Comedian: It’s so hot in Australia right now …
Audience: HOW HOT IS IT?
Comedian: It’s so hot they had to add two new colors to the heat forecast map in order to adequately express the full range of temperatures. [breaks down crying]
The reason this is such a shitty joke is that it’s true. Australia is experiencing a heat wave of such magnitude that the Bureau of Meteorology had to add two colors, dark purple and pink, to the temperature forecasting map. The chart previously went to 118 degrees F, but that wasn’t sufficient — now it goes to 129.
The heat in Oz is busting records left and right. The average temperature in the country on Monday was 105 degrees — a record average, continuing a record streak of six 102-degrees-or-higher days in a row. So basically we’re mostly really glad we don’t live in Australia right now, koalas be damned.
But the country does still have one thing going for it — its officials actually recognize the existence and impact of climate change. Or at least they will until they all burn to death in their shoes.
‘‘The current heatwave — in terms of its duration, its intensity and its extent — is now unprecedented in our records,’’ the Bureau of Meteorology’s manager of climate monitoring and prediction, David Jones, said.
‘‘Clearly, the climate system is responding to the background warming trend. Everything that happens in the climate system now is taking place on a planet which is a degree hotter than it used to be.’’
As the warming trend increases over coming years, record-breaking heat will become more and more common, Dr Jones said.
‘‘We know that global climate doesn’t respond monotonically — it does go up and down with natural variation. That’s why some years are hotter than others because of a range of factors. But we’re getting many more hot records than we’re getting cold records. That’s not an issue that is explained away by natural variation.’
Another upside: I like purple? Yeah, I don’t know, I give up. I’ll be weeping in the corner if you need me.
