Australia is already experiencing climate change, with hotter springs, declining rainfall and sea level rises more than three times the global average in some areas, according to a report released today by the nation’s two leading scientific agencies.
The “State of the Climate” snapshot, drawn together by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, shows the mean temperature in Australia has risen 0.7 degrees since 1960 and that average daily maximum temperatures have grown steadily over the past 50 years.
The snapshot combines more than 100 years of data on weather, tracking changes in temperature, rainfall, sea level, ocean acidification and atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and methane.
It suggests that Australia could warm by up to 5 degrees – well above the 2 degree danger threshold determined by the United Nations — if current global greenhouse gas emission levels continue unchecked.
”Climate change is real. Our records show there is no disputing that, and the next step is to meet this challenge through mitigation and adaptation,” CSIRO Chief Executive Megan Clark has said.
Other findings reveal the past decade was Australia’s warmest on record and that sea levels rose between 1.5 millimetre and 3 millimetres a year in the south and east and between 7 millimetres and 10 millimetres in the north between 1993 and 2009.
The release of the report comes as many Australian scientists expressed concern over attacks on the science underpinning man-made global warming, fearing it is damaging the reputation of science as a whole.
Director of the Bureau of Meteorology, Greg Ayres, told the Sydney Morning Herald the purpose of the report was to remind the public that scientific data backing claims of climate change has been collected for a century.
“I would like to invite the Australian public to use … the information generated in the national interest to reach an opinion on climate change because it is objective information,” Dr Ayers told the newspaper.
