The official 2024/25 Australian summer monsoon (ASM) onset occurred on 7 February, more than two weeks later than the previous record. Defined using Darwin winds, the official ASM typically arrives between mid-December and mid-January. Here, we investigate (1) why the ASM onset was record late, despite La Niña-like conditions, and (2) if the late ASM onset was consistent with other unofficial monsoon and rainy season onset def...

Aim Australia's arid and semi‐arid zones cover about 70% of the continent, yet our understanding of the biogeography of these diverse and expansive landscapes remains limited. Mulgara ( Dasycercus spp.; Marsupialia: Dasyuridae), a widely distributed mammal taxon, offers an opportunity to explore patterns of the population structure across the region, previously hampered by taxonomic confusion surrounding extant species. Here,...

The climate of the Pacific Ocean varies on interannual, decadal, and longer timescales. This variability is dominated by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), both of which have profound impacts on countries within and well beyond the Pacific. To date, previous studies have only examined a small subset of the possible links between ENSO, its diversity, and the IPO. Here we focu...

The annual SST lag for the world ocean is obtained from a Fourier analysis of the HadISST (1870–2008) and NOAA WOA05 (1900–2005) monthly SST data series. The main properties are a mean of 73 days and a standard deviation of 16 days, with tongues of high SST lag extending poleward and eastward from the equatorial regions where a maximum in lag of about 110 days occurs. The SST lag is the sum of an atmospheric surface heat flux...