Roger Barnes rescues a friend’s surfboard from a flooded home in the Brisbane suburb of Newmarket on Monday.From bushfires raging in searing tinder-dry conditions to surging floodwaters and destructive tornadoes, Australia has witnessed staggering climate extremes during its summer of 2013. From bushfires raging in searing tinder-dry conditions to surging floodwaters and destructive tornadoes, Australia has witnessed staggering climate extremes during its summer of 2013. Already this month the country’s largest city Sydney has endured its hottest day on record, a 45.8 degree Celsius (114.4 Fahrenheit) scorcher during a heatwave so extreme heat scales on government forecast maps had to be redrawn. Just a week later, ex-tropical Cyclone Oswald dumped torrential rain on coastal areas of Queensland, leaving four people dead, swamping 2,000 homes and forcing dramatic rooftop rescues of those trapped by the deluge. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who on Monday toured bushfire-hit areas in southeastern Victoria state even as turbid floodwaters swamped the nation’s northeast, said the contrast was not lost on her. “I was looking at blackened landscape, burnt trees, black Read more at: phys.org
