Science and science communication of anthropogenic climate change and extreme weather-related events: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Alpha Road/Tambaroora bushfire in Australia, 2023

• Analyses media coverage of an extreme weather-related event – a bushfire/wildfire in Australia. • Finds that climate change is not addressed despite attribution science research into recent bushfires in the same state. • Identifies the continued use of personalisation themes and economic framings of bushfire. • Highlights the importance of community and safety framings to “be prepared” in times of bushfire activity. • Suggests four areas for further study to improve climate change attribution research as part of media reporting of weather-related events. There is evidence of increased links in media coverage between anthropogenic climate change and heatwaves, wildfires and flooding events. This usually pertains to major disasters, but that is a relative concept as the notion of disaster is contextual and disasters are devastating at smaller scales for the people impacted. Media reporting of the Alpha Road/Tambaroora bushfire in the central-west region of New South Wales (Australia), in March 2023, was analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to analyse links between science, anthropogenic climate change and an extreme weather-related event. There was a focus on proximate causes, costs and impact on livelihoods. There was an absence of climate change discourse. Timely attribution science, especially rapid assessments that accurately connect climate change with significant weather-related events, not just large-scale disasters, may increase media salience and assist with science communication. The expectation that parts of Australia will burn, and therefore bushfires become newsworthy only when they are disasters, needs to be challenged in order to live in a changing climate.