Extreme weather events are increasing

"According to scientists in the joint CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR) human-induced climate change is likely to be a major cause of [the Australian drought]. 

This is due to two factors: decreasing rainfall associated with increasing atmospheric pressure in the region, with the rainfall belt moving further south, and increasing evaporative losses from plants and remaining wet surfaces.

Attribution of this long-term “drought” to human-induced climate change is greatly strengthened by global climate model results that indicate that for a greenhouse-warmed world the rainfall belts in both hemispheres will move poleward. 

Drying is thus predicted to occur in “Mediterranean-type” climates (climate with winter rainfall maxima) in southern Europe, California, southern Africa and Australia, as has been observed.

As average temperatures rise due to global warming so too does the frequency of extreme high temperatures.

A major heat wave in 2003 is well documented for Europe. There were an estimated 35,000 additional deaths.


In 2008 Adelaide experienced a heat wave with 15 days over 35°C, estimated to have a frequency of 1 in 3000 years based on the past record.

The southeast Australian heatwave of late January 2009 caused an estimated 374 excess deaths in Victoria according to the Victorian Department of Human Services, more than twice the 173 deaths in the bushfires of “Black Saturday”, 7 February[...]. 

Adaptive measures could reduce some of the damage or deaths from heat waves."

Source:

"RECENT AND CURRENT ECONOMIC COSTS

OF CLIMATE CHANGE TO AUSTRALIA"

Authors:  Barrie Pittock [1] and Andrew Glikson [2]

[1] Dr. Barrie Pittock, PSM, is the Author of “Climate Change: The Science, Impacts

and Solutions” (CSIRO Publishing, 2009). See above.

[2] Dr Andrew Glikson is an Earth and paleo-climate scientist, Visiting Fellow at the

Australian National University, Research School of Earth Science and School of

Archaeology and Anthropology.