Heatwave 'amplified by climate change'

Australia's hottest year on record was almost certainly amplified by human-induced climate change, research has found, with conditions set to get worse.

Compiled by Australian National University, Sydney University and Melbourne University teams, the research found that the sweltering of 2013 is just a taste of what is to come without deep cuts in greenhouse gases.

So extreme was last year's weather that the researchers' computer simulations could not replicate the 2013 conditions without factoring in human-induced climate change.

In 2013 Australia set a series of temperature records including the nation's hottest summer day, its warmest winter day, the warmest January and September on record and a summer that was 1.11C hotter than average.

But Australia was not the only country with extreme weather.

The American Meteorological Society compiled research from around the world into what role human-induced climate change played in the conditions.

In Australia's case, which used measurements and computer simulations, the research noted that anthropogenic warming combined with drought conditions in the nation's east dramatically increased the chances of 2013 being the hottest on record.

The researchers estimated that the risk of an extreme heat and drought combination had increased seven-fold across Australia since the mid-1800s.

The chance of maximum temperatures rising above the threshold year of 2002 is now 23 times higher than it was in the late 19th century.

Across all the research, the record temperatures set in Australia through 2013 were because of human-induced climate change.

"The annual mean anomalies for 2013 were either completely outside of, or extremely rare in, the distributions of modelled natural variability," it was noted.

"Even if the global warming 'hiatus' continues, further extreme (record or near-record) seasonal or annual mean warm anomalies at the regional scale can be anticipated."