Last week I participated in and helped organize the Greenhouse2013 conference in Adelaide, Australia. This conference is quite unique, as it bridges the science, as well as the impacts, of human-induced climate change. Participants included scientists like myself from universities, CSIRO, and the Bureau of Meteorology, as well as members of local and state government, human health experts, agricultural experts, and representatives from renewable energy companies. I even spoke to someone doing her PhD in coal mining. Though there was one particular group of people that really caught my attention – communicators.

Perhaps it is my recent interest in science communication that made this group stand out to me. I’ve only been to one previous Greenhouse conference before and my memory fails me as to whether there was a similar communication presence. This latest meeting in the conference series had its own science communication stream, where experts in this niche presented about new and innovative ways to reach the general public on various climate and weather-related topics, including the issue of human-induced climate change. I even participated in a casual forum of five early career researchers, where one of my fellow panel members was a trained, successful, and engaging science communicator.

Now, I’m aware that perhaps not everyone in this industry has the same enthusiasm I do about communication. This could be for various reasons, whether they be personal or professional. But no matter how we slice and dice it, climate change, and therefore climate science, is a topical and contemporary subject. So does this mean that science and communication can mix?

If this was a black and white issue, then there would simply be two camps: yes, like cake and icing, or no, like oil and water.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way first and start off with some of the reasons why some climate scientists say NO. Firstly, the media as a terrible reputation of misrepresenting stories, and at times, has been thought to have a hidden agenda.  It is quite understandable that someone does not want to place their hard work, and potentially, their reputation on the line, all for a 5-minute (or less) interview and their misquoted findings forever etched somewhere in stone. Some may say that since the life cycle of the media is so short, a misquoted piece will go away as soon as it emerges. But due to the nature of the scientific method, scientists spend years gathering their results and have trouble believing that something disappears as quickly as it appeared. Moreover, like the bad press that continually follows anyone in the public eye - politician or celebrity, some may fear that these reports could resurface at any time only to bring us back down.

Secondly, talking to the media takes up precious research time. Generally before an interview, one needs to plan exactly what to say – you only have a few minutes if you’re really lucky, and trying to condense a few years or so worth of research down to a few sound bytes is challenging to say the least. And if you’re fearful of being misrepresented, you’ve got all the more pressure on you. Sometimes you might be asked to provide comment on a particular research article or study, that due to embargoes you haven't seen yet. So there goes a couple of hours just reading and critically evaluating the study, before you’ve even worked out what your main points are. And if you’ve been asked to write an opinion piece or article – well sheesh, there goes full day at best!

Thirdly, it is not actually part of our job description, formal training, or qualifications. Scientists are trained to critically analyse physical processes, and present their findings to like-minded peers at conferences and within scientific journals. We are not trained, nor generally possess the natural ability to present our findings in a way that everyone can understand, let alone appreciate or find them as exciting as we do. This may seem a bit of a cop-out to some, but it’s more than enough motivation to others to just continue along their research trajectory without attracting too much attention to themselves.

Ok, now for the “cake and icing” camp.

For some climate scientists that enjoy communication activities, it’s all about the challenge. I mentioned above that we are not trained in this area, nor do we have a natural ability, so acquiring communication skills and using them effectively is definitely a challenge. Moreover, it’s a very rewarding one, particularly when people’s feedback is positive, and, better yet, they now make sense of something they didn’t before And a lot of scientists see a challenge as a good and gratifying exercise. After all, our job is full of researching things we don’t know, and the excitement of acquiring new skills and findings is what gets us out of bed every morning.

The communication of climate science can also bring fulfillment, meaning and purpose to your research.  I have lately hard by various sources that those who communicate, particularly over the internet, are narcissists and just want the attention. I strongly disagree with this broad generalization. The communication of our work brings purpose to our RESEARCH, not to US.  We do our job because we find it interesting, it means something and it’s our passion, not because it puts us in the public eye (I think you’d find celebrities fit more into this category). However, since our research means something to the general public and policy and not just one small fraction of a particular research, communicating it affectively to the masses is like the final cheery on a sundae (or icing on the cake, so to say).

