Climate News

Climate change made Australia's January heatwave five times more likely, scientists find

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group say human-caused climate change made the extreme heat that hit south-eastern Australia in early January five times more likely. Down To Earth reports that between 5 and 10 January temperatures topped 40C in cities including Melbourne and Sydney, with Melbourne reaching 44.4C on 9 January. The study found climate change added about 1.6C to the heat; such an event is now expected about once every five years, against once every 25 years without global warming.

The heat came with dangerous fires. On 10 January, RNZ reported that Victoria's premier declared a state of disaster after more than 60 fires broke out, with the Longwood fire alone burning about 144,000 hectares. A day later, Malay Mail reported over 300 buildings destroyed, more than 70 of them houses, and one death near Longwood.

"This is no longer a distant future threat — it is the reality of our climate today." — Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Australian National University, via Down To Earth

How each outlet framed it

• Down To Earth — the science: odds, added heat, and a projection of such heat about every two years at 2.6C of warming.
• RNZ — the emergency on the ground, fire by fire, and the emotion in towns such as Natimuk.
• Malay Mail — the scale of the damage and the comparison with the 2019–2020 "Black Summer" fires.

What we don't know yet: the full cost of the fires; early counts of destroyed structures were described as conservative and rose within a day. The attribution study covers the heat itself, not every factor behind each fire.