Australia has its hottest day on record as Sydney residents brace for heat, fires and smoke - The Washington Post

Simulated “misery index” in Australia on Dec. 17, 2019. (earth.nullschool.net)

Andrew Freedman

Editor focusing on extreme weather, climate change, science and the environment.

December 18 at 11:10 AM

Australia had its hottest day on record Dec. 17, with a nationally averaged temperature of 105.6 degrees (40.9), according to the country’s Bureau of Meteorology. This beats the old record of 104.5 degrees (40.3 Celsius) on Jan. 7, 2013.

However, it’s a record that may not stand for long — perhaps for just 24 hours, as forecasters anticipate it could be broken both Wednesday and Thursday eastern time, as a searing, early-season heat wave roasts the country.

“This hot air mass is so extensive that preliminary figures show that yesterday was the hottest day on record in Australia,” said BOM meteorologist Diana Eadie.

It’s highly unusual for a national temperature record to be broken, but to be broken on two to three straight days is even more rare.

[Australia braces for highest temperatures in recorded history amid blistering heat wave]

Numerous locations in inland Australia exceeded 115 degrees (44.8 Celsius) on Dec. 17, with even higher temperatures expected Wednesday. The hottest temperature ever recorded in Australia, which was 123 degrees (50.6 Celsius), set on Jan. 2, 1960, in Oodnadatta, may be in jeopardy during this event.

High temperatures Dec. 17, 2019, Australia's hottest day on record. (Bureau of Meteorology)

The heat is combining with drought conditions and burning wildfires to lead to severe to “extreme” fire danger in parts of Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales on Thursday local time. The extreme fire danger warning includes metropolitan Sydney, where the heat is ramping up.

The heat is forecast to peak Friday in Adelaide, where the forecast high temperature is 113 degrees (45 Celsius), as well as Melbourne, which is predicted to reach 109 degrees (43 Celsius).

The BOM is also forecasting that many locations will break monthly records for the hottest temperatures in December. In fact, some places in New South Wales could see their hottest temperature on record for any time of the year, particularly Saturday, according to BOM meteorologist Blair Trewin.

• Perth, in Western Australia, has already broken its all-time December record for the number of consecutive days (three) reaching or exceeding 104 degrees (40 Celsius).
• In Adelaide, the forecast calls for four straight days (through Friday) with high temperatures of 104 degrees or higher, according to BOM meteorologist Sarah Scully.

In New South Wales, which has been the state hit hardest with bush fires, parts of Sydney could reach 104 degrees amid smoky conditions Thursday, before temperatures retreat over the weekend.

In general, temperatures have been running between about 18 to 30 degrees above average in parts of the country, according to the BOM.

“Smoke will become a significant issue for populated areas in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory,” Eadie said. “This will combine with severe to extreme heat wave conditions to have a large impact on people’s health.”

Extreme heat is the number one weather-related killer in Australia, and smoke from ongoing bush fires has occasionally been so thick that visibility has deteriorated to below one mile in Sydney. Bush fire smoke can worsen asthma and other respiratory conditions, aggravate heart problems, and pose risks for the young and elderly alike.

Climate studies have shown clear and causal links between bush fires — as well as wildfires in the United States — and long-term global warming. Climate change helps escalate fire risks by drying out vegetation and making it more flammable, among other effects.

According to a new BOM report on the 2019 bush fires, spring 2019 brought the highest fire weather danger on record in Australia, as measured by the Forest Fire Danger Index, with “record high values observed in areas of all states and territories.”

Long-term climate trends in Australia show clear warming and an increase in extreme heat events. Last summer, for example, was the country’s hottest on record, and the meteorology bureau found that climate change exacerbated extreme heat events as well as droughts during the year.

Australia has warmed by just over 1.8 degrees (1 Celsius) since 1910, with most of the warming occurring since 1950. The BOM has found an increase in the frequency of extreme heat events and severity of drought conditions during this period, as well.

Nine of Australia’s top 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2005, and 2019 is likely to join that list. Globally, 2019 is virtually assured to be the second-warmest year on record, according to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Australia is one of the most vulnerable major industrialized countries to climate change, particularly when it comes to extreme heat and drought conditions. However, the country is also a major exporter of coal, a greenhouse-gas-intensive energy source.

The heat and bush fires this spring and summer have put pressure on the pro-business and pro-coal Liberal government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison to take more aggressive climate action.

