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Man made greenhouse emissions caused Australia’s hottest summer

Manmade Emissions Led to the Heat Wave That Baked Australia Motherboard, By Jason Koebler, 27 June 13 Scientists are 90 percent sure this year’s Australian heat wave couldn’t have happened without manmade influence. Photo: CIA

Surprise, surprise: The record-breaking heat wave that plagued Australia earlier this year with temperatures that reached up to 121 degrees was almost certainly caused by humans, according to a new study.

The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters by scientists at the University of Melbourne and Australia’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Systems Science, highlights how humans have heightened drought effects on the continent. According to the authors, “human contribution to the increased odds of Australian summer extremes like 2013 was substantial, while natural climate variations alone, including El Niño Southern Oscillation, are unlikely to explain the record temperature.”

The so-called “angry summer” was easily the hottest on record, with temperatures hitting more than 27 degrees above average in some parts of the country during the first week of January. When it was happening, meteorologists with the Australian government said that though “Australia has always experienced heat waves … the event affecting much of inland Australia has definitely not been typical.”…..”The model experiments also show that these types of extreme Australian summers will become more severe and more frequent in the future, with further global warming,” she said. ”Extreme summers occur 8 times more frequently in the climate model simulations that include human influences, such as greenhouse gases, compared to the climate model simulations with only natural climate variations.” http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/manmade-emissions-led-to-the-heat-wave-that-baked-australia-1#ixzz2XZtGQ5uR

June 28, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA, climate change