From The ABC
A climate research group is warning coastal Queensland communities need to start preparing for the effects of climate change.
Dr John Hunter from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre says it has designed a new web-based program that can predict the risk of flooding in Cairns and other regions based on sea level rises.
He says the program allows planners and policy makers to assess the risk of flooding and determine how high above sea level new infrastructure needs to be built.
“The frequency of flooding events is going to increase significantly,” he said.
“The average for Australia is that if we have a sea level rise of only half a metre, which is very conservative for this century, you’re going to see flooding events increasing by a factor of something like 300.
“This means that if you’ve got a flooding event that happens every year at the moment, it’s going to be happening every day by the end of the century.
“I say it’s a risk-based thing, it gives you the probability of a flooding event during the life of the asset.
“It includes both the uncertainty of when the next storm’s going to come and also the uncertainty of the projections of sea level rise into the future.”