This week, our friends down under are experiencing climate chaos up close and personal.

Australia is enduring a record heat wave that is causing massive forest fires and unprecedented public health issues.

The situation has become so bad that the weather service was forced to add to add additional colors to the heat map to capture temperatures up to 54 degrees Celsius (129°F).

A recent heat map of Australia, with the new colors.  (AUS Bureau of Meteorology)

David Jones, head of the bureau’s climate monitoring and prediction unit, told the Sydney Morning Herald:

The scale has just been increased today and I would anticipate it is because the forecast coming from the bureau’s model is showing temperatures in excess of 50 degrees.

Temperatures are expected to remain high throughout the weekend and possibly into next week.

The Australian Coal Association brags that, “Over the past 10 years black coal exports have increased by more than 50 percent.” Australia is the world’s largest coal exporter. The top five countries purchasing their coal are Japan, China, South Korea, India and Taiwan.

Perhaps the time has come to connect the dots between climate chaos and the burning of coal.