Scientists in NSW have one card left to play to identify the cause of massive oyster deaths in Port Stephens.
A mysterious illness is wiping out the Pacific oysters, while leaving the smaller Sydney Rock variety growing unharmed.
Port Stephens is the second biggest production area in NSW.
There are about 60 growers and Pacific oysters make up 25 per cent of the production there.
Ian Lyall, from the NSW Department of Fisheries, says scientists at Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute have been looking for a cause since oysters starting dying 12 months ago, but haven't found any signs of disease.
"The final thing we can do is what's called a transmission trial, set up to exclude a transmissible agent and that could take a few months."
Mr Lyall says pollution could be the other cause of oyster deaths.
"Researchers are working closely with the NSW Food Authority to analyse water quality and the Environmental Protection Agency to look at pollution, but we have not come across a single agent or group of agents that are causing these mortalities."
He says growers are very upset.
"This is a very valuable crop and the loss of income is really impacting on the growers who focus on Pacific oysters."
There is some assistance available, but the State Government has encouraged growers to diversify into different species and sources of income, saying that it can't continue to help after a series of disastrous disease outbreaks and weather events in recent years.
Growers in Wallis Lake, the state's biggest oyster production area, have stopped taking oysters from Port Stephens to limit the spread of whatever is affecting them.
A recent headline – Failed doubters trust leaves taxpayers six-figure loss – marked the end of a four-year epic saga of secretly-funded climate denial, harassment of scientists and tying-up of valuable government resources in New Zealand.
It’s likely to be a familiar story to my scientist colleagues in Australia, the UK, USA and elsewhere around the world.
But if you’re not a scientist, and are genuinely trying to work out who to believe when it comes to climate change, then it’s a story you need to hear too. Because while the New Zealand fight over climate data appears finally to be over, it’s part of a much larger, ongoing war against evidence-based science.
From number crunching to controversy
In 1981 as part of my PhD work, I produced a seven-station New Zealand temperature series, known as 7SS, to monitor historic temperature trends and variations from Auckland to as far south as Dunedin in southern New Zealand.
A decade later, in 1991-92 while at the NZ Meteorological Service, I revised the 7SS using a new homogenisation approach to make New Zealand’s temperature records more accurate, such as adjusting for when temperature gauges were moved to new sites.
The Kelburn Cable Car trundles up into the hills of Wellington. Photo: Shutterstock/amorfati.art
For example, in 1928 Wellington’s temperature gauge was relocated from an inner suburb near sea level up into the hills at Kelburn, where - due to its higher, cooler location - it recorded much cooler temperatures for the city than before.
With statistical analysis, we could work out how much Wellington’s temperature has really gone up or down since the city’s temperature records began back in 1862, and how much of that change was simply due to the gauge being moved uphill. (You can read more about re-examining NZ temperatures here.)
So far, so uncontroversial.
But then in 2008, while working for a NZ government-owned research organisation, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), we updated the 7SS. And we found that at those seven stations across the country, from Auckland down to Dunedin, between 1909 and 2008 there was a warming trend of 0.91°C.
And rather than ever contacting me to ask for an explanation of the science, as I’ve tried to briefly cover above, the Coalition appeared determined to find a conspiracy.
NIWA’s raw data for their official temperature graph shows no warming. But NIWA shifted the bulk of the temperature record pre-1950 downwards and the bulk of the data post-1950 upwards to produce a sharply rising trend… NIWA’s entire argument for warming was a result of adjustments to data which can’t be justified or checked. It’s shonky.
Mr Hide’s attack continued for 18 months, with more than 80 parliamentary questions being put to NIWA between February 2010 and July 2011, all of which required NIWA input for the answers.
The science minister asked NIWA to re-examine the temperature records, which required several months of science time. In December 2010, the results were in. After the methodology was reviewed and endorsed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, it was found that at the seven stations from Auckland to Dunedin, between 1909 and 2008 there was a warming trend of 0.91°C.
That is, the same result as before.
But in the meantime, before NIWA even had had time to produce that report, a new line of attack had been launched.
