Australia recorded record winter temperatures on Monday, with temperatures reaching 41.6C in parts of the country’s northwest coast, the Australian Meteorological Agency said.
The temperature, which is 0.4°C above the previous record, was recorded at the Yampi Sound military camp at 3:37 p.m. local time, the source said.
It was “the highest August temperature for the whole of Australia” and “a new record maximum temperature for a winter month in Australia,” a Bureau of Meteorology spokesman told AFP.
Although the record is “provisionally confirmed,” scientists must ensure that it is not the result of a local anomaly before it officially enters the record books.
The previous record of 41.2°C was set in August 2020 in West Roebuck (north-west).
Winter in Australia lasts from June to August.
About 18% of Australia’s land area is desert, and scorching heat is common throughout the year in temperate zones.
Australia’s climate is strongly influenced by three cyclical weather patterns: temperature changes in the Indian Ocean, changes in a belt of winds that moves between Australia and Antarctica — the Southern Annular Mode — and changes in Pacific weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina.
Certain combinations of these three climatic conditions can cause exceptionally hot, dry or wet conditions in different parts of Australia.
Australia’s three major weather patterns are likely to be affected by human-induced climate change, according to a study by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which is supported by the Australian government.
The Bureau of Meteorology estimates that “the combination of these major climate influences and global warming” contributed to making the winter of 2023 the warmest winter on record in Australia.
Scientists have already announced that 2024 will likely be the hottest year ever recorded on Earth.
From January to July, global temperatures were already 0.7°C higher than the average temperatures recorded between 1991 and 2020, according to the European Copernicus Observatory.