Braganza, Karl & Steve Rintoul
‘State of the Climate 2016: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO‘, The Conversation, 27 October 2016
Summarises the main points in the report and provides links to it, to a summary video and the portal Climate Change in Australia. As well as its results, the report reflects the expertise found in the BOM and the CSIRO, two immensely valuable national assets. Main points:
- global carbon dioxide concentrations are now at their highest levels in the past two million years;
- the terrestrial climate has warmed by around 1℃ since 1910, with an accompanying increase in the duration, frequency and intensity of extreme heat events across large parts of Australia – fire seasons have lengthened;
- there has been an average reduction in rainfall across parts of southern Australia;
- Australia’s oceans have warmed and sea levels have risen;
- warming in the global oceans now extends to at least 2,000 metres below the surface; and
- global warming is partly the cause of a change in the frequency of extreme weather, such as an increase in the number of heatwaves.
The Honest History book, to be published in April 2017, includes a chapter by Rebecca Jones of the ANU, titled ‘Fire, droughts and flooding rains: Environmental influences on Australian history’.