Off to court
In July 2010, a statement of claim against NIWA was filed in the High Court of New Zealand, under the guise of a new charitable trust: the New Zealand Climate Science Education Trust (NZCSET). Its trustees were all members of the NZ Climate Science Coalition.
The NZCSET challenged the decision of NIWA to publish the adjusted 7SS, claiming that the “unscientific” methods used created an unrealistic indication of climate warming.
The Trust ignored the evidence in the Meteorological Service report I first authored, which stated a particular adjustment methodology had been used. The Trust incorrectly claimed this methodology should have been used but wasn’t.
In July 2011 the Trust produced a document that attempted to reproduce the Meteorological Service adjustments, but failed to, instead making lots of errors.
On September 7 2012, High Court Justice Geoffrey Venning delivered a 49-page ruling, finding that the NZCSET had not succeeded in any of its challenges against NIWA.
The NZ weather wars in the news. Image: The New Zealand Herald
The judge was particularly critical about retired journalist and NZCSET Trustee Terry Dunleavy’s lack of scientific expertise.
Justice Venning described some of the Trust’s evidence as tediously lengthy and said “it is particularly unsuited to a satisfactory resolution of a difference of opinion on scientific matters".
Taxpayers left to foot the bill
After an appeal that was withdrawn at the last minute, late last year the NZCSET was ordered to pay NIWA NZ$89,000 in costs from the original case, plus further costs from the appeal.
But just this month, we have learned that the people behind the NZCSET have sent it into liquidation as they cannot afford the fees, leaving the New Zealand taxpayer at a substantial, six-figure loss.
On the surface it looks like the trust was purely for the purpose of taking action, which is not what one would consider the normal use of a charitable trust.
This has been an insidious saga. The Trust aggressively attacked the scientists, instead of engaging with them to understand the technical issues; they ignored evidence that didn’t suit their case; and they regularly misrepresented NIWA statements by taking them out of context.
Yet their attack has now been repeatedly rejected in Parliament, by scientists, and by the courts.
The end result of the antics by a few individuals and this Trust is probably going to be a six-figure bill for New Zealanders to pay.
My former colleagues have had valuable weeks tied up with wasted time in defending these manufactured allegations. That’s time that could have profitably been used investigating further what is happening with our climate.
But there is a bigger picture here too.
Merchants of doubt
Doubt-mongering is an old strategy. It is a strategy that has been pursued before to combat the ideas that cigarette smoking is harmful to your health, and it has been assiduously followed by climate deniers for the past 20 years.
One of the best known international proponents of such strategies is US think tank, the Heartland Institute.
The first in a planned series of anti-global warming billboards in the US, comparing “climate alarmists” with terrorists and mass murderers. The campaign was canned after a backlash. Photo: The Heartland Institute
The first in a planned series of anti-global warming billboards in the US, comparing “climate alarmists” with terrorists and mass murderers. The campaign was canned after a backlash. The Heartland Institute
Just to be clear: there is no evidence that the Heartland Institute helped fund the NZ court challenge. In 2012, one of the Trustees who brought the action against NIWA said Heartland had not donated anything to the case.
An extract from a 1999 letter from the Heartland Institute to tobacco company Philip Morris. Image: University of California, San Francisco, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library
The Heartland Institute also has a long record of working with tobacco companies, as the letter on the right illustrates. (You can read that letter and other industry documents in full here. Meanwhile, Heartland’s reply to critics of its tobacco and fossil fuel campaigns is here.)
It’s taken a 15-year court battle with the US government to reach this point, and it shows that evidence can trump doubt-mongering in the long run.
A similar day may come for those who actively work to cast doubt on climate science.
Jim Salinger does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.
Selling water back to farmers could work out for the Murray River too. Photo: Flickr/Tourism.Victoria
The Commonwealth Government’s decision to sell up to 10 billion litres of its water allocation in the Murray-Darling Basin back to farmers could prove to be a win-win for irrigators and the river.
On the surface the decision seems to make no sense. The government bought the rights to water from farmers in the first place to restore the health of the river, why would it sell them back?
But the new decision reflects the variability of water supply and prices.
What water is the government selling?
