10/01/2018

BOM Annual Climate Statement Shows 2017 Was Australia's Third-Warmest Year On Record“

ABC NewsKate Doyle

A wet beginning and end of the year bookended a warm, dry winter in 2017. (ABC Open contributor FrancesJones)
 Key Points
  • Third warmest year on record despite no El Nino
  • Seven of the 10 hottest years have occurred since 2005
  • Rainfall 8 per cent above the 1961 to 1990 average, but dry over winter
The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has confirmed 2017 was Australia's third-warmest year on record, with temperatures almost a degree above the 1961 to 1990 average.
With a rundown of the year's temperatures, rainfall, climate drivers, major weather events and enough maps to make an atlas, the Annual Climate Statement is a late Christmas present for weather lovers.
In 2017 the main climate drivers, the Indian Ocean Dipole and the El Nino Southern Oscillation, were in neutral for much of the year.
But despite there being no El Nino, usually associated with warm temperatures, 2017 was still the third-warmest national mean temperature on record, at 0.95 degrees above the 1961 to 1990 average.
Karl Braganza, BOM's head of climate monitoring, said the figures showed how much Australia had warmed.
The average daily maximums over 2017 were above the 1961 to 1990 average for most of Australia, especially in south-west Queensland and north-west New South Wales. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)
"We have seen that warming across the land surface temperatures and in the ocean surrounding Australia, so they have both warmed by a similar amount and that's consistent with global warming as well," he said.
Seven of the 10 warmest years on record have been recorded since 2005 and only one year was below the 1961 to 1990 average in the past decade.
"Odds [now] favour warmer-than-average temperatures more often than in the past," Dr Braganza said.


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