Lethal Heating: August 2021

31/08/2021

(AU The Guardian) David Pocock Leads 250 High-Profile Australian Athletes In Climate Campaign

The Guardian - Mike Hytner | Adam Morton

The Cool Down includes Pat Cummins, Lance Franklin
Group writes urgent open letter to nation’s leaders

Climate advocate and former Wallabies captain David Pocock on Monday launched The Cool Down campaign. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

A who’s who of Australian sport, spearheaded by the former Wallabies captain, David Pocock, have been brought together in a new initiative that aims to use the platforms of high-profile sportsmen and women to tackle the climate crisis.

The campaign, named The Cool Down, was launched on Monday by Pocock who, after retiring from rugby union in 2020, has focused his energies on conservation and climate activism.

Josh Frydenberg admits climate change a major preoccupation in global markets. Read more

Pocock is joined by more than 250 current and former athletes who have penned an open letter to the nation’s leaders encouraging bold action be taken as extreme weather events become more frequent and “our Australian way of life, including sport at every level” is jeopardised.

The group, which includes Pat Cummins, Cate and Bronte Campbell, Lance Franklin, Rohan Browning, Darcy Vescio, Mick Fanning, Craig Foster, Ian Chappell, Liz Ellis and Mark Webber, hopes to encourage Australians to make their voices heard.

It has backed scientific calls for the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions at least in half by 2030 and reach net zero emissions before 2050.

The campaign highlights the connection between extreme weather events and sport – including how heat has impacted the Australian Open tennis tournament in recent times and how bushfire smoke has affected professional sport – and Pocock called for bold action to be taken.

“The people and places we love, as well as the sports we love so much are threatened by climate change,” Pocock said.

“We have the resources in our own backyard to be a world leader in this field and, as a sporting nation, we’re used to performing on the world stage. It’s time we harness that to focus on strong climate action.”

The latest assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published earlier this month found human activities were unequivocally heating the planet and causing changes not seen for centuries and in some cases thousands of years.

The world’s leading authority on climate science found greenhouse gas emissions were already affecting weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, helping cause increased heatwaves, heavier rainfall events and more intense droughts and tropical cyclones, the report found.

In Australia, it found average temperatures above land had already increased by about 1.4C since 1910.

The open letter, which people are invited to sign, says “sport’s future is more uncertain than ever, but its power has never been more important”.

“Australians have always punched above our weight on the world stage and it’s time to do it on climate.”

Professor Mark Howden, the director of the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions, said any delay in addressing Australia’s poor record on emission-reduction would

“If we don’t take rapid and strong global action to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the world could well have passed 1.5C by the time of the Brisbane Olympics in 2032, failing to meet the lower of the two Paris Agreement temperature goals,” said Howden, who is also a vice-chair of the IPCC.

“This could come at a time when everyone’s eyes will be on Australia, focusing attention on our contributions to reduce emissions.”

No major sporting organisation in Australia includes climate change in their annual reporting and former Diamonds netball coach Ellis said the campaign was “our stake in the ground to spread this important message”.

David Pocock: 'I've got a lot more comfortable just being a bit weird and different'. Read more

“As sportspeople, we recognise the role we play in our sports-loving country and supporting the generations of athletes to come after us. We have the opportunity to take action within our field and use our platform to accelerate the change we need to see,” Ellis said.

Other sportspeople to lend their names to the campaign include current Wallabies captain Michael Hooper, AFL footballer Nat Fyfe and AFLW star Daisy Pearce, the NRL’s Nathan Cleary, golfer Karrie Webb, cricketer Rachael Haynes and Matildas duo Tameka Yallop and Alanna Kennedy.

The Australian government is facing increasing pressure to increase the 2030 emissions target it set six years ago – a 26-28% cut below 2005 – and join the more than 100 countries that have set a mid-century net zero emissions goal.