The Commonwealth currently holds registered entitlements of just over 1,700 gigalitres, including 109 gigalitres in the Gwydir Valley where the proposed sale has been announced. Since 2009, the government has used these entitlements to allow extra water to flow through the river system, maintaining and restoring its health.
The decision to sell water back to farmers does not affect the government’s entitlement to water, which gives it the right to either use the water that is allocated to them, to carry it over for use in future years, or to trade it on the water market. This it will keep and with it, the right to use the allocation in full next year and the year after.
Instead, the government will sell part of its annual allocation of water. As of 31 December 2013, the Commonwealth had a total annual water allocation across the Murray-Darling Basin of close to 1,400 gigalitres. The annual allocation is made against the water entitlements purchased by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. The proposed 10-gigalitre sale by the Commonwealth is less than 1% of this total.
Has the government bought too much water?
If we were talking about land bought for a national park, and then sold a few years later, then this would indeed be strange.
But unlike having a title to land, the amount of water allocated under a water entitlement varies from year to year. Irrigators know this well and plan for variable water allocations from year to year.
In dry years, when less water is allocated to title holders, water is traded from willing sellers who can do without for a year to those who need the water to keep permanent plants alive and the water price will increase. The National Water Commission estimates that water trade increased Australia’s gross domestic product by A$220 million in 2008–09 through reallocation of water used in agriculture.
The government is simply doing the same thing. The Water Act, which established the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, also allows the government to trade its water if either (1) the water is not required and cannot be carried over to the following year; or (2) the proceeds from the sale are used to purchase water entitlements that are more effective in achieving the commonwealth’s environmental objectives.
This matches the logic that an irrigator might use in deciding whether or not to sell a water allocation. The irrigator will sell if the water can’t be used and can’t be carried over to the next year. Alternatively, the irrigator will sell if the proceeds can be used to purchase water at a different time or in a different catchment if this offers greater potential for the farm business.
Better for everyone
For some time the Commonwealth government has been reflecting on the question of actively trading environmental water. It released a discussion paper last year and received feedback from irrigators and others.
One of the irrigators' main concerns is that the Commonwealth’s water holding is very large, so any trade has the potential to affect water price. Given that the Commonwealth’s future trading behaviour is uncertain, so are any fluctuations in price. This makes it harder for irrigation businesses that rely on water trade to make decisions.
The other side of this is that the sale of environmental water allocations will only occur if irrigators see benefit in using the allocation they are purchasing. A trade will only occur if there is mutual benefit for both the environment and the farmer.
On this basis, one would hope that some trade of environmental water will see benefits for irrigators. Indeed, trade will overcome one of the most challenging aspects of water governance in Australia: achieving an optimum allocation of water between environmental and agricultural water use.
If we seek to place an impermeable divide between these two uses, labeling each drop of water as either for the environment or for farmers, then we have missed a huge opportunity. The same drop of water can deliver benefits for both environment and farmers and the best outcomes for regional communities will be achieved with arrangements that allow flexibility in the way water is allocated and delivered so that it can be used to find these win-wins.
Like all things in water management, it won’t be a panacea and there will no doubt be problems, but it is likely to be a step forward for productive use of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.
Michael Stewardson sits on the Commonwealth Environmental Water Scientific Advisory Panel. He leads an ARC Linkage Project that receives partner funding from the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) and is contracted to develop and implement a component of the CEWO's environmental monitoring and evaluation program.
The Federal Government has announced plans to sell back water entitlements to farmers along the Murray-Darling river system.
Irrigation in the Murray-Darling basin. The Government says the plan will help irrigators with the hot and dry weather. Photo: Tim Wimborne/Reuters
The Commonwealth currently owns almost 1,700 gigalitres of water in the basin, following several years of environmental buy-backs.
Parliamentary secretary for the environment Simon Birmingham says the sell-off will have important economic benefits while also maintaining environmental flows.
"The core test for the environmental water holder in undertaking these activities is whether it better achieves environmental outcomes, whether it aligns with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which the Coalition is committed to implementing in full and on time," he said.
"Trading will be limited and will only be a small portion of the overall entitlement held by the environmental water holder.
"But you can get these benefits because not every wetland, not every key asset would naturally receive water in every single year."
