Drought Spanning Southern Australia Now Officially Worst On Record

[hatrack]

THE drought affecting southern Australia is officially the worst on record. David Jones, the head of climate analysis at the Bureau of Meteorology, said the drought affecting south-west Western Australia, south-east South Australia, Victoria and northern Tasmania "is now very severe and without historical precedent".

Dr Jones said Victoria had had "the driest multi-year period on record, but also by far the hottest". He said the rainfall deficiencies were the largest on record. "If you look at Victoria, where the effect has been particularly severe, in the last 12 years we have now missed out on two years of rainfall, which is an extraordinary result,” he said. “Across Victoria as a whole, if you add up how much rainfall has been missed in 12 years, it is now up around 1300mm or four feet of rainfall, a very, very large rainfall deficit."

In contrast, much of northern Australia is experiencing well above average rainfall, with a record high rainfall across the Top End, the Kimberley and parts of Cape York Peninsula. Dr Jones said the current dry started in 1996 in Victoria, while the Murray Darling Basin moved into drought in late 2001.

He said temperatures were running at about one degree "above any previous comparable drought. That is substantially hotter, and that one degree is a global warming signal."

EDIT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24474671-11949,00.html

[Barrett808]

1. "That one degree is a global warming signal."

Yes, indeedy. Australia's probably the first industrialized nation to really feel the effects of the warming.