It’s normal for cities to be warmer than surrounding rural areas at night but researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at Monash University found heatwaves make this difference almost two and a half times greater under some heatwave conditions.
By employing an atmosphere-only version of ACCESS, CLEX researchers generated multiple sea surface temperature patterns of the same El Nino and La Nina events, and assessed how this influenced heatwaves over various Australian regions.
A focus on building resilience in health and health infrastructure is needed to deal with the future effects of extreme events – both due to climate change and climate variability.
The key measures are the "Wet Bulb Globe Temperature" often used to screen for dangerous heat at sporting events and in workplaces, the "Wet Bulb Temperature" beloved of weather geeks, and "Apparent Temperature" quoted to the public by weather services. The bottom line is that the closer we are pushed to our physiological limits by extreme heat, the more important humidity becomes.
Urban Climate and Energy Model (UCLEM) is a new climate model focused on Australian conditions that integrates energy use and human behaviour to generate accurate representations of urban climates.
CLEX researchers find that ocean sea-ice models generally agreed on changes to average yearly cycle of freeze and melt in Antarctica, with dynamic processes dominating the sea ice edge and thermodynamic processes dominating the interior of the sea ice pack. However, the models disagreed about the trends of sea ice volume.
An unusually strong East Australian Current extension leads to an increased probability of marine heatwave days around Tasmania. Conversely, a strong Zeehan Current during these seasons decreased the probability of marine heatwave days in this region.
Heat waves are the deadliest natural hazard in Australia. Motivated by the prediction that the number of extremely hot days in subtropical Australia will increase in a warmer climate, this study aims to develop a comprehensive picture of the processes leading to extreme temperatures.
This paper shows that many models overestimate the interaction between hot and dry conditions in wet regions and therefore overamplify heat extremes. The study points to necessary model improvement to increase confidence in future projections of heat extremes.
This paper examined the likelihood of extreme marine heatwaves global using climate models simulations, with and without anthropogenic influences, concluding that these events were up to fifty times more likely due to anthropogenic climate change.