Everytime someone says of Australia 'It's not climate change, it's drought and too much dry fuel in the forests' remember these basic numbers

The Guardian, 13 January 2020:

Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2019, with average temperatures 1.52C above the 1961-1990 average. Our second hottest year was 2013, followed by 2005, 2018 and 2017. 

New South Wales – one state hard hit by the bushfires – broke its record by a greater margin, with temperatures 1.95C above average, beating the previous record year, 2018, by 0.27C. 

At a very basic level, rising levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere change the earth’s radiation balance, allowing less heat to escape. 

Australia also had its driest ever year in 2019, with rainfall 40% lower than average, based on records going back to 1900. NSW also had its driest year....

There have been two other meteorological patterns that helped generate the extreme conditions Australia has been experiencing, and both these “modes of variability” were in “phases” that made conditions worse. 

The Indian Ocean dipole was in a “positive phase”, meaning the Indian Ocean off Australia’s north west was cooler than normal and the west of the ocean was warmer. 

Positive dipole events draw moisture away from Australia and tend to deliver less rainfall. 

But there is evidence that the extra greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are also impacting the dipole and another phenomenon, known as the southern annular mode (SAM). 

A 2009 study found that positive dipole events “precondition” the south of the country for dangerous bushfire seasons and that these events were becoming more common. 

A 2018 study in the journal Nature Communications found the number of extreme positive dipole events goes up as climate heating continues. 

An animated history of average maximum temperatures and rainfall in Australia since 1910 can be found here at https://youtu.be/okmjuh0pNCU

The Australian Bureau of Meterology has produced two charts which display the stark transformation in temperature and precipitation across the continent over the past century.

The first chart shows the anomaly of mean temperature for each calendar year from 1910 to 2019, compared to the average over the standard reference period of 1961–1990.

The colours range from dark blue (more than 3 degrees Celsius below average), through blues and greens (below average), yellow and orange (above average), and then brown (more than 3C above average).

The Bureau has also produced a second chart showing rainfall in each year since 1900.

The colours range from dark red (lowest on record) to white (average) and dark blue (highest on record).