SYDNEY, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- A rare weather event which caused the air above Antarctica to warm by as much as 40 degrees centigrade over just a few days, may contribute to Australia’s ongoing drought, media reported on Friday.
The phenomenon, known as sudden stratospheric warming (SSW), took place last week roughly 30 km above the South Pole and is expected to increase temperatures and decrease rainfall in Australia.
“We will typically see conditions across most of Australia, but primarily concentrated in the eastern part of Australia, become warmer and drier through spring and into early summer," Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecaster Harry Hendon told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Eastern Australia is currently enduring a prolonged period of drought which has taken a devastating toll on the resident farmers and communities.
There has only ever been one other SSW recorded in the southern hemisphere, which took place in 2002, coinciding with one of Australia’s driest years.
Hendon said that SSW’s are not thought to be caused by global warming and are in fact much more common in the northern hemisphere.
"We view SSW as a natural, internally-generated phenomena. It just happens to be very rare in the southern hemisphere," he said.
The SSW is expected to drive westerly winds, to the south of Australia, further north in a pattern known as a negative SAM, bringing drier air into the states of New South Wales and southern Queensland.
"These regions need a lot of rain to break the current drought," BoM manager of long range forecasting Dr. Andrew Watkins said.
"Like all Australians, all of us at the BoM are hoping those affected by the drought will get the rain they need soon.”
