News release

From: ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather

New research has revealed that land clearing and rapid development can sharply intensify heatwaves beyond the impacts of global warming, offering important lessons for many countries already grappling with record-breaking heat.

The study, currently available in press via the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, analysed Africa as a case study, but found universal physical mechanisms that apply directly to Australia. Using AI-assisted climate modelling, the researchers discovered that deforestation and unplanned land-use change act as a “silent amplifier” of heat, often worsening heatwaves beyond what greenhouse-gas emissions alone would produce.

Lead author Dr Oluwafemi Adeyeri, a Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather based at the Australian National University, says the findings are directly relevant to Australia’s current climate challenges, including recent heatwaves that impacted much of the country in January, coupled with bushfires.

“When vegetation is removed, the land loses its natural cooling system,” he said.

“This amplifies heat locally, and when combined with humidity, it produces more dangerous and longer-lasting heatwaves.”

Although the study focused on Africa, the same processes occur in South-East Queensland, northern NSW, WA’s Wheatbelt, and expanding areas on the urban fringe nationwide, where rapid development and vegetation loss are reshaping local climates. The research shows that in some African regions, heatwaves could become 12 times longer by the end of the century if high emission rates and land degradation continue.

The team also identified the growing role of compound events, where heat interacts with humidity, soil moisture deficits, and storm-forming atmospheric conditions. Queensland’s pattern of oppressive humidity followed by extreme thunderstorms in late 2025 mirrors the compound heat-moisture dynamics highlighted in the study.

Crucially, the research offers a hopeful message - mitigation works. If global emissions follow a moderate pathway rather than a high-emissions trajectory, long-duration ‘mega-heatwaves’ can be broken into shorter, less dangerous events, cutting heatwave duration and intensity by around 30% in many regions.

The authors argue that Australia’s heatwave planning must integrate land-use management with emissions reduction, including urban greening, avoiding unnecessary land clearing, and designing developments that protect, rather than erode, natural cooling processes.

“At a time when Australia is confronting unprecedented heat,” Dr Adeyeri said, “our findings show that smarter land-use choices are one of the most effective tools we have to protect communities.”