Mr Birmingham says the trade will significantly benefit agricultural production in the region.
"This will be good news for irrigators who will be keen to secure more water during this period of hot and dry weather," he said.
The Greens' environment spokeswoman, Lee Rhiannon, says the policy will come at the cost of the environment.
"When you start the sell-offs, particularly when it's driven by a Coalition government, you're opening the door to winding back the small achievements that have been made in terms of restoring health to the Murray-Darling basin," she said.
The Federal Government will release details of the first tender process later today.
It is a recipe cooked up to become one of the biggest international shows to be performed at an Australian arts festival.
Dido and Aeneas, performed in a giant water tank. Photo: Sydney Festival.
Take a giant water tank, dunk in half a dozen dancers and add a stage full of singers and musicians.
That is Dido and Aeneas, a choreographed opera transported from Germany to become the centerpiece of the Sydney Festival.
It was a logistical challenge installing the tank, filling it with 7,000 litres of chlorinated water, and installing it front of the stage at the Lyric Theatre.
Six dancers swirl around the pool for the first act of this tale that has its origins in Greco-Roman mythology and is designed around the 17th-century Henry Purcell opera.
"On the one side it's very playful, I'm trying to create a contemporary baroque opera and at the same time it's a tragic piece," the show's German choreographer Sasha Waltz said.
"It has a storyline that relates to our life at the moment, even though it's an ancient story."
Waltz believes the story is eternal, blending performance with the elements of water, fire and air.
"This is a story about the conflict between love and loyalty for society and it has a very tragic ending," she said.
Waltz first presented the show in Luxembourg in 2005 and has brought many of the original cast to Australia.
All up, there is a team of 60 performers and technicians, making it by far the most expensive festival event.
The orchestra is from the Akademie fur Alte Musik in Berlin and, in addition to the opera, will perform separate concerts at the Sydney Recital Hall.
Festival director Lieven Bertels first secured Waltz's opera for a festival in Holland in 2011.
He was so taken with it that he grabbed the chance to bring it to Australia as the headliner of his second festival here.
In the lead roles are English-born singer Reuben Willcox as Aeneas and Paris-based Aurore Ugolin as Dido.
They have been with the show since its inception and believe it would be difficult for new performers to step in as the roles are so physical and the singers are intertwined with the dancers.
"We singers tend to be concerned about our voice and how it would work musically and we were thrown into a much more physical situation where all kinds of normal routines were abandoned," Willcox said.
Ugolin says adding the singing and movement together is quite a challenge, but worthwhile.
"In fact it was a pleasure to build this piece all together with the dancing to the singing," she said.
Dido and Aeneas is at the Sydney Lyric from January 16 to 21.
It's hot enough to melt a bushman's boots. But cranking up the air-conditioning is not the only way to stay cool.
The heat is on, literally. It's sticky, uncomfortable and downright dangerous. Heatwaves are nothing new in Australia, but they're becoming longer, hotter and more common.
This is serious. 173 Australians lost their lives during the Black Saturday bushfires, but an estimated 400-pluspeople were killed by the heatwave that led up to it.
Infants, the elderly and people with certain heart conditions can be vulnerable to heat-related illness. If available, such people should certainly use air-conditioning. But not all of us have access to air-con. And when you turn on an air-conditioner, it can be expensive and it releases climate-changing greenhouse gases.
Here's out list of 26 ways to beat the heat without an air-conditioner.
House
1. Prevention is better than cure. Keep curtains and blinds closed during the day to block the heat and direct sunlight.
2. Close windows once the outside air is warmer than indoors.
3. At night, once the mercury drops, purge the accumulated hot air by opening windows and doors.
4. Halogen lights, dishwashers, cooking appliances and dryers all produce heat. Avoid using them during the hottest part of the day. Halogen lights are worth replacing to save energy, anyway.
5. Improvise an evaporative cooler by drying a load of washing in front of a fan. Sun exposure, especially when it's intense, gradually fades coloured fabric, so this is a great way to dry coloured loads.
6. Heat rises. If you have a two-storey house, stay downstairs. Sleep there, too.
People
7. Keep the family cool and hydrated. Keep a jug of drinking water in the fridge.
8. Stay cool from the inside out. For cooling snacks, make yoghurt, juice or pureed fruit icy-poles. Or put an icy pole stick into a fresh, ripe banana and freeze it.
