State of the Climate 2012: Australia continues to warm

14/03/2012

Australia’s land and oceans have continued to warm in response to rising CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. This is the headline finding in the State of the Climate 2012, an updated summary of Australia’s long term climate trends released by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology today (14 March 2012).

CSIRO Chief Executive, Dr Megan Clark, said the latest analysis painted a clear decade-to-decade picture of Australia’s climate, while at the same time noting its highly variable nature from one year to the next.

“Much of Australia may have lurched from drought to floods since the previous summary, but this has occurred against a backdrop of steadily increasing air and ocean temperatures and rising sea levels. What’s more, the rate of change is increasing.
“The fundamental physical and chemical processes leading to climate change are well understood, and CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology observations demonstrate that change is occurring now,” said Dr Clark.

Bureau of Meteorology Acting Director, Dr Rob Vertessy, said this updated summary was based on improved understanding drawn from detailed analysis of our national climate record, which goes back more than a hundred years.

“Ground, ocean and satellite based observations are giving us highly consistent observations of this warming trend. State of the Climate 2012 confirms that each decade has been warmer than the previous decade for the past 70 years, with an increase in the number of warm nights, and the breaking of monthly maximum temperature records.

“CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology will continue to provide observations, projections, research, and analysis so that Australia’s responses to the challenges of a changing climate are underpinned by robust scientific evidence of the highest quality,” said Dr Vertessy.

State of the Climate 2012 showed a general trend toward increased spring and summer monsoonal rainfall across Australia’s north, and a decline in late autumn and winter rainfall across southern Australia.

Sea-levels had risen around Australia at rates equal to or greater than the global average, and sea-surface temperatures in the region had increased faster than the global average.

State of the Climate 2012 documents the annual growth in global fossil-fuel CO2 emissions and other important greenhouse gases. The CO2 concentration of the atmosphere had risen to around 390 parts per million, a level unprecedented in the past 800,000 years. During the past decade it has risen at more than 3% per year, which is projected to cause significant further global warming.

For further information go to State of the Climate 2012.