Climate change
Climate change will hit Australia harder than rest of world, study shows
Science agency the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology predict temperature rises of up to 5.1c in Australia by 2090 in their most comprehensive forecast yet
adelaide hills bushfire
Embers glow after a bushfire in the Adelaide Hills in January, the worst the area has seen in d
Shares
5,975
Comments
354
Australia could be on track for a temperature rise of more than 5C by the end of the century, outstripping the rate of warming experienced by the rest of the world, unless drastic action is taken to slash greenhouse gas emissions, according to the most comprehensive analysis ever produced of the country’s future climate.
The national science agency CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have released the projections based on 40 global climate models, producing what they said was the most robust picture yet of how Australia’s climate would change.
The report stated there was “very high confidence” that temperatures would rise across Australia throughout the century, with the average annual temperature set to be up to 1.3C warmer in 2030 compared with the average experienced between 1986 and 2005.
Temperature projections for the end of the century depend on how deeply, if at all, greenhouse gas emissions are cut. The world is tracking at the higher emissions scenario, meaning a temperature increase of between 2.8C and 5.1C in Australia by 2090.
According to the report, this “business-as-usual” approach to burning fossil fuels is set to cook Australia more than the rest of the world, which will average a temperature increase of 2.6C to 4.8C by 2090.
median temperatures
Australia’s surface air temperature has already increased 0.9C since 1910, with the number of extreme heat records outnumbering extreme cool records nearly three to one since 2001.
Australia experienced its third-warmest year on record in 2014, with 2013 its warmest year on record. The heat experienced in 2013 was “unlikely” to have been caused by natural variability alone, the report stated, with such temperatures now five times more likely due to humans releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Other findings of the wide-ranging analysis, the first such Australian climate projection made since 2007, included:
The interior of Australia is set to warm more rapidly than coastal areas. Alice Springs will experience an average of 83 days a year over 40C in 2090, up from just 17 in 1995.
Melbourne will swelter through an average of 24 days above 35C by 2090, up from 11 in 1995. Sydney will experience 11 days above 35C by 2090, an increase from three days in 1995.
Australia is on course for a sea level rise of 45cm to 82cm by 2090, if emissions are not curbed. The report warned that if the Antarctic ice sheet was to collapse, sea levels would be a further “several tenths of a metre higher by late in the century”.
Extreme rainfall events will increase but overall rainfall is expected to drop in southern Australia, apart from Tasmania, during the winter and spring months – by as much as 69% by 2090.
There will be more extreme droughts, with the length of droughts increasing by between 5% and 20%, depending on how quickly greenhouse gases are cut.
Rising temperatures will result in a “greater number of days with severe fire danger”. Meanwhile, soil moisture will fall by up to 15% in southern Australia in the winter months by 2090.
Snow cover will decline, with the report stating there was “high confidence that as warming progresses there will be very substantial decreases in snowfall, increase in melt and thus reduced snow cover”.
These changes are likely to produce some benefits, such as enhanced agriculture in Tasmania and fewer deaths from cold weather. But they will be overshadowed by the negatives, such as rising numbers of deaths from heatwaves, water resource challenges, impacts upon agriculture and risks posed to coastal infrastructure by rising seas.
Advertisement
Some of the most profound transformations are set to take place in the seas that surround Australia, which will warm by a further 2C to 4C unless emissions are cut.
Excess carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans causes the water’s pH level to drop. This acidification makes it more difficult for corals to form hard reef structures and other creatures such as oysters, clams, lobsters and crabs to develop their shells.
This phenomenon poses a major risk to ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef and is, according to the report, “likely to impact the entire marine ecosystem from plankton at the base to fish at the top”.
Kevin Hennessy, the principal research scientist at CSIRO, said the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology now had a greater confidence than ever in their forecasts of Australia’s climate.
“Australia will warm faster than the rest of the world,” he told Guardian Australia. “Warming of 4C to 5C would have a very significant effect: there would be increases in extremely high temperatures, much less snow, more intense rainfall, more fires and rapid sea level rises.”
Hennessy said even the internationally agreed limit of 2C of warming on pre-industrial times would cause severe problems for Australia.
Advertisement
“That intermediate emissions scenario would have significant effects for Australia,” he said. “Coral reefs are sensitive to even small changes in ocean temperature and a 1C rise would have severe implications for the Great Barrier Reef and Ningaloo reef.
“The situation is looking grim for the Great Barrier Reef unless we can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A 2C future would be very challenging.”
Hennessy said Australia should prepare for this altered climate by ensuring hospitals, transport infrastructure, construction codes and fire planning all considered the rising temperatures.
Cutting emissions would also help head off the worst of climate change, with nations set to convene in Paris later this year for crunch talks aimed at agreeing emissions reductions beyond 2020.
“Achieving that intermediate, rather than higher, emissions path would require significant reductions in global greenhouse gases,” Hennessy said. “It’s difficult to say what will be achieved, there are a lot of negotiations to come in Paris. We hope there will be an agreement until 2050 at least, but who knows what will happen in the coming decades.”
Climate change (Environment)
Climate change (Science)
Greenhouse gas emissions
The oceans have two orders of magnitude more undersea volcanos than land. I’m just saying we do not know the cause and effect.
You are such an idiot.