9. Sitting for a while? Soak your feet in cold water. Add some grated ginger and bicarb soda just for fun.
10. Cool your caffeine. Try iced tea or an affogato, instead of hot tea or coffee.
11. Electric fans create cooling air movement using minimal electricity. For extra cooling, keep a spray bottle handy and regularly mist yourself with water.
12. But remember that a fan only works when it is blowing on you. If you're not in the room, switch it off.
13. Barley, rice or wheat-filled bags (used in winter as 'heat packs') can be put in the freezer and used as personal ice packs.
14. It's the best excuse you'll get to skip your lunchtime jog. Avoid excessive activity or switch to exercising very early in the day or very late in the evening, when it is cooler.
15. If you've got children, submerge some plastic toys in an ice-cream container filled with water. Freeze it. Then tell the kids they're on an ice fortress rescue mission!
Animals
16. Make sure pets have adequate shade, ventilation and water. You might have to bring them indoors for the day.
17. Find a shady spot in the garden and use a kids' clamshell as a paddling pool for your dog. Keep it topped up with clean water.
18. Leave out bowls of water in shady areas for wildlife. Also see Wildlife Victoria's factsheet for advice regarding heat stressed wildlife.
Out and about
19. If you have to venture outdoors, protect yourself from the sun's harmful UV rays by covering up with light, loose clothing, a hat and sunscreen, à la the original Slip Slop Slap SunSmart campaign.
20. Use reflective sunshades in the car. Open windows to purge the hot air when you first get in, before turning on cooling.
21. Escape the heat at air-conditioned cinemas, art galleries, libraries and other public buildings.
Serious stuff
22. As we mentioned earlier, some members of society are more vulnerable to heat stress. Follow these tips for keeping babies and children safe in hot weather. See the Heart Foundation's information on heatwaves. Also keep tabs on elderly family members and neighbours during heatwaves.
23. Don't leave anything that has a heartbeat (animals, children) in a locked car, even with the windows down. Temperatures inside cars can be as much as 20 to 30 degrees hotter than the outside temperature.
Long-term ideas
24. Put up exterior shade sails or grow deciduous vines over a pergola, particularly on the western side of your house.
25. Insulate your home.
26. The most energy efficient way to stay cool is to live in a well-designed home. If you're building or renovating, aim for a house that keeps cool without air-conditioning. Remember that there are often power outages on days of extreme heat, when the electricity grid struggles to cope. Efficient eco houses, like Josh's house in Perth, are the ones sitting cool and pretty when the power is out.
Original story by Josh Bavas and Kate Stephens, ABC News
Residents in western Queensland say showers this week were not enough to break one of the longest droughts in decades.
Average rainfall measuring up to 100 millimetres this week is the most to fall across western Queensland in 12 months.
Peter and Elizabeth Clark in the dried out dam on their property near Longreach yesterday. Photo: ABC News/Josh Bavas
Regions such as Julia Creek are struggling through their driest 15-month period on record.
Regional councils in Queensland are extending rate deadlines and offering more discounts.
McKinlay Shire Mayor Belinda Murphy says if it was not for tourism, many businesses that rely on cattle production would be finished.
"A lot of comments were made to us that in some cases it saved local business," she said.
Graziers forced to cut stock
Cattle producer Edwina Hick says almost all landowners across the west have been reducing stock numbers.
"You can see it in people's eyes, it's pretty soul destroying," she said.
Peter Clark and his family have been producing cattle on their property near Longreach in the state's central west for the past 35 years.
He says they began preparing for the worst when the drought began more than eight months ago.
"We started selling stock off in May - sold sheep off in July and we sold more in October and we've got 1,200 left on [our] land," he said.
Mr Clark says this month's heatwave made matters even worse.
"That wind and the high temperatures, I've never seen the evaporation rate like I have in the last month. It's been horrific," he said.
"Kangaroos are starting to die because of the heat and lack of anything to eat and the lack of water; it's just drying up.
"The further south you go from here, the worse it gets."
