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Emeritus Professor Will Steffen says the recent heatwave in Canada
is a forecast of what's to come in Australia.
Picture: Sitthixay Ditthavong
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While long-range forecasts aren't yet available for the upcoming Australian summer, experts have said conditions overseas - where temperature records were broken by several degrees - would become part of annual weather patterns due to climate change.
Parts of Canada experienced historic heatwaves, with temperature records smashed by more than 20 degrees in some areas as the mercury rose to nearly 50 degrees.
Meanwhile in Siberia, temperatures in parts of the Arctic Circle reached unprecedented levels, rising above 30 degrees in some areas.
CSIRO research scientist Dr Michael Grose said while the recent conditions in the northern hemisphere would not directly translate to temperatures of more than 50 degrees in Australia this summer, they were indicative of what's to come.
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Temperatures in Canada soared during recent heatwaves.
Picture: Getty Images
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"Days of up to 50 degrees are definitely possible.
"We do expect ups and downs in the temperatures, but we're trending the odds to hotter weather."
Experts have said northern-hemisphere climate patterns did not directly lead to the exact same patterns forming in the southern hemisphere in the corresponding season, largely due to how the respective weather systems were formed.
Emeritus Professor Will Steffen, from the Australian National University Climate Change Institute, said while summers in Australia and scorching weather was largely due to El Nino weather patterns and Indian Ocean dipoles, hotter temperatures in the north were caused by other systems.
"One of the reasons Canada had extraordinary heat is that the heat pattern was locked in because of a wandering jet stream," he said.
"That jet stream is around the northern high latitudes around Canada and Scandinavia, which locks in temperatures for several days.
"The jet stream is being destabilised and locking heatwaves in Siberia while bringing colder air further south."
Professor Steffen said the fact that the temperature gradient - the gap between the hottest and coldest temperatures - was getting smaller in areas of the Arctic Circle was of particular concern.
He said it was too early to tell what the 2021-22 summer would look like in Australia, but hotter-than-average temperatures were an inevitability.
"More likely than not, more temperatures records will be set in the next five years or so," he said.
"What is happening in Canada is a wake-up call everywhere, and it's unbelievable our government has not heard those calls."
The long-range forecast for the next Australian summer is set to be finalised by the Bureau of Meteorology in coming months.
"The current heatwave conditions in the northern hemisphere will be incorporated into the initialisation of subsequent climate outlooks," a bureau spokeswoman said.
Links
- (CNN) Unprecedented Heat, Hundreds Dead And A Town Destroyed. Climate Change Is Frying The Northern Hemisphere
- (CA The Guardian) Canadian Inferno: Northern Heat Exceeds Worst-Case Climate Models
- (VICE) One Day After Setting Canada’s Heat Record, Town Burns To Ground
- (The Conversation) The North American Heatwave Shows We Need To Know How Climate Change Will Change Our Weather
- (CA CBC) Western Canada's Heat Wave Is 'Unprecedented.' Scientists Say It Will Become More Common With Climate Change
- (ABC / AFP) Hundreds Dead As Record-Breaking Heat Wave Hits Canada And United States
- Australia needs to aim for net zero by 2035 to avoid climate catastrophe
- Climate change behind global heat deaths
- Court declares Ley's climate duty of care
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