Australia Hit Hardest With Climate Change

[icyfroth]

Australia’s surface air temperature has already increased 0.9C since 1910, with the number of extreme heat records outnumbering extreme cool records nearly three to one since 2001.

Australia experienced its third-warmest year on record in 2014, with 2013 its warmest year on record. The heat experienced in 2013 was “unlikely” to have been caused by natural variability alone, the report stated, with such temperatures now five times more likely due to humans releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Other findings of the wide-ranging analysis, the first such Australian climate projection made since 2007, included:

• The interior of Australia is set to warm more rapidly than coastal areas. Alice Springs will experience an average of 83 days a year over 40C in 2090, up from just 17 in 1995.

• Melbourne will swelter through an average of 24 days above 35C by 2090, up from 11 in 1995. Sydney will experience 11 days above 35C by 2090, an increase from three days in 1995.

• Australia is on course for a sea level rise of 45cm to 82cm by 2090, if emissions are not curbed. The report warned that if the Antarctic ice sheet was to collapse, sea levels would be a further “several tenths of a metre higher by late in the century”.

• Extreme rainfall events will increase but overall rainfall is expected to drop in southern Australia, apart from Tasmania, during the winter and spring months – by as much as 69% by 2090.

• There will be more extreme droughts, with the length of droughts increasing by between 5% and 20%, depending on how quickly greenhouse gases are cut.

• Rising temperatures will result in a “greater number of days with severe fire danger”. Meanwhile, soil moisture will fall by up to 15% in southern Australia in the winter months by 2090.

• Snow cover will decline, with the report stating there was “high confidence that as warming progresses there will be very substantial decreases in snowfall, increase in melt and thus reduced snow cover”.

Kevin Hennessy, a principal research scientist at the CSIRO, said it and the Bureau of Meteorology now had a greater confidence than ever in their forecasts of Australia’s climate.

“We expect land areas to warm faster than ocean areas, and polar regions faster than the tropics,” Hennessy told Guardian Australia.

Given Australia’s geographical position, that would mean much of the country was expected to warm faster than the global average.

“Australia will warm faster than the rest of the world,” Hennessy said. “Warming of 4C to 5C would have a very significant effect: there would be increases in extremely high temperatures, much less snow, more intense rainfall, more fires and rapid sea level rises.”

Entire Article Here

What with rampaging deforestation, chemical run off and industrial emissions and pollutant, I have every reason to believe it. Especially with the freak storms and extreme heat we've been experiencing over the last decade or so.

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

I forgot to add that the sea levels would need to rise by 216 feet or 68.5m to achieve the above coast lines.

[chameleon54]

My family has farmed crops and sheep in very marginal ( goyders line ) country for several generations. In the 1930,s-50,s my uncles always religiously had the ground prepared and crops sown by anzac day. Now we are very lucky if we have had the opening rains by Anzac day. Growing season rainfall appears to be falling and seasons are cutting off quicker than in the past. Our long term average grain yields where 8 bags to the acre ( old language ) and are now 6 bags to the acre and falling. The really scary thing is this is with huge advances in grain technology such as legume and canola break crops, zero tillage, ( not turning the soil to expose it to drying atmosphere ) ,stubble retention ( mulching ) , spraying of summer weeds to reduce their use of sub soil moisture etc. etc. Without these technological advances our grain yields would be further reduced.

On the sheep front our carrying capacity has halved in thirty years from one sheep to the uncropped acre, to one sheep to two uncropped acres. When I was a child we used to have huge clover crops. Old 8 mm. family films show me and my siblings struggling through them to collect wild mushrooms ( now gone ) . The last big clover year was thirty five years ago, when I left school. We spent the hot summer carting tens of thousands of bales of clover hay and made huge stacks the size of industrial sheds. ( the remains of one of these are still there.) It makes me cry to think of the work that went into that stack and to see it rotting away.

Clovers have completely dissappeared from many farms and the native pine and mallee trees on the sides of the road are showing the effects of drying conditions, with the crown of the mallee being a skeleton of sticks, with leaves concentrated lower down the branches as the trees shrink in size to cope with harsher conditions.

I have been a keen student of nature all of my life and can see gradual changes taking place. As this is some of the most marginal farming country, a keen observer will notice changes here first.

I also own a small property in high rainfall country. Some of the neighbors who have lived in the area for generations are seeing changes in the dates that springs and small creeks begin to flow each season.

Sorry folks, it aint a scientists theory based on computer models that we can argue over. Its already happening on a large scale NOW  !!!!

[this-one-time-at-bandcamp]

If the polar ice caps melt, you're gonna see that 216 feet.........and that nice lake in California is covering the most productive agricultural areas.........

