Wednesday 26 October 2016

Australia's state of the Climate

The Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have combined to produce another State of the Climate for Australia again.

A very interesting read.

  • More extreme weather is expected
  • CO₂ concentrations at Cape Grim passed through 400 parts per million for the first time in May 2016, and global concentrations are now at their highest levels in the past two million years.
  • There has been an increase in extreme fire weather, and a lengthening of the fire season in most fire-prone regions since the 1970s.
  • In particular, May–July rainfall has reduced by around 19% since 1970 in the southwest of Australia. There has been a decline of around 11% since the mid-1990s in April–October rainfall in the continental southeast. Southeast Australia has had below-average rainfall in 16 of the April–October periods since 1997.
  • Australia’s oceans have also warmed, with sea surface temperature increases closely matching those experienced on land. This warming affects both the marine environment and Australia’s terrestrial climate, due to the large influence of surrounding oceans on our weather systems. Sea levels have risen around Australia, which has the potential to amplify the effects of high tides and storm surges.
  • warming in the global oceans now extends to at least 2,000 metres below the surface. 
  •  studies of record heat experienced during Spring in 2013 and 2014 have shown that the observed high temperatures received an extra contribution from background global warming.
It is a really good read.

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