Earlier this month, Dr Jonathan Pershing, the deputy to US presidential climate envoy John Kerry, told the Guardian that Australia’s targets were “not sufficient” and the country should be considering a 50% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The former UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Australia was “out of step” with the rest of the world, and and the former European Union trade commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, warned it was becoming “more and more isolated” at a time when the world was increasingly being hit by floods, fires and droughts.

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(AU SMH) Australia’s Biggest Climate Poll Shows Support For Action In Every Seat

Sydney Morning Herald - Nick O'Malley | Miki Perkins

Voters in every federal seat in Australia support increased action on climate change and the adoption of renewable technology over the government’s plan for a gas-led recovery, according to the largest poll ever conducted on climate change and politics in the country.

The survey of 15,000 Australians conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Australian Conservation Foundation found 67 per cent of voters believed the government should be doing more to address climate change, including a majority in all 151 national seats.
It found support for increased climate action was similar across states and territories, with the highest being the Northern Territory where 71 per cent supported more action and the lowest being NSW, where 65 per cent wanted more. In Victoria 69 per cent wanted more or much more action.

The results, which were matched against census data by YouGov for a so-called regression analysis, also found there is similar support for climate action among rural and city voters.

It found that regional voters were almost as concerned about climate as those in the city. In NSW 66 per cent of metropolitan voters wanted more action compared with 63 per cent in the regions. In Victoria 42 per cent of metropolitan voters wanted to reach net zero before 2050 compared with 41 per cent in the regions.

Australia’s approach to climate change is coming under increasing pressure. Credit: Getty

In the Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s electorate of Cook, up to 59 per cent of voters wants more done on climate action, but 35 per cent support his plans for new coal and gas-fired power to meet Australia’s future energy needs.

In Cook, 25 per cent of voters said climate change would be the most important issue at the next election and another 41 per cent rated it as among their three most important, with 34 per cent rating it as having low or no importance.

In Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce’s seat of New England, up to 55 per cent of voters wants more action and the same proportion do not believe coal and gas-fired power stations should be part of Australia’s future energy supply.

As the government prepares for the COP26 United Nations climate talks in Glasgow in November, the survey showed 41 per cent of voters wanted the government to reach net zero before 2050 and 32 per cent believed net zero should be reached by 2050. By contrast, 12 per cent believe 2050 is too fast and 15 per cent believe no goal should be set.
Almost 70 per cent of Victorian voters want the federal government to do more on climate, while in regional areas of the state this figure is slightly lower at 65 per cent.

Not surprisingly, the numbers are lower for Coalition voters: in Greater Melbourne just over half want more to be done, while in regional Victoria it’s 47 per cent.

A third of Labor voters in metropolitan Melbourne said climate change was their number one issue. For Coalition voters this number was about 24 per cent.

In the two most marginal Victorian Coalition-held electorates – Chisholm and Higgins – climate action plans are the number one priority for about one in three voters (29 per cent and 37 per cent).

In Labor’s most marginal Victorian seat of Dunkley, a quarter of all voters (26 per cent) say plans for action on climate change are their priority in the next federal election.

Monash academic and political commentator Zareh Ghazarian said the polling showed there was obvious concern about climate change, but it was impossible to say how this would translate into voting behaviour.

“It’s interesting data because you can see climate change is important to a lot of people,” Dr Ghazarian said.

“I suspect it would be at the top of the political agenda if we weren’t in a pandemic, and there is an appetite in the community for governments to be putting clearer ideas forward.“

“I suspect [climate change] would be at the top of the political agenda if we weren’t in a pandemic.”
Dr Zareh Ghazarian

“But in the last election voters didn’t seem to embrace an opposition that was proposing a range of reforms in this area. There is a sense they wanted to keep policy ideas steady.”

Climate change is the number one federal election issue for 29 per cent of NSW voters and one of
the top three issues for 67 per cent.

It is the most important issue for 31 per cent of Coalition voters in metropolitan areas and for one in five in regional electorates.