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2019-12-18 16:12:06Z
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Australia swelters on its hottest day nationwide as wildfires rage -- and temperatures are likely to rise even higher - CNN

The average maximum temperature across the country on Tuesday was 40.9 degrees Celsius (105.6 Fahrenheit), according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology -- beating the previous 2013 record of 40.3 Celsius (104.5 Fahrenheit).

That's just the average nationwide figure -- the heat has spiked even higher in some places, like the town of Ceduna in South Australia, which hit 45.5 degrees Celsius (nearly 114 Fahrenheit).

The heat wave comes as deadly bush fires continue to ravage NSW, exacerbated by the heat, wind, and the worst drought in decades. According to the state's Rural Fire Service, 100 active fires are still burning across the state, of which 54 are not yet contained. A total fire ban remains in place statewide until midnight on Saturday.

#WhereTheBloodyHellAreYou

As records fall and blazes continue, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been heavily criticized for taking a pre-Christmas holiday, believed to be in Hawaii.

Newspaper cartoonists depicted the leader lounging on a beach, while smoke from the Australian bush fires blighted his view.

The hashtag #WhereTheBloodyHellAreYou emerged online in response to the PM's absence. It was tweeted by the model Lara Worthington (previously Lara Bingle) who rose to fame in a 2006 Tourism Australia advertisement featuring the now-famous slogan: "So where the bloody hell are you?"

She wrote: "Scott Morrison: WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU??? #AustraliaBurns #AustraliaFires"

Acting Prime Minister Michael McCormack defended Morrison, telling state broadcaster the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), that it was a pre-planned family trip and he was due to travel to India and Japan in January, when politicians usually take their summer break.

Australia is heavily reliant on coal-fired power, and Morrison has repeatedly come under fire from activists for his government's climate policies.

On Tuesday, members of the Emergency Leaders for Climate Action -- comprising dozens of former senior emergency service leaders -- said the Prime Minister had been "missing in action" on climate change.

The group now plans to hold its own summit on Australia's bushfire crisis in the coming year.

"More country has been burned, more homes lost, three times more homes lost than our worst previous fire season in history and the fires are still burning," said Greg Mullins, former NSW Fire and Rescue commissioner, on Tuesday.

"The driving force behind this is climate change," he added. "In our decades of service, we've seen Australia become drier, hotter and extreme weather conditions far more severe."

The soaring temperatures come just days after Australia, along with several other big polluters, were accused of obstructionist behavior at the UN climate summit COP25.

The summit included almost 200 countries, and was supposed to agree the rules of the 2015 Paris climate accord. Australia in particular was accused of seeking loopholes by recycling old carbon credits, in order to meet their commitments under the accord.

Records tumble

The bureau warned on Tuesday that temperatures were likely to climb even higher as the heat wave continues to spread east into Victoria and NSW states over the course of the week.

Earlier this week, the city of Perth in Western Australia experienced three consecutive days above 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) -- which had never before happened in December, according to CNN meteorologists.

Australia's bush fires have been burning for two months now. They have destroyed more than 760 homes and damaged nearly 300 more, left four people dead, and potentially killed hundreds of koalas and other wildlife.

The drought and the fires are the most urgent symptoms of Australia's climate crisis. Disasters like the fires and floods have devastated the livelihoods of farmers and wrought millions of dollars' worth of damage. As the heat and drought ramp up, water may be running out -- the city of Sydney, home to more than 5 million people, could see its dams run dry by 2022.

The greater Sydney area is now under level 2 water restrictions, which limit the outdoor use of drinking water. It is the first time the restrictions have been implemented since 2003, during a drought that lasted until 2009.

CNN's Robert Shackelford, Taylor Ward, Michael Guy and Alex Stambaugh contributed reporting.

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2019-12-18 11:32:00Z
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Google settles 'longstanding' tax dispute with Australia - Reuters

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Google is seen at the high profile startups and high tech leaders gathering, Viva Tech,in Paris, France May 16, 2019. REUTERS/Charles Platiau

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc’s Google has settled a “longstanding” tax dispute with Australia’s tax office, it said on Wednesday, after paying an extra A$481.5 million ($326.75 million) on top of its previous tax bill.

The settlement comes after an audit that looked into the tech giant’s tax practices between 2008 and 2018, a Google spokeswoman said.

