Yes it has been warm hasn’t it? A blissful turnaround from the cooling trend that has been with us at least since 2005. Sadly we cannot expect it to last. And the cooling trend can be expected to resume shortly. After all that very warm 1998 temperature was a pretty short-lived affair.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/08/1746226/US-Nuclear-Power-Industry-Poised-For-a-Comeback

Maybe Plimer needs to attend this geology conference in London to make him realise how dangerous his pseudo-scepticism really is.

“…there must have been some chill around somewhere.” Read the climate statement.

However, I do have the perception that hot records are broken more frequently than cold records. If this is the case then it seems, at least intuitively, to provide evidence of CLIMATE warming.

But is it only a perception? Is there any evidence?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/04/uah-global-temperature-down-in-august-181%c2%b0c-sh-sees-biggest-drop-of-0-4%c2%b0c/

Is there a comparative record of such extremes available – for Australia, the Globe? (I came across the fact that Vidin, in Bulgaria, had its hottest ever in June:-)

It’s weather + climate, as noted in the comment above and the main piece. The El Nino no doubt is having an effect. But it seems about 0.3C hotter than a previous event of this nature back in the late 80s. That extra is probably the global warming signal:

“An interesting comparison exists with October 1988, which had very similar pressure patterns, and was also dry over the mainland and very wet in Tasmania. In October 1988 Australian mean temperatures were 2.16°C above average, which was a record at the time (it now ranks fourth). The difference of 0.31°C between the two months is close to the size of the warming trend over Australia in that 21-year period, and suggests that the long-term background warming trend is playing a role in increasing the frequency of high temperature extremes of the type seen in August 2009.”