In the Coalition’s most marginal NSW seat, Reid, 71 per cent of voters wants the federal government to do more, while in Labor’s most marginal federal seat, Macquarie, 67 per cent want more federal action.

Road To Glasgow

Mr Morrison has said the government intended to get to net zero as soon as possible and preferably by 2050, though critics are calling for a firm target.

The Australian government has a target for reducing emissions by between 26 and 28 per cent by 2030, compared with the United Kingdom’s target of 78 per cent by 2035 and the United States’ goal of 50-52 per cent by 2035.

The government is expected to come under international pressure during the COP26 talks to increase its 2030 goals, though some of its MPs, particularly in the Nationals, are concerned about the economic and political cost of increased action.

ACF chief executive Kelly O’Shanassy said the group commissioned the polling because it believes time is running out to stop run away climate warming, and it expects key decisions to be made on Australia’s efforts in the lead up to COP26 and the next election.

“We also wanted to get polling down to an electorate level if we could possibly do it because that was a good way of measuring the diversity of views in Australia, but it’s also a good piece of information for MPs to see whether they are doing what their constituents want done.”

She said she was not surprised by the overwhelming support for renewable energy the survey found, but was that those views were shared in so-called coal seats.

“Even the electorates that have coal and gas communities in them are rejecting the idea of coal and gas being a big part of our energy future going forward,” she said.

The poll found that in the Queensland regional electorates of Flynn, Capricornia, Maranoa and Dawson support for new coal and gas-fired power projects is 40 per cent or less.

One LNP adviser who asked not to be named said that if the poll was correct and held true until the election it suggested that climate could present a political problem in some seats in the next election.

He noted, for example, that the research suggested that in battleground seats like Gilmore, Eden Monaro and Macquarie concern about climate was high. Because all these seats had been hit hard by Black Summer bushfires he expected that concern to be maintained until the election.

But he warned that in other seats voter concerns may shift from climate as the campaign began.

Climate policy

‘We don’t want to be collateral damage’: Coal country concerns grow as climate reality hits

A second Coalition strategist said he was not surprised by the finding that concern about climate change was widespread in rural and regional electorates, and the government was aware that this was the case.

He said the government’s mantra of “technology not taxes” was based on an astute understanding that Australians want to see climate action but did not want some communities unfairly penalised to achieve it.

He said that if the poll asked had asked voters how much they were willing to spend on climate action, or what their communities should sacrifice to act on climate, its results would have been significantly different.

Cristina Talacko, chairwoman of Coalition a pro-climate action group aligned with the Liberal and National parties said the finding about the level of concern about climate change among rural and regional voters was significant.

She said the perceived divide on climate change between rural and urban voters had been used as an argument against taking stronger action was disproved by the poll.

“This has been the major problem [for those in the parties wanting more action]. It has always been the argument that a lot of Nationals utilise,” she said.

“The cities and regions more or less have the support level to support renewables, and they support the transition, they support a target,” she said.

“That’s strategically that’s what [Nationals MPs] have to look at.”

How the survey was carried out

YouGov surveyed 15,000 people across all 151 Australian seats and then conducted what is known as multilevel regression with post-stratification on the sample using Australian Bureau of Statistics data. The process is based on the principle that people with similar characteristics tend to share common attitudes and attributes. The outcome of such an analysis is a prediction with a range. The numbers presented in the ACF report are mean estimates, which are typically very close to the middle of that range.

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(AU Pearls and Irritations) Solving The Mega-Risks

Pearls and Irritations - Julian Cribb

The world is awash with literature describing the deepening self-inflicted crisis into which humanity is pitching. I am frequently asked how we can solve it, presuming we wish to do so. Here, briefly, are the ten most urgent solutions.

Author

Julian Cribb is a science author with a focus on the human existential crisis: food security, climate, extinction, planetary pollution, nukes, resources, population.
His books include Surviving the 21st Century, The Coming Famine, Food or War, Earth Detox, and Poisoned Planet.

Humanity’s capacity to inflict mass harm on itself has been accelerating exponentially since the mid-21st Century.