In a separate statement, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) said it has now netted A$1.25 billion after also settling tax disputes recently with other tech giants such as Microsoft, Apple and Facebook under the Multinational Anti-Avoidance Law (MAAL).

“Thanks to the efforts of our ATO officers under the Tax Avoidance Taskforce and the introduction of the MAAL, Australian sourced sales by these digital giants will now be returned to Australia’s tax base,” the ATO said in a statement, calling the settlement “another e-commerce victory.”

Facebook, Google, Amazon and other large technology companies have faced criticism globally for reducing their tax bills by booking profits in low-tax countries regardless of the location of the end customer. Such practices are frowned upon by many countries as unfair.

A Google spokeswoman said the settlement with the ATO will provide certainty for future tax treatment.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said in a statement the establishment of the tax avoidance taskforce in 2016 has helped strengthen tax compliance of multinationals and large corporations.

“Ensuring large companies and multinationals pay the right amount of tax means we can continue to deliver the essential services Australians rely on,” Frydenberg said.

Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Shri Navaratnam

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2019-12-18 07:14:00Z
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Australia heatwave: Nation endures hottest day on record - BBC News

Australia has experienced its hottest day on record with the national average temperature reaching a high of 40.9C (105.6F).

The Bureau of Meteorology (Bom) said "extensive" heat on Tuesday exceeded the previous record of 40.3C set on 7 January 2013.

Taking the average of maximum temperatures across the country is the most accurate measure of a heatwave.

The record comes as the nation battles a severe drought and bushfire crisis.

Forecasters had predicted the most intense heat would come later in the week, meaning the record could be broken again.

As hundreds of fires rage, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been criticised for his response to the natural disasters and his government's climate policies.

Why has this happened now?

Australia heated up this week as a mass of hot air swept east across the continent, with meteorologists forecasting "severe to extreme heatwave conditions".

• Why Australia will see a long and dangerous summer
• Why Australia's PM is facing anger over bushfires

Several individual heat records for towns and cities have already been shattered. On Tuesday, places across the nation's centre recorded temperatures above 45C.

At the start of the week, Perth, the capital of Western Australia, recorded three days in a row above 40C - a record for December.

The dominant climate driver behind the heat has been a positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) - an event where sea surface temperatures are warmer in the western half of the ocean, cooler in the east.

• The climate phenomenon linking floods and bushfires

The difference between the two temperatures is currently the strongest in 60 years. The warmer waters cause higher-than-average rains in the western Indian Ocean region, leading to flooding, and drier conditions across South East Asia and Australia.

But Australia has been enduring a drought for a long time - several years in some places. Bom says the dry soil has meant less evaporation - which would normally exert a cooling influence on the landscape.

What is climate change doing to Australia?

According to Bom, Australia has warmed overall by just over 1C since 1910, with most of the heating occurring since 1950.

Nine of Australia's top 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 2005.

Officials predict that 2019, on the temperatures recorded so far, will be among the four warmest years on record. Bom says it's expecting national mean temperatures to be at least 1.3C above the long-term average of 27.5C.

That heat has helped create the conditions for natural disasters like bushfires, droughts and floods - which have always happened in Australia - to be more frequent and more severe.

"Australia's climate is increasingly influenced by global warning and natural variability takes place on top of this background trend," says Bom.

Vast areas of the nation are struggling through a second and third year of drought. According to the measurements for 2019 so far, the year has been Australia's driest in over a century.

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Australia's conservative government has been criticised both at home and internationally for what's seen as an inadequate climate record.

The country is one of the highest emitters of carbon pollution per capita, largely because it is still heavily reliant on coal-fired power. The UN has also said it is among the minority of G20 nations falling short on its emissions promises.

The government has been reluctant to talk about the role of climate change in exacerbating bushfires, a stance which has sparked protests.

Critics have accused Mr Morrison of being "missing in action" on the issue. That pressure escalated this week after it emerged he was overseas on holiday.

After local media reported he was in Hawaii, phrases such as #WhereTheBloodyHellAreYou, #WhereisScoMo and #FireMorrison trended on Twitter.

How damaging can heatwaves be in Australia?

Heatwaves are Australia's deadliest natural disaster and have killed thousands more people than bushfires or floods.

Last summer (2018-2019) was recorded as the nation's hottest on record, as average temperatures soared past 30C (86F) for the first time.

At least five of the days were recorded among the nation's top 10 hottest on record.

The heat, which was concentrated over one fortnight in January, caused mass wildlife deaths, sparked bushfires and led to a rise in hospital admissions.