Worst drought in decades
The Queensland Agriculture Department says it is the worst drought since the mid 1990s.
Storms brought showers to western parts of the state yesterday, but many people on the land say much more is needed.
The weather bureau says the highest totals were around Charleville in the state's south-west, with 26mm recorded just east of the town yesterday.
Rain also fell on Wednesday night and yesterday morning across western Queensland from the Gulf country to the south-west.
Forecaster Janine Yuasa says the rain from Wednesday's storms led to flood warnings for the Thompson and Barcoo rivers and Cooper Creek.
"Given the heavy rainfall of between 50 and 145mm recorded in the past two days in the area between Blackall and Windorah, our hydrologists are expecting some minor flooding likely of the Barcoo River at Retreat during today," she said.
"Some river level rises are expected for the Cooper Creek at Windorah with minor flooding possible over the next few days."
A DESIRE to leave a lasting legacy is what motivated natural resource management organisation Condamine Alliance to begin its Dewfish Demonstration Reach project.
Condamine Alliance's Kevin Graham, board chairman John Herbert, and chief executive Phil McCullough.
What started as a plan to repair six areas, or roughly 40km of river, quickly snowballed into a mission to restore 110km of river and has gained national and international kudos.
The Reach stretches from the St Ruth Reserve on the Condamine River, to Loudoun Weir near Dalby and includes sections of the Myall Creek at Dalby and the Oakey Creek at the Bowenville Reserve and Munro.
Condamine Alliance principal project officer for the river Kevin Graham has been involved with the project as its coordinator since 2007.
On a day-to-day basis he is coordinating on-ground works, monitoring and evaluating results with research scientists and engaging with the community.
The river is monitored at control, reference and intervention sites and this data is evaluated by Agri-science Queensland, part of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
Artificial fish habitats are constructed and placed in the river at intervention sites - they range from fish hotels, to code holes and lunkers. It's an expensive exercise, with some habitats weighing up to 3.5 tonnes.
Aquatic vegetation has also been introduced to create habitats for small native fish.
The results speak for themselves. At intervention sites there has been a 1000 percent increase in golden perch, a 200pc increase in bony bream and a 300pc increase in dewfish levels.
"What we are finding is where we are able to put in in-stream habitats and the more complex we make it, the greater the number of fish and fish species that are assembled there," Mr Graham said.
"The interesting thing is we are seeing no increase in the control and reference sites, only in the intervention sites.
"The other thing we have found is where we have put in habitats; the small native fish are out-competing the juvenile carp.
"The key to it all is if you can improve the habitat for your native fish, you make it less likely for pest fish to inhabit those areas."
Condamine Alliance chief executive Phil McCullough said they started discussing the project in 2005 and decided to look beyond year-on-year projects to programs of long-term significance.
"Once you start bringing people together, that's when the project really started to happen and we realised you could make monumental changes," he said.
"What the project really showed us was if you find something people are really interested in and support them along the way; if they understand what you want to do and need to do in terms of environmental repair and include them in the discussion, a lot of people will come on board."
In 2012, the Dewfish Demonstration Reach won the National Riverprize Australia and was the water category winner for the Banksia Awards.
Another accolade was received in 2013 when they were named the biodiversity category winner for the United Nations Association of Australia World Environment Day Award.
International groups from the Philippines, Indonesia and US, as well as other natural resource management groups have since come to learn more about what makes the Dewfish Demonstration Reach so effective.
Although they are proud of their successes, Condamine Alliance is acutely aware of the important role played by its partners, including local councils, schools and fish stocking groups.
"We made the decision some time ago that trophies shouldn't sit in our office, they should sit in the offices of our partners - they get a chance to share it," he said.
"Really, the success comes down to a combination of a lot of people, volunteers and effort.
"This project has highlighted that you can make a difference if you don't try to tackle everything but stay focused on what you want as the end result."
Project boost
THE Dewfish Demonstration Reach project received another boost in late November.
Arrow Energy has invested $754,000 in the project over the next three years.
It is the largest donation Arrow Energy has given and the largest corporate investment Condamine Alliance has received to date.