It is rapidly approaching the point where it can bring down civilization and, quite possibly, eliminate our species.

This is the greatest existential emergency of human history. In the coming decades it will determine whether we survive or fail.

The gravity of the coming together of the ten megarisks is not understood, either by governments in general, corporates or societies at large.

This general ignorance of the ten threats and their deeply interconnected nature is a major barrier to our solving any of them.

However, all of the ten threats are capable of being solved. Humans have the brains, organisational skills and technology to escape the trap we have dug for ourselves. But we lack the institutions, the understanding and the will to do so.

There are two underlying principles for human survival.

First, each of the ten megarisks must be solved in ways that make none of the other risks worse.[1]

Second, we cannot solve these risks one at a time, or according to some arbitrary priority, as they are all connected to one another and must therefore be solved together.

If human civilization, or even humans, are to survive, here are the ten most critical actions to be taken:

Outlaw all nuclear weapons, eliminate their stockpiles and safely recycle their materials. There is no point in solving other risks if we destroy the planet. (Nuclear war)
End all extraction and use of fossil fuels and their byproducts, including pesticides, plastics and toxic petrochemicals by 2030. Replace with renewable, natural-based substances. Reforest half the Earth’s land area. (Climate change)
Convert the entire global economy to a circular model in which every resource is recycled and re-used and nothing is lost, discarded or wasted. (Resource scarcity)
Develop a 3-pillar global food system consisting of:

Regenerative agriculture which repairs its environment
Urban food systems to recycle water and nutrients to feed megacities, and
Deep ocean aquaculture of aquatic plants, fish and marine animals using recycled nutrients. (Food security)

Return half of the world’s current farmed and grazed lands to forest or wilderness to end the 6th Extinction. Create a Stewards of the Earth program to implement it. (Extinction)
Create a Right Not to Be Poisoned and a Clean Up the Earth Alliance (see Earth Detox), to eliminate all forms of toxic pollution in air, food, water and consumer products. Introduce universal safety testing of all manufactured chemicals.
Introduce a global plan to progressively and voluntarily reduce the human population by 75 per cent by 2120. Ie Return it to where it was in the mid-20^th Century. Note: the world’s women are already doing this. The issue is whether the fall happens voluntarily or involuntarily.[2]
Prevent future pandemics by ending environmental destruction (5), banning dangerous scientific experiments, restricting global travel, creating global early warning systems and reducing world population (7).
Reform the world economic system by (a) creating an Earth Standard Currency, based on the planet’s natural assets for sustaining life and (b) creating a global circular economy.
Introduce global science-based awareness and education about the megarisks, their consequences and solutions to educate those of the human population willing to learn. (Delusion)

These are just the ‘top ten’ headline solutions. There are many other connected, more detailed solutions and policies that must be adopted to secure our future. Some of these are discussed in Surviving the 21st Century. Others are detailed in books by other writers.

If humans were intelligent, then education and awareness would be sufficient to catalyse global, local and individual action everywhere to save ourselves from ourselves. Alas, the species collectively is not intelligent, though some individuals may be.

However, since a large part of humanity is either ignorant of, or opposed to, any action to save itself, or else finds it more profitable to ruin the Planet and the human future, then the most likely outcome of the present trajectory will be a large-scale collapse in civilization causing the deaths of a significant part of the human population – scientific estimates range from 50 to 90 per cent – mainly from famine, disease, mass refugeeism and (nuclear) war.

If that is not a sufficient wake-up call for everyone to act, then extinction is pretty much assured.

Optimistically, early action to end pandemics, climate change and food insecurity and restore the earth’s live support systems can generate the resolution and confidence for the other necessary solutions to be adopted collaboratively and universally.

However, this is not yet happening on a level large enough to make a difference. No government on Earth yet has a policy for human survival. Until they all do, our collective chances are grim.

[1] For example: you cannot solve food insecurity by burning more fossil fuels and making the climate worse for food production.