And on the note of climate science being so topical, communication provides the opportunity to put the right information and the right science out there.  You’re the expert, and should be the first port of call. It gives you and your peers the perfect change to counteract the “hearsay” and misinformation that may be circulating, whatever the reason. Although I discussed above that this may be a turn-off for some, it is definitely a motivation for others, as it gives the public the opportunity to weigh up both sides of the argument themselves, instead of just being berated by the same, Il-formed statements all the time. After all, who would YOU trust, when it comes to your health for example? A car mechanic? A lawyer? An accountant? Or a doctor?

The same theory applies to climate science.

Of course science and communication, particularly in the field of climate science is no black and white issue. There are many shades of grey where various scientists decide their own level of communication based on their personal beliefs and decisions. But what is definite, however, is the growing interest, resources, and forms of communication delivery that now exist. To me, this indicates that communication and climate science can indeed mix, and not only that, but it is the scientists can control to the extent at which this mix occurs (and how mic.

One of the great oddities of recent times in Australia is that during our increasingly frequent and intense fire seasons – when we're losing houses and, unfortunately, lives – it is seen by many as rude or in poor taste to talk about climate change.

It is quite a bizarre response considering an ever-growing body of research highlights that increases in heat waves, fire danger and extreme temperatures are intimately linked to global warming.

More importantly, these three areas are considered to be the earliest, most responsive and well-defined impacts of climate change.

In Australia, we have seen the Bureau of Meteorology add a new temperature colour to its maps, the creation of a catastrophic fire danger category, the hottest 12 months on record and heat records falling at increasing rates over the past 50 years. Worldwide research has shown that the number of new heat records being set has increased by 40 per cent while the number of extreme cold records being set has declined by 40 per cent.

  We are seeing a shift in the climate towards warmer conditions that will unequivocally have an impact on the timing and intensity of fires.

In Sydney, our fire season started this year in September. On Thursday we have had forecasts for a 39-degree day in Sydney and the declaration of catastrophic fire conditions in other parts of NSW.

Unfortunately, for me, this fire season shift comes as no surprise – it is exactly what is expected under climate change. We are no longer talking about projections, but observations made over the past 50 years and longer that reveal the change.

Our own research at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science has shown that in Australia heatwaves are getting longer, hotter and more frequent. Beyond the increased fire danger, the health impacts of high overnight temperatures are enormous particularly on the more vulnerable and elderly sections of our population. Death rates go up during persistent heatwaves.

This week in the journal Nature, new research claimed to pinpoint the exact year that many of the world's major cities will see the climates completely alter. While this kind of precision is perhaps inappropriate when talking about complete transformations in regional climates, it does not alter the fact that this is where we are heading.

When we look at future climates, the preponderance of evidence suggests an increasing number of extreme heat events, no matter how they are measured. There is also increasing confidence around the idea that wet areas will get wetter and dry areas will get drier. The changes in observed salinity in our oceans supports this proposition.

Future projections of severe rainfall events under enhanced atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations show they are also likely to be more intense.

This summer follows two intense La Nina periods that brought extensive rainfall to the east coast of Australia. While there is no clear indicator that these record rainfall events were due to climate change, because precipitation is hard to model, the extreme flooding and rainfall from these two years has created a vegetation load that that has many in our fire services deeply concerned.

On a personal note, my partner is a volunteer in the Rural Fire Service. The amount of fuel load that has built up over the last few years coupled with an early fire season is something that he and his colleagues have rarely, if at all, seen. They are expecting the worst while praying for a reprieve in the summer ahead.

Hazard reduction burning has been particularly fraught this year and both my partner and his colleagues have explicitly said they are concerned of the conditions and what the summer could bring.

At the same time, their concerns are magnified by the fact that so few people have prepared for this fire season even though it has already started. Gutters are still filled with leaves and flammable objects litter properties that are close to the verge between bush and urban areas.

It is my hope that we don't have the devastation inflicted by infernos such as those in Victoria and Tasmania visited upon NSW. With a partner who is likely to be in the frontline fighting these fires, I have real skin in the game.

But if Sydney and NSW does experience such devastation, I don't want us to ignore the role climate change played. There is no doubt in my mind that global warming is significantly contributing to making Australia's fire danger worse than it has ever been.

If towns are burning and Australian lives are being put more at risk because of this, we have a responsibility to face the role of climate change, to talk about it and to consider our response to a challenge that will only grow if we do nothing.

When lives and communities are being devastated it's more than rude not to talk about climate change and fires, it's life threatening.

This opinion piece was written by myself, and published in the Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday the 10th October, 2013