Heatwaves have become more frequent and have been lasting longer across much of the planet, including Australia, over the past seven decades and the trend is accelerating as the world warms.
Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes based at the University of NSW said the findings emerged from the first comprehensive assessment of heatwaves down to regional levels.
Australia is among the parts of the world experience more frequent and longer heatwaves, and the trend is accelerating as the planet warms up.Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Sophie Lewis developed a metric of so-called cumulative heat to enable the comparison of heatwaves over time and between regions. Their results are published inTypically a heatwave would be at least three successive days in the top 10 per cent of warmest days for that time of the year for a particular location.
Teasing out the regional variations was important because areas that were enduring longer, slightly warmer heatwaves would require different management systems for public health and energy supply than shorter, more intense events – even if cumulative intensities were similar, the paper said. Trend changes were not globally uniform in magnitude, with the biggest shifts occurring in regions already "known to experience disproportionately more adverse effects of climate change", it stated.policymakers that urgent action is needed now if we are to prevent the worst outcomes of
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