Australia had third-warmest year on record in 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/10/australia-had-third-warmest-year-on-record-in-2018

Lisa Cox
Wed 9 Jan 2019 18.50 EST

Last year was Australia’s third-warmest year on record, with every state and territory recording above average temperatures in 2018.

According to the Bureau of Meteorology’s annual climate statement, the nation’s average temperature last year was 1.14C [2.05F] above the average for 1961-1990, making 2018 slightly warmer than 2017.

“When we look across all of Australia in 2018, we can see that every single state and territory had above average day and night-time temperatures,” the bureau’s senior climatologist, Lynette Bettio, said in a statement on Thursday.

The average maximum temperature for the country as a whole was particularly warm, sitting 1.55°C [2.79F] above the 1961–1990 average, making 2018 Australia’s second warmest year on record for daily high temperatures.

Nine of the 10 warmest years on record in Australia have occurred since 2005.

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Globally, 2018 was the fourth-warmest year on record, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service assessment, released on Tuesday.

The last four years have seen the highest average temperatures globally since records began in the 19th century.