In Australia, New Record High Temps Outnumbered Lows For Past 50 Years - Now 2 Or 3-To-1 Ratio

[hatrack]

New research from the Bureau of Meteorology shows that in the past 50 years, Australia's had far more record high temperatures than low temperatures. And the scientist who did the research says there are more extremely hot days to come.

The Bureau's Blair Trewin said the trend was increasingly noticeable over the past decade. "While both high temperature records and low temperature records continue to be set in Australia, we've seen over the last 50 years high records increasingly outnumbered low records," he said.

"And over the last 10-12 years, high temperature records have been broken at a rate two-to-three times higher than low temperature records." Dr Trewin says while low records are still occurring, they are being set less frequently. "Low temperature records are still occurring, however, record highs have become increasingly frequent since the mid-1990s," he said. "In 2009 Australia experienced three major heatwaves - in January/February, August, and November - all of which saw widespread record-breaking over large areas. The last time record lows occurred on that scale was in June 2007 in tropical Australia."

The results were taken from an analysis of 68 locations around Australia covering the period since 1957, and tie in with the warming trend of 0.1-0.2 degrees Celsius per decade over the same period. The figures also come after Australia experienced its hottest decade since records began in 1910. "It's consistent with a lot of other information we have. We know there's been consistent warming trend in average temperatures in Australia over that time period," Dr Trewin said.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/28/2803928.htm