Highs and Lows

Recently i've been talking about the heatwave high temperatures in Victoria and Queensland. You might be asking why this matters. Aren't records always broken?

In recent times the record highs having been much more frequent that the record lows, as demonstrated by this graph from the Catalyst special Taking Australia's Temperature.

Also, a lot of hot days that aren't quite the hottest ever are often the hottest in 40 years, or 100 years. That's still pretty hot-even if it's not the record.

With more heat records, and more days that are very close, perhaps it's a sign that instead of talking about a warming planet as something that might happen someday, and start talking (and doing something) about it as a problem that is already affecting our lives - and will do even more in years to come.