Is the Climate Changing. 02 March 1901. “In fact, the five years 1895-1899, inclusive, were not examples of what I call the long, hot, dry summer – the summer that begins in October and lasts until nearly the end of March”

Dec 03

Is the Climate Changing. 02 March 1901. “In fact, the five years 1895-1899, inclusive, were not examples of what I call the long, hot, dry summer – the summer that begins in October and lasts until nearly the end of March”

Is the Climate Changing. (1901, March 2). Port Pirie Recorder and North Western Mail (SA : 1898 – 1918), p. 4. Retrieved December 3, 2020, from https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/95274906#

Mr. Baracchi,the Government astronomer of Victoria, denies that the summers of Melbourne are cooler than of old.

Memory is apt (he says) to misguide. The records fail to show it right in this case. In fact, the five years 1895-1899, inclusive, were not examples of what I call the long, hot, dry summer the summer that begins in October and lasts until nearly the end of March, with high temperatures and lack of rain.

The February of 1898 has hardly been equalled in the weather history of Melbourne for long spells of heat.

There was above eleven days in that month, practically consecutive, in which the shade temperature exceeded 100deg.

That does not look like an indication of climate improvement. Our records of forty or fifty years, if gone through thoroughly, would show you that every variety of summer has been

experienced—the long dry, hot summer, as well as the short cool summer, and the intermediates.
If anything, those five years I took are above the normal summer of Victoria for heat.
Yet it would be doubtful argument to hold that the summers are becoming hotter, as some other think, who point to the clearing away of trees and the baring of the land as probable causes.
Absolutely, there is no serious change in the climate of Victoria.
Each kind of summer has been seen before. The summer, so far from being exceptionally mild is nearer the normal than the five before it. These alternations of hot days and cool changes are our normal Melbourne summer.
In five years people have forgotten what our summer should be.
In fact, in the normal summer the cool changes would last longer even than they are doing this year.