from www.shutterstock.com
The Millennium Drought ended more than five years ago, but several years of below-average rainfall and El Niño have brought drought back to many parts of Australia. Our latest report on water in Australia shows rainfall is continuing to decline in eastern Australia and increase in the north.