Sydney is sweltering again.

Denizen lee is evidently a happy Peter Heater user,

so far in April the average has been 24.8, 2.4 degrees higher than the long-term average.

Svengali wrote on Apr 28^th, 2016 at 11:41am:



Wow, temperatures in the low 20's is sweltering?

Global warming could turn Middle East and Northern Africa into 'dead zones' for humans and force 500 million people to relocate
Researchers say heat waves could occur ten times more often
Midday temperatures on hot days could climb to 50 degrees Celsius

A new study has warned that rising global temperatures could render large swathes of the Middle East and North Africa too hot for humans.
Experts say the future of humanity is these areas is 'in jepoardy' and say it could affect up to 500 million people.
Researchers found the number of extremely hot days in the region has doubled since 1970.
By mid-century, during the warmest periods, temperatures will not fall below 30 degrees at night, and during daytime they could rise to 46 degrees Celsius (approximately 114 degrees Fahrenheit).
By mid-century, during the warmest periods, temperatures will not fall below 30 degrees at night, and during daytime they could rise to 46 degrees Celsius (approximately 114 degrees Fahrenheit).

WHAT THE STUDY FOUND
By the end of the century, midday temperatures on hot days could even climb to 50 degrees Celsius (approximately 122 degrees Fahrenheit).

Another finding: Heat waves could occur ten times more often than they do now.
By mid-century, 80 instead of 16 extremely hot days.

'In future, the climate in large parts of the Middle East and North Africa could change in such a manner that the very existence of its inhabitants is in jeopardy,' says Jos Lelieveld, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and

Professor at the Cyprus Institute.
Lelieveld and his team concluded that ven if Earth's temperature were to increase on average only by two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times, the temperature in summer in these regions will increase more than twofold.
By mid-century, during the warmest periods, temperatures will not fall below 30 degrees at night, and during daytime they could rise to 46 degrees Celsius (approximately 114 degrees Fahrenheit).

By the end of the century, midday temperatures on hot days could even climb to 50 degrees Celsius (approximately 122 degrees Fahrenheit).

Another finding: Heat waves could occur ten times more often than they do now.
By mid-century, 80 instead of 16 extremely hot days
In addition, the duration of heat waves in North Africa and the Middle East will prolong dramatically.

Between 1986 and 2005, it was very hot for an average period of about 16 days, by mid-century it will be unusually hot for 80 days per year.

At the end of the century, up to 118 days could be unusually hot, even if greenhouse gas emissions decline again after 2040.

'If mankind continues to release carbon dioxide as it does now, people living in the Middle East and North Africa will have to expect about 200 unusually hot days, according to the model projections,' says Panos Hadjinicolaou, Associate Professor at the Cyprus Institute and climate change expert.

Atmospheric researcher Jos Lelieveld is convinced that climate change will have a major impact on the environment and the health of people in these regions. 'Climate change will significantly worsen the living conditions in the Middle East and in North Africa.

Prolonged heat waves and desert dust storms can render some regions uninhabitable, which will surely contribute to the pressure to migrate,' said Jos Lelieveld.

The research team recently also published findings on the increase of fine particulate air pollution in the Middle East.
It was found that desert dust in the atmosphere over Saudi Arabia, Iraq and in Syria has increased by up to 70 percent since the beginning of this century.

This is mainly attributable to an increase of sand storms as a result of prolonged droughts.
Desert dust storms such as here in Kuwait could occur more often in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of climate change, the researchers find.

Desert dust storms such as here in Kuwait could occur more often in the Middle East and North Africa as a result of climate change, the researchers find.

ARE DESERTS TO BLAME?
Researchers warned of a desert warming amplification in regions such as the Sahara.
Deserts do not buffer heat well, which means that the hot and dry surface cannot cool by the evaporation of ground water.

Since the surface energy balance is controlled by heat radiation, the greenhouse effect by gases such as carbon dioxide and water vapor will increase disproportionately.

It is expected that climate change will contribute to further increases, which will worsen environmental conditions in the area.

In the now published study, Lelieveld and his colleagues first compared climate data from 1986 to 2005 with predictions from 26 climate models over the same time period.
It was shown that the measurement data and model predictions corresponded extremely well, which is why the scientists used these models to project climate conditions for the period from 2046 to 2065 and the period from 2081 to 2100...

Strange that the CO2 theory is for little daytime change and warmer nights. I guess the theory is flawed.

