The world had its second-hottest year on record in 2019 at the end of what was the hottest recorded decade in the 2010s, report the Washington Post and many others, picking up data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the EU. The Earth was 0.6C warmer than the 1981-2000 average in 2019, the Post says, adding that the data provides a first look at global temperatures for the year, with results from US agencies Nasa and NOAA due next week. The past five years were 1.1-1.2C warmer than preindustrial temperatures, the Post says, a level it describes as “perilously close to one of the temperature guardrails outlined in the Paris climate agreement”. It adds that the concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere reached “the highest level in human history and probably has not been seen on this planet for 3 million years”. The New York Times also reports the findings for 2019, noting that temperature records were broken in France, Germany and for Europe as a whole. The second-warmest global temperature in 2019 is also reported by the Independent, AFP and MailOnline, Climate Home News, the Hill and Axios.

Separately, the Hindu reports that in 2019 India had its seventh-warmest year since records began in 1901, with monsoon rains 10% above average. Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that New Zealand had its fourth-warmest year on record in 2019 and Al Jazeera says that Alaska had its warmest, with the Weather Channel noting that the year was the first on record with above-freezing average temperatures in the state. Carbon Brief has a guest post from the UK’s Met Office on how 2019 was the country’s 11th warmest.

More than three-quarters of Australia saw its worst fire conditions on record in December, the Guardian reports, picking up findings from the country’s Bureau of Meteorology. Most of the rest of the country saw conditions ranking among the top 10% worst on record, it adds, based on a composite index that combines temperature, wind speed, humidity and dryness. The Guardian also says that the average maximum temperature for the continent was above 40C on 11 days in December 2019. There had only been four such days during the entire period 1910-2017, it adds. The Sydney Morning Herald says the country saw the seven hottest days on record during December 2019, with an eighth day in the month also making it into the top ten. The paper says “perhaps the standout statistic from 2019” was the fact that average daytime temperatures in December were “a full 4.15[C] above the 1961-90 benchmark, beating a record set only a year earlier, by 1.74[C]”.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the Australia Bureau of Meteorology “sees no sign of cooler weather or significant rainfall in the next few months, an unwelcome forecast for authorities who have warned that only a large downpour will halt bushfires sweeping across the country”. A second Reuters piece says Australian authorities have called for another mass evacuation “as monster bushfires return”, with the South China Morning Post saying bushfires are about to “take off again”. A third Reuters piece reports that Australian insurer Suncorp has received 2,600 bushfire-related claims since September, worth up to A$345m. It notes that rival firm Insurance Australia Group has previously announced claims worth up to A$280m.

Several publications, including the Hill, Scientific American and Vox, report on estimates that more than a billion animals have been killed so far in the ongoing Australian bushfires. The Washington Post and Vox carry pieces on the leadership of Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, with the Post reporting: “His reputation as a coal advocate has not helped as he has struggled to project empathy for victims of the fires”. The Post adds: “The disaster has re-energised a long-running national debate over climate change and the country’s heavy investment in coal mining. Australia is one of the world’s biggest exporters of coal.” InsideClimate News reports that the Australian fires show “how global warming can push forest ecosystems past a point of no return”. It explains: “Some post-fire forest landscapes will shift to brush or grassland.” The BBC News Reality Check team asks: “Does controlled burning really work?” A new analysis in the New York Times reports how “Rupert Murdoch is influencing Australia’s bushfire debate”, adding: “Critics see a concerted effort to shift blame, protect conservative leaders and divert attention from climate change.” DeSmog says: “Debunked Australian bushfire conspiracy theories were pushed by Alex Jones, Murdoch media.” Website news.com.au reports the comments of a firefighter who “hit out at misinformation circulating on social media surrounding the current bushfires crisis”. The Guardian reports that the Australian police have “contradict[ed] claims spread online exaggerating arson’s role” in the bushfires, while Daily Mail Australia reports: “Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest claims bushfire crisis is caused by arsonists – and climate change is just a ‘small part’”. In the Wall Street Journal, a comment from James Morrow argues: “Bush fires have many causes. The climate-change narrative is a gross oversimplification.” Climate Feedback has a factcheck about the false claims that “arsonists, not climate change” are largely to blame.

A series of other comment pieces tackle the bushfires and Australia’s role in causing climate change. In the Guardian, Simon Holmes à Court says the idea that Australia is too small to matter, responsible for less than 2% of global emissions, is “absurd, reckless and morally bankrupt”. Another Guardian comment from Ketan Joshi says “climate disaster denialism” is “out of control” in Australia, with “myths about the bushfires grow[ing] online before finding their way into the rightwing press and the mouths of politicians”. A comment from Ian Whitworth in the Sydney Morning Herald makes the “business case against coal”, pointing out that the thermal coal mining industry employs 38,000 people in Australia, against 924,000 that work in tourism. Earlier this week, Carbon Brief published a summary of media coverage of the bushfires that tackles all the major talking points around recent events.

Separately, Reuters reports that forest fires in the Amazon were up 30% in 2019 compared to the previous year, according to data from the Brazilian space research agency INPE. Reuters reports: “According to INPE, the number of fires detected in the Amazon region was 89,178 in 2019 compared with 68,345 fires in 2018. Although the number of fires rose, it was still below the historic average of 109,630 fires in the Amazon each year.”

In a comment for the Financial Times, John Plender writes: “Companies have been promising for years to come clean about their exposure to climate risk. But 2020 may prove to be the moment that investors finally force them to do it.” He adds that this puts the onus on auditors to “challenge the way managers assess – or obfuscate – the impact of decarbonisation on financial accounts”. He adds: “As things stand, many big investors fear that companies in energy-intensive industries are failing to recognise the potential hit to asset values posed by climate risk.” Meanwhile, the Independent reports that major shareholders are calling on Barclays to stop financing fossil-fuel companies, with its piece noting that the bank has provided £65bn of such funding since 2015.

Ocean acidification may not impair the behaviour of fish living in coral reefs – as previously suggested by other scientific studies, a new Nature paper finds. “Ocean acidification” occurs as seawater absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere, which changes the ocean’s chemical make-up, making it more acidic. Previous research had suggested that these chemical changes could impact the behaviour of fish; for example by causing them to mis-read chemical cues from predators. However, the new Nature study, undertaken over three years with six different fish species, finds the impact of ocean acidification on fish behaviour to be “negligible”.

Rapid warming of the tropical Indian Ocean could be affecting the ability of La Niña to provide rainfall to the Central Indian summer monsoon, new research finds. La Niña is a natural weather phenomenon occurring in some years, which provides the Central Indian summer monsoon with rain. However, there has recently been a 6-8% reduction in monsoon rainfall in La Niña years, relative to pre 1980. Using modelling the researchers find this reduction could be down to a “combination of weakening La Niña events themselves plus [a] strongly warming tropical Indian Ocean”.