[2] The world’s women are already implementing a reduction in the birthrate. The issue whether the decline in population happens voluntarily or involuntarily.

Links

30/08/2021

(AU SMH) NSW’s New England Renewable Energy Zone Sparks Flurry Of Interest

Sydney Morning Herald - Peter Hannam

The New England renewable energy zone has drawn a flood of prospective investors with more than 80 projects offering to build about 34 gigawatts of new solar and wind farms in NSW.

The response was more than four times the 8 gigawatts of capacity on offer for the so-called REZ (Renewable Energy Zone), one of three specially designated areas in the state for new clean energy projects.

A solar farm near Gunnedah, NSW. Investments in clean energy are rapidly increasing. Credit: Bloomberg

NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean said the response indicated strong investor support for the state’s electricity infrastructure road map, that was legislated late last year.

“The New England REZ is expected to deliver around $10.7 billion in investment and around 830 operational jobs, as well as 1250 construction jobs each year, all while putting downward pressure on electricity prices and providing landowners with new income streams,” Mr Kean said.

Adam Marshall, the Agriculture Minister and member for Northern Tablelands welcomed the interest and said the local community would be “in the box seat” for determining the final design and planning of the zone.

Climate policy

‘Really big win’: NSW environmental watchdog ordered to address climate change

“With this level of interest, we have the luxury of supporting only the best projects that benefit the community, maintain the highest and strictest development standards and maximise local renewable jobs and investment in the region,” he said.

Investment in renewable energy will be crucial for adding new generation capacity in time for the staggered closer of ageing coal-fired power stations in NSW and other states.

Which projects get the go-ahead will ultimately be determined through a competitive tender. The newly created EnergyCo is analysing the data to inform the next steps of the REZ roll out, including the first auctions for renewable energy projects across NSW in 2022, the government said.

The 2021-22 NSW budget set aside $380 million to deliver the energy road map, building on the $79 million the government had already committed to deliver the New England REZ.

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(USA The Conversation) Is Climate Change To Blame For Extreme Weather Events? Attribution Science Says Yes, For Some – Here’s How It Works

The Conversation - Xubin Zeng

Climate change made the devastating flooding in Belgium, Germany and other European countries in July 2021 more likely. Anthony Dehez/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

Author

Xubin Zeng is Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorolgy Center, University of Arizona.

Extreme rainfall and flooding left paths of destruction through communities around the world this summer.

The latest was in Tennessee, where preliminary data shows a record-shattering 17 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, turning creeks into rivers that flooded hundreds of homes and killed at least 18 people.

A lot of people are asking: Was it climate change? Answering that question isn’t so simple.

There has always been extreme weather, but human-caused global warming can increase extreme weather’s frequency and severity. For example, research shows that human activities such as burning fossil fuels are unequivocally warming the planet, and we know from basic physics that warm air can hold more moisture.

A decade ago, scientists weren’t able to confidently connect any individual weather event to climate change, even though the broader climate change trends were clear. Today, attribution studies can show whether extreme events were affected by climate change and whether they can be explained by natural variability alone. With rapid advances from research and increasing computing power, extreme event attribution has become a burgeoning new branch of climate science.

The latest attribution study, released Aug. 23, 2021, looked at the rainfall from the European storm that killed more than 220 people when floods swept through Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in July 2021.

A team of climate scientists with the group World Weather Attribution analyzed the record-breaking storm, dubbed Bernd, focusing on two of the most severely affected areas. Their analysis found that human-induced climate change made a storm of that severity between 1.2 and 9 times more likely than it would have been in a world 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 F) cooler. The planet has warmed just over 1 C since the industrial era began.

Parts of Tennessee saw about 17 inches of rainfall in 24 hours in late August, shattering the state’s previous record. AP Photo/John Amis

Similar studies haven’t yet been conducted on the Tennessee storm, but they likely will be.

So, how do scientists figure this out? As an atmospheric scientist, I have been involved in attribution studies. Here’s how the process works:

How do attribution studies work?