Earlier this year, Sydney had a record 43 days in a row with maximums above average, in the period up to March 18.
That record stands but 2016 now also counts the equal-second longest such run, with 33 above-average days up until Thursday.
The latest sequence - broken by Friday's top of a sub-par 18.6 degree - matched the 33 days of warmer-than-average weather to June 5, 2014, Acacia Pepler, a climatologist at the bureau, says.

With Thursday nudging past 20 degrees, the city had 141 such days in a row after a rare cool patch in early January. The record of 180 such days stretched from November 6, 1913 to May 4, 1914.

Even with a cool final week in the month, Sydney may yet set a record for average daytime temperatures, with 23.2 degrees set in 2014 the mark to beat. As of May 26, the month-to-date average was 23.8 degrees - but with a few chilly days to go, the tally may fall just short.

Hot autumn
Sydney may also come close to its warmest autumn on record. The mark to beat was set in 2014 when mean temperatures - the average of day and night - came in at 20.2 degrees, just ahead of 1958, according to the bureau. Maximums for the 2014 autumn were also a record 24.5 degrees, while so far this season, tops are running well ahead with an average just over 25 degrees.

Balmy nights
This May has been sunny, averaging about 7.7 hours a day, but the lack of clouds has lately led to some cool overnight temperatures will little to trap the heat in. Even so, Sydney had 232 nights in a row where the mercury stayed above 12 degrees up until May 19, easily eclipsing the previous record of 217 days set in 2004-05 and 1973-74. So far this month, average minimums are running at just under 14 degrees compared with the long-run average for Sydney in May of 11.6 degrees, the bureau said. The recent cool spell should narrow the gap to about 2 degrees by the end of May.

What happened to the rain?
The relative absence of clouds is also evident in the rain gauge. The prospect of the odd shower over the weekend means the rain tally may yet get a late top-up. Heading into the weekend, just 4.8 millimetres had been registered at the bureau's Observatory Hill site.
Depending on the timing of Monday's predicted 2-10 millimetres of rain - the monthly cut-off point for rain is 9am on the last day of the month - Sydney could notch one of its five driest Mays in records going back to the 1850s.
The other especially dry years were 2008, when just three millimetres landed at the main city site in a month when the average rainfall is just under 120 millimetres. Other dry years include 1957, with 3.7 millimetres, 1860 with 4.5 millimetres and 1885 with 5.2 millimetres.

Nationally, rainfall has also been below-average during the past 12 months, says Karl Braganza, head of climate monitoring at the bureau. The big El Nino event in the Pacific - in which the usual westward-blowing winds stall or reverse - was one big influence on the reduced rainfall tallies.
The good news for farmers is that the breakdown of the event points to an improving outlook "The recorded rainfall pattern for May is certainly looking less El Nino-like, and the bureau's seasonal outlook suggests a higher probability of above-average rainfall over the next few months," Dr Braganza says.

El Nino and global heat
The El Nino gave a spike to global temperatures as the altered wind patterns meant a massive area of the Pacific took in less of the extra building up in the atmosphere, thanks mainly to rising levels of greenhouse gases.
Monash University's Neville Nicholls - this week inducted as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science for his research on climate variability - has highlighted how the recent El Nino compared with the two other huge events in 1982-83 and 1997-98. (See chart below of above-average temperatures in degrees as measured in a key region of the equatorial Pacific.)

"You can see that they are all about the same intensity - and they all show a similar life cycle," Professor Nicholls said.
As a second chart (see below) of NASA's global surface temperatures shows, however, the baseline for when the event starts is rising, pointing to the background warming from climate change.
"So the 1997/98 event is about 0.3 degrees warmer than the 1982-83 event, and the 2015-16 event is about 0.5 degrees warmer than the 1997-98 event," Professor Nicholls said.
"While strong El Nino events don't appear to be getting more intense or more frequent, they are starting out at a higher background global mean temperature," he said. "So the reason we have seen record global temperatures over the past 12 months is not because the El Nino was especially strong, but because global warming had 'lifted' the baseline temperature."

Read more:

Wow. El Ninos' cause big jumps in global temperatures. Who Knew. Kevin Trenberth did.

Of course El Ninos' are natural. So natural variations cause temperature increase.

I notice Professor Nichols doesn't detail why BoM have a history of El Ninos' going back to 1902. So it is not a modern phenomenon.

But we have to find a cause and cure it, because humans know everything.