It also sparked furious political discussion about the nation's energy grid, after densely populated city areas were forced to endure blackouts amid the heat.

What does this mean for the fires?

More than 100 blazes are still burning across Australia's east coast - with the high temperatures escalating dangerous conditions.

Bom and fire authorities have warned that the record temperatures have made the fires more volatile and harder to fight.

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2019-12-18 03:12:37Z
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NASA satellite image shows grim Australian fire devastation from space - CNET

This Suomi NPP satellite image shows the massive amounts of smoke from actively burning fires, designated by the red spots.

NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS)

New South Wales in Australia is under stress from a heatwave and ongoing bush fires that are eating up the landscape. The ground is choked with smoke that has reached into Sydney while the view from space reveals the extent of the damage.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA operate the Suomi NPP satellite. NASA released the satellite's look at New South Wales from Monday. It shows a massive blanket of smoke emanating from active fires marked by bright red spots. 

"To date the size of the area burned is 1.5 times the size of the state of Connecticut (approximately 5.3 million acres of land)," NASA said. The New South Wales Rural Fire Service had logged 115 active fires as of Monday, with 59 of them still needing to be contained.

The fire threat looks like it may not let up for some time. "It has already been a challenging fire season and this is expected to continue," the Bushfire and Natural Hazard Cooperative Research Centre tweeted on Sunday while warning of increased danger as the fire season progresses.

NASA's eyes in the sky will continue to monitor the fire situation in Australia. It's already bad, but it's likely to get worse.

Now playing: Watch this: How to stop climate catastrophe | What the Future

6:23

Originally published Dec. 16, 4:33 p.m. PT

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2019-12-17 00:33:00Z
CAIiEEd5ixMrJHzRbJ9nVfyeztgqEwgEKgwIACoFCAow4GowoAgwkRo

Australia bushfire: Boy, 12, drives pickup to flee with dog - BBC News

Police have rescued a 12-year-old boy who fled a raging bushfire in Western Australia by driving his brother's pickup to safety with their dog.

Luke Sturrock was alone at home when a fast-moving blaze threatened the town of Mogumber, north of Perth, on Sunday.

His dad, Ivan Sturrock, and older brother were out fighting the fire as it ripped through the area.

They told him to flee to an orange tree about 4km (2.4 miles) away if the fire got too close to their home.

When the fire closed in, the boy grabbed his dog and escaped in his brother's Ford Ranger.

About an hour later, firefighters who were battling the blaze nearby came across the boy behind the wheel of the vehicle and pulled him over.

"Typical farm boy, he was pretty clever, I think the problem was he just didn't quite know where to go and it was hard to see with all the smoke," Craig Spencer, of the Bindoon Bushfire Brigade, told ABC Radio Perth.

"So I think he probably panicked a bit and when we found him he was pulled up on the side of the road."

The fire crew took him to safety and left him with police, who reunited him with his father.

Mr Sturrock said he was proud of his son.

"We taught him to drive since he was about seven just in case things like this do happen and I was quite proud of him; he did exactly what we told him to do," Mr Sturrock told ABC News.

Dalwallinu police officer Michael Daley, who reunited the boy with his father, urged families to "have a plan and know it" if a bushfire threatened their home.

Emergency warnings for dangerous bushfires have been issued in eastern and western Australia.

In the state of Western Australia, firefighters have been battling a bushfire north of Perth for six days.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

The blaze, which has engulfed more than 13,000 hectares of land, was downgraded on Monday, with evacuated residents expected to return home.

Meanwhile, authorities issued fresh warnings about a "mega blaze" after it spread beyond containment lines and razed 20 houses near Sydney.

How bad are the bushfires in Australia?

Since September, six people have died in a bushfire crisis that has engulfed Australia, particularly the eastern states of New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland.

The blazes have destroyed more than 700 homes and blanketed towns and cities in smoke.

The bushfires and extreme weather have ravaged Australia's landscape, sparking public debate about the need for stronger climate action.

Last week, parts of Sydney suffered air quality 22 times worse than the clean air standard.

A heatwave sweeping east across the country is also expected to increase the fire risk this coming week.

Across the nation, temperatures are set to exceed 40C in many areas. Parts of Sydney could reach 46C by the end of the week, meteorologists say.