Condamine Alliance CEO Phil McCullough said the partnership with Arrow Energy has secured the future of the Dewfish Demonstration Reach.
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry John McVeigh applauded the new partnership.
“The Condamine River plays an important role in the lifestyle of the community and the expansion of this project will see recreational fishers continue to enjoy native fish species,” Dr McVeigh said.
In 2014 Condamine Alliance hopes to begin work restoring the headwaters of the river system above Killarney and through to Warwick.
Australia has just sweltered through its hottest year on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
Average temperatures were 1.20 degrees Celsius above the long-term average of 21.8C, breaking the previous record set in 2005 by 0.17C, the bureau said in its Annual Climate Statement.
All states and territories recorded above average temperatures in 2013, with Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia all breaking annual average temperature records.
And every month of 2013 had national average temperatures at least 0.5C above normal, according to the statement.
The country recorded its hottest day on January 7 - a month which also saw the hottest week and hottest month since records began in 1910.
A new record was set for the number of consecutive days the national average temperature exceeded 39C – seven days between January 2 and 8, 2013, almost doubling the previous record of four consecutive days in 1973.
The highest temperature recorded during 2013 was 49.6C at Moomba in South Australia on January 12, which was the highest temperature in Australia since 1998.
Further, with mean temperatures across Australia generally well above average since September 2012, long periods of warmer-than-average days have been common, with a distinct lack of cold weather, the statement says.
Nights have also been warmer than average, but less so than days.
The country has experienced just one cooler-than-average year in the last decade - 2011.
Australian temperatures have warmed approximately 1C since 1950, consistent with global climate trends.
Globally, each of the past 13 years since 2001 have ranked among the 14 warmest on record.
The bureau's Neil Plummer told News 24 that as a predictor of climate in Australia, the statistics "speak for themselves", and that a "consistent body of evidence" gathered globally pointed to a "warming trend".
"All Australian records go back to 1910. The trend over that period is a little short of a degree warming over that period, where most of the warming has occurred since around about 1950, and that's consistent with the global pattern," he said.
"It's not just us at the bureau doing the number crunching, it is all the bureaus around the world, and it is that body of evidence that we're all seeing a warming over Australia and a warming world."
According to the weather bureau's statement, significant climate events of 2013 included:
The January heatwave, which saw a number of severe bushfires in south eastern Tasmania and in Victoria, where bushfires were particularly widespread.
An early start to the fire season saw major bushfires in the Blue Mountains during October, the most destructive in the region since 1968.
Ex-tropical cyclone Oswald, which caused heavy rain and flooding along the east coast in late January, with many coastal areas from Sydney to Cape York receiving more than 200mm of rainfall in 24 hours, and Upper Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland receiving 1496mm in eight days.
Tropical cyclone Rusty was the most intense tropical cyclone to make landfall in 2013, causing flooding in the Pilbara and Western Kimberley in late February.
Tropical cyclone Alessia crossed the coast near Darwin in late November, the earliest tropical cyclone to make landfall in the Northern Territory in 40 years.
The statement concurred with a report released by the United Nations' climate panel in September, saying that recent warming trends had been "dominated by the influence of increasing greenhouse gases and the enhanced greenhouse effect".
According to the landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, scientists are 95 per cent sure that humans are responsible for global warming.
The report, the result of almost seven years' work by more than 600 scientists and researchers, says the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 40 per cent since the pre-industrial era.
It presents a number of different scenarios of how climate change may unfold over the next century, but says the majority of climate models point to a mean temperature rise of around 2C.
University of New South Wales climate expert Dr Sarah Perkins says last year shows the effects of global warming are taking hold.
"It's here and now. We're actually starting to feel the effects, and even though the global temperature hasn't risen more than a degree at the moment, that's already had impacts on extreme temperatures and that's consistent with what we've been seeing for quite a while," she said.
Dr Perkins says record temperatures without the climatic influence of an El Nino makes 2013 especially significant.
"Usually when we have warmer than average temperatures and lower than average rainfall, that's associated with an El Nino summer," she said.
Australia has always been a country of extremes; we're no strangers to tropical cyclones or heatwaves or anything of the like, but it's the time they're occurring, particularly the start of the bushfire season this year. It was the earliest on record. That's what we're worried about.