@Fran Manns
you can do the math yourself. look for the average energy release during a volcanic eruption, then apply that to the number of submerged volcanoes, then compare it to the chart above.
here is real quick evaluation for you:
8×10^17 Joules released during Krakatoa eruption.
30 000 – Estimate of submerged volcanoes on earth
24×10^21 Joules if all 30 000 erupted with the force of Krakatoa since 1985.
20×10^22 – the amount of joules the ocean energy level has risen since 1985.
conclusion: volcanoes are not the source.
as a percentage, if 30 000 Krakatoa’s occurred in 30 years (and trust me, one would be a story to remember) then the ocean energy rise would still only be 12% of the measured energy increase.
Looks like math is easier than denial.
Why does satellite data show no increase in temperature for the last 15 years? Of course this year was the hottest (by fractions of a degree), we are still at the peak we saw start in 1998. No new warming has happened despite co2 continually being pumped out the last 15 years. The temperature pause continues…
Tne graph says that oceans were actually cooling each year until about 1975, were more or less in thermal equilibrium for the next 15 years until 1990, and are now getting hotter at approximately twice the rate. Scientists predicted an impending ice age in the first period, were relatively quiet in the second, and are pitching anthropogenic initiated thermal apocalypse in the third. Perhaps the problem is, as the article unintentionally suggests, their ability to create and interpret graphs is a bit too narrow in scope.
True enough, Fran Manns, the heat could be causing volcanoes, as well as pollution!
Whales are mammals so they are warm blooded and thus warm urine too.
Maybe the whales are pissing more and warming up the oceans.
I know that when I drink green tea I piss like a race horse,
From the graph and headline I’m led to believe that the global average oceanic temperature in the 60’s was -10 degrees. But no once you start looking closer it’s all organized in a cleaver way to fit the crime. One of the main revelations from climate gate was the framing of data to make it appear that we are in an abnormal heating trend. So we focus away from the off the record ice levels in the Antarctic humanity has never seen before and we focus on the arctic where ice is melting from a underground volcano. But we don’t mention the volcano. We also don’t mention the sun at all the driver of heat. We talk about carbon we are burning and releasing into the atmosphere. But we don’t talk about the fact that this carbon was once free in the first place. If the earths oceans begin to warm it will create more vapour and wart will cool not warm up. But who knows since we don’t get the whole picture or all the science. Just what fits the global agenda.
The graph clearly states “Heat Content (10 to the 22nd Joules)” on the Y axis. A -10 degree average (I’m not sure if you assumed Celsius or Fahrenheit) would mean that the oceans were frozen in 1960, and I can’t imagine you think that tricking people into thinking our oceans were iced over 50 years ago is part of a conspiracy to trick the public into believing in global warming. I’m not sure if you read the accompanying article, but Carbon is not mentioned anywhere. It sounds as though you have decided ahead of time that anything that has to do with global temperatures is part of a conspiracy. Starting from that perspective, you miss out on a lot of interesting information.
These “experts”, after all they can hardly be called scientists and climate science can hardly be call a science, having only existed as a discipline for at the most 30 years, these experts have absolutely no idea about global energy storage or for that matter, the mechanism of global warming.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to take their respective blinders off and try to see, “The Big Picture”. Not just the oceans. Not just the atmosphere. Not just the planet…………………………
Climate is about, “the whole package”, the planet, the oceans, the continents, the atmosphere, yes, “the whole ball of wax”. Any climate science that omits any one of these elements in its analysis, is erroneous and irrelevant.
Welcome to the erroneous and irrelevant.
Who do we blame for this?
Greed and selfishness.
If one was to give, which obviously yu don’t,
Those who could afford ecology protective energy would have it and there would be less pollution that causes ocean temp. to rise.
And you who are the ones who think well I’ll leave it to the other guy.
We could start by blaming the Jews… History shows us that that always works.
And how do they measure that?
1. Deep ocean water is very cold – just a few degrees above freezing.
How do you fantasize that deep, cold , ocean water is warming warm ocean surface water?
2. If there are plumes of hot water rising to the surface of the ocean they must be taking some pumice to
the ocean surface with them.
Why are none of the warm plumes visible?
3. If there are plumes of hot water rising to the surface of the ocean then they why aren’t they visible on global ocean temperature maps?
4. If these volcanoes are mostly along the thin crust of the mid Atlantic ridge where the sea floor is spreading apart, then why is there no evidence of warm water above the ridge?
Surface temperature measurements taken from satellite, buoy, and boat show no ocean temperature variation above the mid Atlantic ridge.
5. If the ocean is warming due to magic, invisible volcanoes that leave no signatures, then why have these volcanoes increased their energy output over the last 200 years?
6. Why does the temperature increase of the ocean match that projected from increased levels of atmospheric CO2, if the real cause of ocean warming is magic, invisible volcanoes?
Welcome to the erroneous and irrelevant.
Thank God! At least we can’t blame Him!
Lets hear it from the denial crowd now – volcanos, sunspots, commie science, Gore clones, etc, etc
Anything but the gigatonnes of GHG produced by burning fossil fuels in the last century. Ignore the science and trust the CAPP PR flaks who come up with these talking points. We have a decade to reduce our carbon emissions before we hit the run away feedback loops that threaten the viability of our children’s future. Make this an election issue! Any politician that wont face facts is out the door. We owe it to our children’s children.