What was Australia’s climate like before official weather records began in the early 1900s? How did the climate impact the lives of people living in the 1800s? The answers to these questions lie deep in historical records, such as old weather journals, early newspapers, photographs, and colonial paintings. And thanks to some very dedicated early-settlers, … Continue reading Help piece together Australia’s longest daily weather record
The team at Climate History Australia aim to reconstruct the Australian climate over past centuries. You too can discover more about the history of South Australia’s climate with these 16 images relating to the climate history of the Adelaide region. ...
Climate History Australia has launched a new citizen science project to fill a gap in the daily data available for the Adelaide region between 1848 and 1856...
In the year 1843, the ‘Great March Comet’ with its extremely long tail was splendidly visible from even the daytime skies of the Southern Hemisphere. However in Adelaide, South Australia, there was another reason to look skyward for what in modern times might seem like an unlikely group – the Royal Engineers. ...
We pieced together weather records back to 1838 to create Australia’s longest analysis of daily temperature extremes and their impacts on society. We found snow was once a regular feature of the southern Australian climate. But as Australia continues to warm under climate change, cold extremes are becoming less frequent and heatwaves more common. ...
The year 2019 was Australia’s hottest and driest year on record. These two factors combined to create the worst bushfire and drought conditions since the Bureau of Meteorology's daily weather observations began in 1910. After the record-shattering year that the country has just experienced, our team attended the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society annual meeting and international conference in Fremantle, WA, in February this year. ...
Every time a weather extreme occurs, some people quickly jump in to say we’ve been through it all before: that worse events have happened in the past, or it’s just part of natural climate variability. The recent bushfire crisis is a case in point. ...
Climate History Australia has been developed by researchers from The Australian National University to provide a central hub for historical climate research in our region. This initiative follows on from the South-eastern Australian Recent Climate History (SEARCH) project which was hosted by the University of Melbourne from 2009–2014. ...
The women screamed as the huge waves crashed loudly on the wooden deck. Horrified, they watched the foaming torrent wash away their blankets. Many dropped to their knees, praying for the violent rocking to stop. The sea raged around them as the wind whipped up into a frenzy, damaging all but one of the heavily loaded ships. The severe storm was yet another taste of the ferocious weather that slammed the First Fleet as it made its way across the Southern Ocean in December 1787. ...
Old weather diaries are becoming important in climate research. To really understand climate change, we need to look at the way the climate behaves over a long time. We need many years of weather information. But the Bureau of Meteorology’s high-quality instrumental climate record only dates back to the start of the 20th century. ...
