Jan 6, 2010
CANBERRA – As firefighters continued to battle huge fronts in Western Australia and Tasmania yesterday, confirmation came that worse lies ahead as the nation is heated further by global warming.
The Bureau of Meteorology said Australia had been getting hotter every decade for the past 70 years and the trend was expected to continue.
Its latest climate statement said the past 10 years were the hottest decade since records began.
Last year – Australia’s second-hottest – produced record-breaking heatwaves that saw temperatures soar to 46.4C in Melbourne and forced Adelaide to endure eight consecutive days above 35C.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement said the mean temperature for the past 10 years had climbed 0.48C above the 1961-1990 average, climbing further last year to 0.9C above the average.
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