Attribution studies usually involve four steps.

The first step is to define the event’s magnitude and frequency based on observational data. For example, the July rainfall in Germany and Belgium broke records by large margins. The scientists determined that in today’s climate, a storm like that would occur on average every 400 years in the wider region.

The second step is to use computers to run climate models and compare those models’ results with observational data. To have confidence in a climate model’s results, the model needs to be able to realistically simulate such extreme events in the past and accurately represent the physical factors that help these events occur.

The third step is to define the baseline environment without climate change – essentially create a virtual world of Earth as it would be if no human activities had warmed the planet. Then run the same climate models again.

The differences between the second and third steps represent the impact of human-caused climate change. The last step is to quantify these differences in the magnitude and frequency of the extreme event, using statistical methods.

For instance, we analyzed how Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 and a unique weather pattern interacted with each other to produce the record-breaking rainstorm in Texas. Two attribution studies found that human-caused climate change increased the probability of such an event by roughly a factor of three, and increased Harvey’s rainfall by 15%.

Another study determined that the western North American extreme heat in late June 2021 would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.

The extreme heat wave in the Pacific Northwest in June 2021 sent temperatures more than 27 F (15 C) above normal in some areas. NASA Earth Observatory

How good are attribution studies?

The accuracy of attribution studies is affected by uncertainties associated with each of the above four steps.

Some types of events lend themselves to attribution studies better than others. For instance, among long-term measurements, temperature data is most reliable. We understand how human-caused climate change affects heat waves better than other extreme events. Climate models are also usually skillful in simulating heat waves.

Even for heat waves, the impact of human-caused climate change on the magnitude and frequency could be quite different, such as the case of the extraordinary heat wave across western Russia in 2010. Climate change was found to have had minimal impact on the magnitude but substantial impact on the frequency.

There can also be legitimate differences in the methods underpinning different attribution studies.

However, people can make decisions for the future without knowing everything with certainty. Even when planning a backyard barbecue, one does not have to have all the weather information.

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(The Guardian) How A Hot Blob Off New Zealand Is Contributing To Drought In South America

The Guardian - Lisa Cox

Study reveals the vast patch of warm water has produced a dry ridge of high pressure across the south Pacific, blocking storms from reaching Chile

Scientists believe the hot blob off the east coast of New Zealand is contributing to a decade long drought in Chile. Photograph: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

A vast patch of warming water off the coast of New Zealand – referred to as a “warming blob” – has contributed to a decade long drought affecting parts of South America, according to scientists.

Researchers based in New Zealand and Chile have examined the rapidly warming hot blob which rose to prominence in 2019 after spikes in water temperature of up to 6C were recorded.

In the new study, published in the Journal of Climate, the scientists used computer simulations to investigate whether there was a link between the blob, which spans an area about the size of Australia, and years of low winter rainfall in Chile.

Their models found the blob produced a dry ridge of high pressure across the south Pacific that blocked storms from reaching central Chile and pushed them towards west Antarctica.

Global water crisis will intensify with climate breakdown, says report. Read more

“This big ridge of high pressure blocks storm systems that bring rainfall to central Chile in winter,” Kyle Clem, one of the authors and a lecturer in climate science at Victoria University of Wellington, said.

“When we took the blob out of our simulations that ridge of high pressure disappears.

“That was one our biggest pieces of evidence that the blob is a major contributor [to the drought].”

The ongoing drought has reduced fresh water supplies in Chile and prompted the science minister, Andres Couve, to say this month the decline of water reserves due to climate change was a national priority.

Clem said the researchers ran models that examined a 40 year period from 1979 through to 2018.

He said the simulations found that natural variability and reduced rainfall in the tropical central Pacific allowed a blob to form, even without the influence of human-caused global heating.

A land divided by climate extremes: what the IPCC report says about New Zealand. Read more

But he said the models showed the rate of warming of the patch of ocean was much higher because of greenhouse gases that occurred as a result of human activity and the burning of fossil fuels.

