Call to name heatwaves just like we do tropical cyclones

The Climate Council, a community-funded climate change organisation, said naming heatwaves would help alert Australian's to the dangers of increasing temperatures..

The council says the move has already been trialled in Europe to increase awareness of the serious health and safety risks posed by heatwaves.

Last year a heatwave in southern Europe was unofficially named "Cerberus", after the ferocious three-headed dog from Greek mythology, symbolising its severity.

Council member and public health physician Kate Charlesworth said many Australians because they live in a hotter country they are somehow immune to heat.

"But heatwaves, like those underway in Western Australia, are lethal - having claimed more Australian lives since 1890 than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined," Dr Charlesworth said.

"That's often because people underestimate how deadly they can be, or overestimate their own ability to cope in extreme heat."

She said heatwaves were becoming hotter, longer and more frequent due to climate change.

"Naming heatwaves can raise more public awareness about the dangers, and drive home the urgency of our situation," Dr Charlesworth said.

"If it has a name, a hashtag and media coverage, then people pay closer attention to the danger and how they can protect themselves."

Climate Council research director Simon Bradshaw said a ranking and naming system for heatwaves could be modelled off the Bureau of Meteorology's heatwave definitions.

BOM adopted a policy of naming cyclones in 1963.

The first cyclones to have official names were Audrey and Bessie in January 1964 and only female names were used until 1979.