Climate expert Dr Sarah Perkins
"When we have La Nina summers, we have higher than average rainfall and lower than average temperatures.
"However, the past two summers have been neutral years, so they should have be effectively average rainfall and average temperature.
"So that's what we're a little bit worried about - that we're seeing all these records breaking when we're not really in a pattern of climate that influences those sorts of extremes.
"Australia has always been a country of extremes; we're no strangers to tropical cyclones or heatwaves or anything of the like, but it's the time they're occurring, particularly the start of the bushfire season this year. It was the earliest on record. That's what we're worried about."
Earth's oceans also heating up
According to the bureau, the planet's oceans are also getting warmer, with sea surface temperatures over the past 10 years the warmest on record.
Mr Plummer said the waters around Australia were no exception.
"In fact the waters to the south of Australia were the warmest on record, too, so it's that consistent body of evidence, particularly since the 1950s, where we've seen quite a strong warming," he said.
In 2013, sea surface temperatures around Australia were "unusually warm throughout the year", according to the bureau statement, with the temperatures for January and February among the highest on record.
Surface temperatures off the western and southern coast of Australia from summer 2012–13 until May were "consistently very much above average," the bureau says.
Global temperatures on the rise
In an analysis of the BoM Annual Climate Statement written for the The Conversation website, bureau experts said that 2013 was the 6th hottest year on record globally, while 13 of the 14 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001.
As of the end of November, global temperatures were 0.49C above average, the authors said, adding that other parts of the world to experience their warmest year on record in 2013 included the tropical North Pacific region around and east of the Philippines, along with parts of central Asia.
Exceptionally warm sea temperatures in the western North Pacific had "contributed to a very active tropical cyclone season in the region, especially in October and November", they wrote.
"In those months there were seven super typhoons (the equivalent of a category 4 or 5 tropical cyclone in Australia) in as many weeks," they wrote, adding that the most significant of these was Typhoon Haiyan, which they described as one of the most intense tropical cyclones ever to make landfall.
Heat defines first days of 2014 as Australia swelters
Extreme conditions have persisted into the first days of 2014, with soaring temperatures in areas extending from Queensland's interior to Central Australia, northern South Australia and north-western New South Wales.
On Thursday, temperature records tumbled in central, western and north-west Queensland, with the mercury topping 40C in a number of areas.
Friday saw another searing day for parts of central and western Queensland, with St George reaching 47.2C.
Northerly winds will push the heat towards the state's south-east over the next few days. Brisbane is expected to reach a high of close to 40C on Saturday.
South Australia's far north also sweltered through near-record temperatures on Thursday, as ex-tropical cyclone Christine tracked across the state, bringing high winds.
John Nairn from the weather bureau says several outback towns had temperatures well into the 40s.
"Our temperatures have been near record, the highest temperature we had was at Moomba at 49.3 degrees but a lot of centres up there are pushing up around that 50 mark," he said.
Parts of the north Queensland coast have been lashed by record rainfall with thunderstorms causing flash flooding.
Flooding in Bowen in 2010.
Bowen on Queensland's Burdekin coast officially recorded 267 millimetres overnight.
That is more than double the previous 24 hour rain record for the month of 129 millimetres set in 1950.
Jonty Hall from the weather bureau says much of that came in an hour long deluge.
"Drainage really struggles to cope with that sort of rainfall especially over that period of time," he said.
In the Whitsundays, Hamilton Island registered 233 millimetres - also well up on the previous November record of 145 millimetres in 1991.
Two cars were stranded in Bowen but the occupants of both vehicles escaped.
The incidents have prompted renewed warnings from authorities about the dangers of driving into floodwaters.
Mr Hall says a slow moving thunderstorm system caused the deluge.
"We often see this kind of activity when we have these sort of very humid northerly winds feeding onto the coast," he said.
"We see these very localised, heavy falls."
Mr Hall says other places in the region have received much less.
"It tends to be very hit and miss so a lot of places might be waking up not really understanding what is going on because they haven't really received anything," he said.
The flash flooding closed the Bruce Highway just south of Bowen along with a number of other roads.