They found the blob had warmed 1.5C over the 40 year period, about three times the global average increase in sea surface temperature.

“The remarkable rate of warming in the blob contributes to a stronger ridge of high pressure across the southern Pacific,” Clem said.

“So what’s worrying – and this is the next area of research that we’re going to go down – is we need to understand the physical mechanisms that are maintaining the blob for such a long period of time.”

James Renwick is the head of geography, environment and earth sciences at Victoria University in Wellington. He was not an author on the paper but has studied the blob in the past.

He said the patch of warm ocean had been present for a long time but had not been the subject of much research and the new paper gave it some context.

“You can compare it to what happens in Australia with El Niño,” he said.

“It’s not quite equivalent but it’s the same story. You get a buildup of energy somewhere and that energy has to be dealt with.

“The net result is there’s this quite marked drying in parts of Chile.”

He said the rate of warming of that area of ocean showed what occurred when natural variation was combined with human-caused global heating.

“That’s the story of climate change,” he said.

“It’s quite amazing how much heat is being pumped into that ocean in that area east of New Zealand.”

Links

29/08/2021

(AU ABC) BOM Forecasts A Warm, Wet Spring For Australia's East

ABC Weather - Ben Deacon

Spring is set to be a warm, wet affair, the BOM says. (Supplied: Jenita Enevoldsen)

Key Points

Spring rainfall is likely to be above average in much of the east
Maximum temperatures are likely to be above average for the northern tropics and far south-east
Large parts of the eastern tropical Indian Ocean are warmer than average

Spring is set to be wet and warm in eastern Australia, according to the Bureau of Meteorology's seasonal outlook.

"Virtually all of eastern Australia is looking wet," the BOM's head of operational climate services Andrew Watkins said.

"With a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, we've got warm ocean temperatures near Western Australia, and that's pumping a lot more cloud and moisture across the continent and giving wetter than average conditions."

Above average rainfall is predicted throughout spring for the eastern two thirds of the country. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

That is despite the ENSO climate driver being in neither a La Niña state (which would favour rain) nor an El Niño state (which would favour drought).

"We have some signs that we could be heading towards La Niña, though the forecasting models have been backing off a little bit of late," Dr Watkins said.

"That said, we do have warm water to the north of Australia and slightly cooler water off South America.

"Typically, even if we don't get to La Niña levels, that would help enhance rainfall in parts of eastern Australia."

The major climate drivers over the Pacific Ocean are in neutral. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

Warmer nights on the way

Maximum temperatures through spring are likely to be above average for the northern tropics and the far south-east, while below average daytime temperatures are more likely for other areas of southern Australia and up into southern Queensland.

Maximum temperatures in spring are predicted to be higher than average across the north and the far south. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

At night, above average minimum temperatures for September to November are very likely for almost all of Australia, except for the southern part of Western Australia.

The soggy spring follows on from a wet winter in much of the country, particularly in south-west Western Australia.

Overnight temperatures are expected to be higher than average across almost all of the country. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

"Nationally, we've seen the wettest winter since 2016," Dr Watkins said.

"In the south-west, they've had a good old-fashioned winter with a continuing series of cold fronts bringing pretty consistent rainfall, particularly during June and July.

"That's keeping things fairly wet in those areas and the crops are going gangbusters."

It's shaping up to be a wet spring. (Supplied: Mat Brown)

Warm winter despite rain, snow

Across tropical Northern Australia, it has been very warm through winter, with Darwin having its earliest 35-degree day on record.

"Australia's average winter temperature is also expected to be one of the 10 warmest on record — as much as it hasn't felt it at times, particularly in the south," Dr Watkins said.

Typically during a negative Indian Ocean Dipole, Australia sees cooler than average temperatures, but the BOM says Australia's temperature and rainfall variability are also influenced by global warming.

