Confidential Bureau of Meteorology briefings, obtained by Fairfax Media through freedom-of-information laws, show senior officials warned Mr Hunt that the extreme heat that baked Australia in 2013 was "unprecedented" before Mr Hunt downplayed any link between fires and climate change in an interview with the BBC's Newshour in October last year.

The initial briefings show officials advised Mr Hunt that recent extreme heat was consistent with "a pattern of global warming", while subsequent advice in November said climate change had increased the odds of "severe weather conducive to severe bushfires occurring".

The documents shatter claims made by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who last year dismissed any link between global warming and bushfires, and show the extent to which the government has been advised of climate change's influence on recent extreme weather in Australia.

Mr Hunt was questioned on Newshour on October 23 last year and appeared to use Wikipedia to defend the Prime Minister's assertion that United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres was "talking out of her hat" when she said bushfires were linked to climate change.

Mr Hunt said he had "looked up what Wikipedia says" and had learnt that "bushfires in Australia are frequently occurring events during the hotter months of the year … That's the Australian experience".

Pressed about the impact of climate change on bushfires, Mr Hunt responded: "Well, we all have to be very careful. In talking with the senior people of the Bureau of Meteorology, for example, they always emphasise never try to link any particular event to climate change."

But the briefing papers released to Fairfax Media show that, three weeks earlier, on October 3, the weather bureau's director, Rob Vertessy, had told Mr Hunt that the intensity, extent and duration of record high temperatures in the preceding month had been "unprecedented" since at least 1910, when records began.

While Dr Vertessy said "it is not possible to attribute any single weather event to global warming", he emphasised "recent extremes are consistent with the general pattern of warming".

"A number of more recent studies are drawing probabilistic links between more extreme seasonal heat records and climate change, including the Australian summer of 2012-13," he said.

Subsequent weather bureau briefings provided to Mr Hunt and his office elaborated on the links between climate change and the likelihood of extreme heat and bushfires.

On October 31 last year, the bureau emphasised that "long-term warming trends observed around Australia are consistent with global-scale warming" and "extreme heat is increasing, while extreme cold is decreasing".

Mr Hunt said on Monday that during the October 23 interview he had "reconfirmed on multiple occasions our support [of] the science but also reaffirmed the advice of the scientists not to attribute individual events."

In relation to the suggestion that he sourced his information from Wikipedia, on Monday Mr Hunt said: "This is an absolute distortion ... I must have done 200 interviews referring to the science and the scientists. This was an overseas [interviewer], who has no idea about the CSIRO. The point was that even the most basic sources will say Australia has always had massive bushfires."

In November last year, the bureau warned "climate change experienced to date has increased the odds of severe weather conducive to severe bushfires occurring".

"This is due to expected higher temperatures, higher evaporation, lower rainfall and, for the south-east, the potential for summertime weather systems that are associated with the most extreme and damaging bushfire activity," it said.

The bureau also strengthened its judgment that Australia's "unusual warmth" of 2013 was a result of climate change rather than natural variability.

"At a global scale, 2013 has seen neutral conditions in the Pacific Ocean (i.e. neither El Nino nor La Nina) meaning that natural large scale drivers have not been present," the bureau told Mr Hunt's office.  "This means that the recent conditions over Australia cannot be explained by natural drivers."

That position was backed by five separate studies by Australian universities published last week, all of which concluded that record temperatures in Australia last year were almost certainly caused by man-made climate change.

What they said

Greg Hunt in a BBC interview on October 23, 2013:
"In talking with the senior people of the Bureau of Meteorology ... they always emphasise never try to link any particular event to climate change."

October 3, 2013, briefing paper for Mr Hunt prepared by bureau director Rob Vertessy:
"A number of more recent studies are drawing probabilistic links between more extreme seasonal heat records and climate change, including the Australian summer of 2012-13."

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