Australia warmer than rest of world with longer summers, experts say

Australia’s temperatures have increased slightly more than the global average, the country’s weather bureau said on Monday.

While the average temperature in the rest of the world increased by 1.1 degrees Celsius, “Australia has warmed by about 1.4 degrees,” said Karl Braganza, the head of climate monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology.

“Australia warms slightly more than the global average,” he told a Senate environment committee hearing in Canberra.

If the temperatures across the rest of the world increase by 3.4 degrees Celsius on average – which was estimated in a recent climate report – Australia is projected to be closer to 4 degrees, he said.

“The risks associated with things like extreme events have been heightened in more recent times,” he added.

Andrew Johnson, the bureau’s chief executive, said the risk of severe bush fires continued as Australia was expected to become drier and warmer in the coming years.

The comments from the authorities came as an independent analysis of weather data showed Australian summers were getting longer and winters shorter due to global warming.

The Australia Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, found that summers across most of the country between 1999 and 2018 were about 31 days longer than in the 1950s and 1960s.

Meanwhile, winter temperatures were experienced for 23 fewer days than in the mid-20th century benchmark, the data analysis found.

Due to the changes, Australians have experienced summers that were twice as long as winters since 2014.

2019 was Australia’s warmest and driest year on record.