Bushfires, heatwaves and early deaths: the climate is changing before our eyes

[malaise]

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/26/bushfires-heatwaves-and-early-deaths-the-climate-is-changing-before-our-eyes
<snip>

The link between extreme weather and climate change is a critical area for public understanding, because it’s the devastating extremes, rather than a shift in averages, that have the greatest impact. To deny the link also permits people to believe that climate change is something only for future generations to worry about. It is not.

Our climate has already changed, and over the last decade we have begun to witness more frequently the consequences of our profligate burning of coal, oil and gas. Very recent advances have allowed scientists to quantify the human impact on individual extreme weather events. Extremes in the weather are therefore a good place to begin looking at what has changed in climate science over the past decade.
Poland’s Jerry Janowicz is sprayed with cool water at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia in 2014.

The Australian Open Tennis Championships are Melbourne’s moment in the sun, and during the fortnight of the competition there’s hardly another topic of conversation in the city. When, during the 2014 Open, a heatwave of unprecedented ferocity struck Melbourne, bringing a record-breaking four days in a row of temperatures over 41°C, as well as the city’s hottest-ever 24-hour period, the stadium built to host the event turned into a furnace.
Advertisement

Despite the long and loud warnings of the climate scientists that extreme heatwaves were all but inevitable, Rod Laver Arena had not been built to cope with the threat, and lives and money were put at risk. With millions of dollars at stake, the tournament organisers were reluctant to call an end to play. For day after scorching day the players slogged it out in 40°C+ temperatures on the courts. The fans stuck around too, though more than 1,000 had to be treated for heat stress. Finally, the health risks to both players and spectators became too much, and the multi-million dollar tournament was suspended.