A negative phase of the IOD can increase rainfall across parts of Australia. (Supplied: Bureau of Meteorology)

Australia's climate has warmed by 1.44 degrees Celsius between 1910 and 2019 and southern Australia has seen a reduction of 10-20 per cent in cool season (April-October) rainfall over the last few decades.

Despite the warm winter, alpine regions have had a close-to-average snow season, with snow depths at the benchmark Spencers Creek gauge peaking at 183.6 centimetres on of July 29, slightly below the long-term maximum snow depth of about 195cm.

"Not a bad ski season if you can get there," Dr Watkins said.

"It's fairly typical for a negative Indian Ocean Dipole.

"But also, we've had negative Southern Annular Mode at times, so our weather systems have been that bit further north more generally, and that does typically give you more snow cover."

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(BBC) Madagascar On The Brink Of Climate Change-Induced Famine

BBC - Andrew Harding

At least half a million children under the age of five are in danger of being acutely malnourished, the UN says. WFP/Tsiory Andriantsoarana

Madagascar is on the brink of experiencing the world's first "climate change famine", according to the United Nations, which says tens of thousands of people are already suffering "catastrophic" levels of hunger and food insecurity after four years without rain.

The drought - the worst in four decades - has devastated isolated farming communities in the south of the country, leaving families to scavenge for insects to survive.

"These are famine-like conditions and they're being driven by climate not conflict," said the UN World Food Programme's Shelley Thakral.

The UN estimates that 30,000 people are currently experiencing the highest internationally recognised level of food insecurity - level five - and there are concerns the number affected could rise sharply as Madagascar enters the traditional "lean season" before harvest.

"This is unprecedented. These people have done nothing to contribute to climate change. They don't burn fossil fuels… and yet they are bearing the brunt of climate change," said Ms Thakral.

In the remote village of Fandiova, in Amboasary district, families recently showed a visiting WFP team the locusts that they were eating.

Crops have failed and now people are relying on insects and cactus leaves for food. WFP/Tsiory Andriantsoarana

"I clean the insects as best I can but there's almost no water," said Tamaria, a mother of four, who goes by one name.

"My children and I have been eating this every day now for eight months because we have nothing else to eat and no rain to allow us to harvest what we have sown," she added.

"Today we have absolutely nothing to eat except cactus leaves," said Bole, a mother of three, sitting on the dry earth.

She said her husband had recently died of hunger, as had a neighbour, leaving her with two more children to feed.

"What can I say? Our life is all about looking for cactus leaves, again and again, to survive."

Improve water management

Although Madagascar experiences frequent droughts and is often affected by the change in weather patterns caused by El Niño, experts believe climate change can be directly linked to the current crisis.

"With the latest IPCC report we saw that Madagascar has observed an increase in aridity. And that is expected to increase if climate change continues.

"In many ways this can be seen as a very powerful argument for people to change their ways," said Dr Rondro Barimalala, a Madagascan scientist working at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

Viewing the same atmospheric data at Santa Barbara University in California, director of the Climate Hazards Center, Chris Funk, confirmed the link with "warming in the atmosphere", and said the Madagascan authorities needed to work to improve water management.

"We think there's a lot that can be done in the short term. We can often forecast when there's going to be above normal rains and farmers can use that information to increase their crop production. We're not powerless in the face of climate change," he added.

Successive droughts have dried out the soil in the south of the country. Ocha/Reuters

The current drought's impact is now being felt in larger towns in southern Madagascar too, with many children forced to beg on the streets for food.

"The prices in the market are going up - three or four times. People are selling their land to get some money to buy food," added Tsina Endor, who works for a charity, Seed, in Tolanaro.

Her colleague, Lomba Hasoavana, said he and many others had taken to sleeping in their cassava fields to try to protect their crops from people desperate for food, but this had become too dangerous.

"You could risk your life. I find it really, really hard because every day I have to think about feeding myself and my family," he said, adding: "Everything is so unpredictable about the weather now. It's a huge, huge question mark - what will happen tomorrow?"

Links - BBC