Weather journals kept by Australia's early settlers, detailing daily observations decades before official record keeping began, are expected to shed light on weather variability in one of the world’s climate change hotspots.Bureau of Meteorology records only go back about 120 yearsThe handwritten journals, dating back to 1830, provide a detailed picture of weather events in Perth.
Work has now started on digitising the data from the most recently discovered journals, with Climate History AustraliaThe first settlers arrived in Perth in 1829 and soon after began recording daily weather observations. Climate scientist Joelle Gergis, who is also working on the project with Climate History Australia, said since 1970 rainfall in the region had decreased by 28 per cent."This record from Perth is really globally significant because it provides us with an opportunity to find out what the pre-industrial climate was like in Australia before we started to alter the chemistry of the atmosphere and the ocean with the burning of fossil fuels," she said.
Day 1: warm. Day 2: warm. Day 3: still warm.
Gosh when settlers got here they found the place- HOT AND DRY! Climate change was already wreaking its devastation!
Changing ? What does that even mean.....
When we bought the land 20 years ago, it was wet. If you dug a hole..it filled with water. We got bogged. It rained for days. Autumn there were hard frosts. Ice covering the ground. Now..none of that