Antinuclear

Sarah Perkins, a heatwave expert at the University of NSW, says heatwaves in Australia are arriving earlier in the season, are more frequent, more intense, and more prolonged. Previous major heatwaves, such as in 1939, are also linked to major bushfires. Along with the projections for more intense heat, research also shows fire-danger ratings are on the increase across south-eastern Australia. Australians will need to adapt to major changes in their lives – along with much of the world.

“For the first half of this century, we expect these [heatwave] trends to continue,” said Lesley Hughes, a professor studying climate change and ecosystems at Macquarie University. “Whether they continue beyond 2050, will be really up to how well we’ve reduced [greenhouse gas] emissions,”she said.

While sea-breezes spared much of Sydney and the coastal strip north from this week’s heat, few other affected regions were so lucky. Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra each reached 40 degrees on Thursday for a second day in a row, and had only done that before on single days over the past 70 years of records. Canberra’s Friday maximum just missed making it three days in a row.

No El Nino this time

The 2009 heat cell was so extreme, it set maximum readings so high that only a few sites will break those records this week. But 2009 was also part of an El Nino year, when climate conditions over the Pacific Ocean tend to trigger higher temperatures over eastern Australia.

The El Nino-Southern Oscillation was in a neutral phase during January 2013’s continent-wide heat dome, which set up that month as Australia’s hottest in more than a century of standardised records, making events over the past two years even more remarkable.

“That’s what I’m most concerned about – we’re seeing these record-breaking events in non-climate conducive years,” said Perkins. “A lot more of it is the climate signal because in an El Nino year we could attribute some of it to natural variability.”

Despite those signals – and significant research into climate change – Australians remain poorly prepared for the likelihood that conditions such as intense and prolonged heatwaves will become more common…….

Energy strains

Soaring airconditioning demand was key to power demand surging close to the record 2009 high this week in Victoria, prompting Premier Denis Napthine to plea for consumers to turn off unnecessary appliances……..

ways communities and infrastructure can cope with heatwave-related extremes. The penetration of solar photovoltaic panels helped limit wholesale power prices and provide a supply buffer during the past week’s demand surge.

According to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, solar PV contributed more than 11 per cent of SA’s power on Monday, and more than 9 per cent on other days of the heatwave. Victoria, with a much lower PV penetration, still got more than 3 per cent of its power from rooftop panels, based on data collected from some 1700 systems……

New research by the Alternative Technology Association suggests that even with modest assumptions for technology improvements in solar power many communities and households will find it attractive to drop off the grid within a few years in “a quick and dramatic” change.

“A shift to cost-effective standalone power solutions appears highly plausible by 2020, in a wide range of market segments,” the report said, citing a study of Bendigo, Werribee and parts of inner Melbourne………..http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/scorchers-the-reality-of-a-sunburnt-country-20140117-3105t.html#ixzz2qmP0u0jt