Dr Karl Braganza discusses the Bureau of Meteorology's decision to declare an El Nino.
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00:00 The Bureau is today declaring that an El Niño event is underway in the Pacific Ocean.
00:05 At the same time, we are declaring that a positive Indian Ocean Dipole, or positive
00:09 IOD event, is occurring in the oceans to our west.
00:13 Both these climate drivers have a significant influence on the Australian climate, in particular
00:18 favouring warmer and drier conditions, particularly over spring, but also into early summer.
00:24 Those conditions are associated or accompanied by an increase in fire danger and extreme
00:29 heat risk.
00:31 Importantly, with the El Niño now settling into that pattern in the Pacific Ocean, that
00:35 increases our confidence that this pattern is going to last until the end of summer,
00:41 and that will mean that we are likely to see a continuation of the warm and dry conditions
00:46 over the summer months in particular.
00:48 Importantly for our preparation for summer, particularly for fire danger and heat hazards,
00:54 we are already seeing extreme conditions in some parts of the continent, particularly
00:59 in the duration of heat.
01:00 So we've had an extended period of warm and dry weather to start spring.
01:05 Today we've had catastrophic fire conditions on the south coast of New South Wales, just
01:09 to underscore that risk.