Dramatically increased rate of observed hot record breaking in recent Australian temperatures

Sophie C. Lewis*, Andrew D. King

*Corresponding author for this work

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    33 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Persistent extreme temperatures were observed in Australia during 2012-2014. We examine changes in the rate of hot and cold record breaking over the observational record for Australia- and State-wide temperatures. The number of new hot (high-maximum and high-minimum temperatures) temperature records increases dramatically in recent decades, while the number of cold records decreases. In a stationary climate, cold and hot records are expected to occur in equal frequency on longer than interannual time scales; however, during 2000-2014, new hot records outnumber new cold records by 12 to one on average. Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 experiments reveal increased hot temperature record breaking occurs in simulations that impose anthropogenic forcings but not in natural forcings-only experiments. This disproportionate hot to cold record breaking rates provides a useful indicator of nonstationarity in temperatures, which is related to the underlying mean observed Australian warming trend of 0.9°C since high-quality records began in 1910.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)7776-7784
    Number of pages9
    JournalGeophysical Research Letters
    Volume42
    Issue number18
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 28 Sept 2015

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