The Continent-Size Canary

"Trust me, matey...it is getting hotter down under." Bill Fintel photo

Measuring global warming, if it is occurring, is a task burdened with highly variable data, and hence frequently questioned results. So through the eyes of National Geographic, lets take a look at Australia, "the continent-size Canary".

The rough-hewn sandstone buildings perched atop Observatory Hill have been keeping an eye on Sydney Harbor since 1858. They've pretty much seen it all—from the installation of the city's first gaslights to the construction of the now iconic Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge.

But at 2:55 p.m. on January 18, 2013, meteorological equipment in the observatory registered something new: a read-out marking the hottest day in the city's history: 45.8°C (114.4°F). (Note this link takes you to the current month, to see Jan data, select the month of Jan 2013.)

Much of the continent was languishing in the grip of a heat wave that would break 123 heat and flood-related records in 90 days—among them, the hottest summer on record and the hottest seven consecutive days ever recorded.

Now why the Canary analogy? Because of a very nice scientific phrase, called "signal to noise ratio".

The anomaly stood out. Numbers like those break through what climate scientists like David Jones, manager of climate monitoring prediction at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, call the "signal to noise" ratio.

"One of the first places on the planet where the global warming signal is easy to discern is actually Australia, because of this low temperature variability," Jones said. "And that's exactly what we're seeing. The Australian warming trend is very clearly apparent in our records. It pops out quite quickly from the background noise of weather patterns."

I think my next line of research will be to see how the Australia wine growing regions are faring.