Future extremes from the Indian Ocean will be acting on top of global warming, giving a double whammy effect, like the record-breaking heat and drought we saw in 2019.
Joelle Gergis, Australian National University and Geoff Cary, Australian National University
The latest bushfires cannot be compared to Ash Wednesday or Black Saturday. Our nation's fire history is being rewritten.
Firefighters battle bushfires in Angourie, northern New South Wales, on September 10 this year, marking another early start to the season.
Jason O'Brien/AAP
Bureau of Meteorology researchers painstakingly analysed more than 40 years of data to work out exactly what is causing Australia's spring bushfire phenomenon.
Maximum temperatures for January to September were the warmest on record for the Murray–Darling Basin and New South Wales.
DEAN LEWINS/AAP
Since 1999, Australia has swung between drought and deluge with surprising speed, because El Niño has fallen into sync with similar patterns in the Indian and Southern Oceans.
When the Indian Ocean combines with El Niño dry conditions come to Australia.
Drought images from www.shutterstock.com
We thought the big El Niño might not bring drought. And then the climate turned dry. And hot.
People in the Philippines have been warned to brace for wet and wild weather, as this year’s El Nino shapes up to be the strongest since 1998.
EPA/RITCHIE B. TONGO/AAP
The seesaw between El Niño and La Niña is set to get stronger with global warming. Signs are that this year and next will deliver a big swing from one to the other, prompting fires and floods across the world.
Drought conditions are set to become more frequent with the changing behaviour of the Indian Ocean.
Peripitus/Wikimedia Commons
Over the past few months, a lot of attention has been paid to the potentially strong El Niño event brewing in the Pacific Ocean. But there is also the potential for an emerging climate phenomenon in the…