Few people realise that snow was once a common occurrence for southern Australia’s climate. Historical records help document impacts of past weather extremes such as heatwaves, floods, droughts and even snow. Now scientists are using these fascinating resources to uncover more about Australia’s climate history and also shed light on modern severe weather events...
Tag: Bureau of Meteorology
Historical climate data can improve our assessment of future climate risk
Australia is a land characterised by dramatic climate and weather extremes. Currently, our understanding of the nation’s climatic history is mostly confined to official records kept by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology that begin in 1900, despite the fact that observations are available from first European settlement of Australia in 1788. Colonial weather observations taken … Continue reading Historical climate data can improve our assessment of future climate risk
How do we analyse historical climate data?
Learn how our team of researchers will analyse a new set of early weather data from the Adelaide Survey Department, South Australia, in the 1800s. ...
Call for citizen scientists to help complete Australia’s longest daily weather record
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...
We dug up Australian weather records back to 1838 and found snow is falling less often
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. ...
Understanding why Australia’s extreme events are becoming more frequent and intense
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. ...