A link people in the northern hemisphere should know

Today, as a result of major floods at the northwestern fringe of the Asian monsoon belt and heatwaves in Russia, there has been a thought that the two are connected by the New York Times.

Whilst the Times are to be congratulated on this point, the problem is that they should have known all along that super-monsoons brought about by global warming are likely to cause heatwaves in temperate regions beyond this super-monsoon’s reach.

A study of summer temperatures in Melbourne, shielded by the Divide from the northerly airflow of a super-monsoon like 1973/1974, 1975/1976, 1996/1997 to 2000/2001, and every year since 2005/2006, demonstrates clearly how hot high-latitude weather increases under a super-monsoon.

Over these summers, Melbourne’s mean maxima four the four main months of the tropical wet season (December to March) is:

• In December: 25.1˚C as against 24.1 ˚C for all years
• In January: 27.5˚C as against 25.8˚C
• In February: 27.8˚C as against 25.8˚C
• In March: 25.1˚C as against 23.8˚C

What this shows, especially when one compares with adjacent seasons with less powerful monsoons, (e.g. only 23.9˚C in January 1975 or 25.1˚C in January 1996) is that when super-monsoons become the norm, hotter and very dry air flows into temperate regions on the leeward side. This would logically mean that for European Russia, on the northwestern side of the great mountain and plateau mass of Asia, hotter and drier air would be forced into the region, resulting in less rainfall and higher temperatures – as observed for decades in southern Australia.