Long-term readers of this column would know that a reference to climate change is the preferred term rather than the often overused expression "global warming".
This is because there is little doubt that our climate is changing at a faster rate than at any time in human history, and although a general warming of the world's atmosphere and waters is one feature of this change it is not the only one.
One other development has been greater variability in the weather.
Transfer of heat and instability in the north - south (polar to tropics and the reverse) directions have resulted in more frequent extremes of weather in the mid latitude especially.
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In Australia, we have just come out of a La Nina summer.
As expected, rainfall in eastern and Australia generally exceeded normal and in some areas by a significant amount, but this occurred because of a couple of extreme rain events in mid-December and mid-March, while there were extended dry spells at other times.
Even the past week, the French wine harvest is being affected by severe late season frost coming at the end of a warmer than normal winter in many parts.
Unfortunately, this variability is likely to remain a feature of the weather patterns in the coming years, as long as the heat storage in the oceans of the world remains higher than in the past.
The problem is that despite knowing there will be greater variability, the forecasting of such occurrences will become more challenging because one of the best predictive tools - the analogous year or season - will not be able to be used.
Late autumn and winter in eastern Australia from the far north of Queensland to Victoria is likely to see at least average rainfall - probably around a 70 per cent chance that rainfall will exceed normal, but variability will mean two things: (1) a good proportion of this rain will fall in short but significant events interspersed by extended periods of stability and (2) variability will be present in distribution, meaning some areas will miss out of the occasional event and will end up with lower than normal rainfall while most of the area will have above average rainfall.
The occasional significant event will affect temperatures as well.
Although the next six months are likely to see temperatures slightly up on normal, the occasional but significant cold outbreaks will affect mainly the south east states at times, especially in the months leading into and during winter.
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