6 January 2005
Last year has been ranked the tenth hottest year in Australia since official records began in 1910.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation's annual climate survey, the mean temperature during 2004 was 0.45 degrees above the long-term average.
The figures were boosted by several extensive warm spells, including an exceptional two-week heat wave during February which affected a large proportion of the continent and resulted in many new temperature records, and warm periods in eastern Australia during September and October.
Rainfall was also above average, but most of it fell in sparsely populated areas.
Despite good rainfall across south-eastern Australia in November and December, the annual totals across this region were mostly below normal.
Rainfall in 2004 failed to alleviate the long-term deficiencies over recent years, with some recording stations experiencing an unprecedented eight consecutive years of below average rainfall.
Dr David Jones from the weather bureau says the temperature and rainfall trends are in line with global warming.
"The trend in temperature that we've seen over Australia is very close to that which we've seen globally," he said.
"The global temperature anomaly last year was 0.44 degrees and over Australia it was 0.45 and this warming trend is very close to what we expect under the enhanced greenhouse effect, there is a genuine and broad consistency."