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2019-12-16 13:56:04Z
CBMiMWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jb20vbmV3cy93b3JsZC1hdXN0cmFsaWEtNTA4MDYxOTnSATVodHRwczovL3d3dy5iYmMuY29tL25ld3MvYW1wL3dvcmxkLWF1c3RyYWxpYS01MDgwNjE5OQ

Australians Love Rooftop Panels. That’s a Problem for Big Solar - Yahoo Finance

(Bloomberg) -- With its sunny skies and plenty of available land, it’s not hard to see why large-scale solar projects were drawn to Australia.

Yet a rush of household installations has started to play havoc with the economics of those sprawling facilities. Combine that with the struggle shared by grids around the world as they move from round-the-clock power generation to more volatile renewable sources, and the outlook for large-scale solar in Australia looks less rosy.

About one in every four homes in the nation of almost 25 million now has solar panels and that number continues to rise, increasing power supply and lowering consumption from the grid during the middle of the day, when the sun is at its strongest. It has even forced some utility-scale solar plants to shut down during their peak production times or risk having to pay the grid to take the electricity they produce.

“Rooftop solar is an ever-growing risk for its large-scale counterpart,” said Lara Panjkov, an analyst at BloombergNEF in Sydney. “When rooftop solar operates, it reduces grid demand and suppresses wholesale electricity prices.”

BloombergNEF projects a sharp fall in income for large-scale solar in the next two to three years. The average price that plants receive in Victoria state, a market which includes the nation’s second-biggest city Melbourne, could drop as low as A$41 per megawatt-hour in 2022, from around A$140 so far this year.

The government’s subsidy regime also puts big solar developers at a disadvantage, according to Kim Nguyen, head of Australia operations at renewables investor Foresight Group. Incentives for off-grid solar can still cover 30% to 40% of their total cost, although they are being progressively scaled back. Support from the government’s large-scale generation certificates typically amounts to less than 5% of a project’s capital cost, Nguyen said.

Innogy SE, which is building the country’s biggest solar farm to date, is looking at potential solar investments “with more conservative assumptions than a year or two ago,” said Matthew Dickie, the regulations manager at the major German utility’s Australian unit.

One area where he’s looking for change is in the calculation of transmission losses. Under the current system, marginal loss factors -- a measure of how much electricity is lost over power lines -- are assessed by the market operator and have hit solar plants in remote locations particularly hard. Several industry players, including Innogy, are pushing for those losses to be calculated on an average basis across the entire network.

“Despite the room for policy improvement, Australia does have a lot of constants which make it still worthy of investigation, such as great solar and wind resource, a relatively low population density, a strong economy and robust rule of law,” Dickie said.

The growing headwinds faced by big solar have contributed to a drop off in renewables investment growth this year. Investment in new large-scale solar in Australia has trailed off this year but still totals about $7.9 billion since 2015, BloombergNEF data show. Approximately $8.3 billion was spent on rooftop solar in Australia in the period, according to BNEF estimates.

“For so many reasons, the boom in utility-scale solar has gone,” said Stephen Panizza, head of renewables at Sydney-based Federation Asset Management.

It won’t make sense to invest in large-scale solar until it becomes economical to add as much as 6 hours of battery storage, the level at which solar would be able to continue supplying the grid well into the peak evening demand period, Panizza said. That’s still a few years away and, in the meantime, there is more growth potential in wind power in Australia, he said.

Foresight’s Nguyen is not as pessimistic. She remains open to investing in big solar projects, pointing out that it still has advantages over rooftop. Large-scale facilities are more reliable -- they are maintained with much more rigor and attention than your average rooftop panel -- and more flexible, being able to switch on and off rapidly in response to price signals. It’s also more economical to add battery storage to a large solar plant than to each individual household.

There’s little doubt that Australia needs to add substantial renewable generation capacity in the years ahead as aging coal fired plants retire -- the market operator’s latest long-term plan said that more than 30 gigawatts of large-scale clean energy projects would be needed by 2040. Still, with more than 2 gigawatts of solar projects commissioned over the next three years, there are concerns in the industry that some will face significant financial stress.

Marginal loss factors, grid issues and network penalties “are already hurting utility-scale solar owners’ revenue models,” said Panjkov. “Most of these issues are likely to get worse before they get better.”

To contact the reporter on this story: James Thornhill in Sydney at jthornhill3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ramsey Al-Rikabi at ralrikabi@bloomberg.net, Rob Verdonck

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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2019-12-16 11:00:00Z
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