[i-need-a-martini]

---

@idlewhile wrote:

---

@this-one-time-at-bandcamp wrote:

And yet, deniers have no explanation for the Pacific islands being inundated, the shrinking polar ice, and the diminishing glaciers.

---

I find your use of the the word deniers offensive and insulting.

It has connotations and references of the holocaust deniers and is wrong on so many levels.

---

Don't you just love the self indignant horror of someone who finds the word "deniers" offensive but then calls anyone not of the same opinion "rent seekers", "opportunists" and "alarmists" lol?

Fair enough that you find the word offensive idel (altho I am not sure why) but no one is going to accept your apparent feeling of being insulted when you continuously denigrate others. I suggest you are more careful with your own words and your self indignant comments in future.

[softail-joanie]

Aerosmith - Nobody's Fault- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzmXmuAmH4s

Lord I must be dreamin' . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . What else could this be
Everybody's screamin' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Running' for the sea
Holy lands are sinkin' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Birds take to the sky
The prophets are all stinking drunk . . . . . . I know the reason why

Eyes are full of desire . . . . . Mind is so ill at ease
Everything is on fire . . . . . . Sh*t piled up to the knees
Out of rhyme or reason . . . . . Everyone's to blame
Children of the season . . . . . . Don't be lame

Sorry, you're so sorry . . . . . . . Don't be sorry
Man has known . . . . . . And now he's blown it
Upside down and hell's the only sound
We did an awful job And now they say it's nobody's fault

Old St. Andres . . . . . . . . . . Seven years ago
Shove it up their richters . Red lines stop and go
Noblemen of courage . . . . Listen with their ears
Spoke but how discouragin'  . When no one really hears

One of these day's you'll be sorry
Too many houses on the stilt
Three million years or just a story
Four on the floor up to the hilt

Out of rhyme or reason . . . . Everyone's to blame
Children of the season . . . . . Don't be lame

Sorry, we're so sorry . . Don't be sorry
Man has known . And now he's blown it
Upside down and hell's the only sound
We did an awful job . And now we're just a little too late

Eyes are full of desire . . . Mind is so ill at ease
Everything is on fire . . . . . Sh*t piled up in debris

California showtime . . . . Five o'clock's the news
Everybody's concubine . Was prone to take a snooze

Sorry, we're so sorry . . . Don't be sorry
Man has known . And now he's blown it
Upside down and hell's the only sound
We did an aweful job And now we're just a little too late

.

[***super_nova***]

---

@siggie-reported-by-alarmists wrote:

Plants also love increased c02 levels...... again...... you can relax.

---

Yes, they do, and if you give them more CO2 they grow really fast.  The green bits, but their fruit is smaller, and they produce more of ntural toxins.   Trees growing faster have softer and therefor less useful wood.  Those who think that  excelerating plant growth is good, are wrong. 

If we act, and I am wrong, all what is going to happen is that our grandchildren will have a cleaner world to live in.  If the deniers are wrong, the future generations will struggle to survive.

[vicr3000]

"If the deniers are wrong, the future generations will struggle to survive."

You cant prove that, it is scare mongering, not backed up by anything except a crystal ball.

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

---

@chameleon54 wrote:

My family has farmed crops and sheep in very marginal ( goyders line ) country for several generations. In the 1930,s-50,s my uncles always religiously had the ground prepared and crops sown by anzac day. Now we are very lucky if we have had the opening rains by Anzac day. Growing season rainfall appears to be falling and seasons are cutting off quicker than in the past. Our long term average grain yields where 8 bags to the acre ( old language ) and are now 6 bags to the acre and falling. The really scary thing is this is with huge advances in grain technology such as legume and canola break crops, zero tillage, ( not turning the soil to expose it to drying atmosphere ) ,stubble retention ( mulching ) , spraying of summer weeds to reduce their use of sub soil moisture etc. etc. Without these technological advances our grain yields would be further reduced.

On the sheep front our carrying capacity has halved in thirty years from one sheep to the uncropped acre, to one sheep to two uncropped acres. When I was a child we used to have huge clover crops. Old 8 mm. family films show me and my siblings struggling through them to collect wild mushrooms ( now gone ) . The last big clover year was thirty five years ago, when I left school. We spent the hot summer carting tens of thousands of bales of clover hay and made huge stacks the size of industrial sheds. ( the remains of one of these are still there.) It makes me cry to think of the work that went into that stack and to see it rotting away.

Clovers have completely dissappeared from many farms and the native pine and mallee trees on the sides of the road are showing the effects of drying conditions, with the crown of the mallee being a skeleton of sticks, with leaves concentrated lower down the branches as the trees shrink in size to cope with harsher conditions.

I have been a keen student of nature all of my life and can see gradual changes taking place. As this is some of the most marginal farming country, a keen observer will notice changes here first.

I also own a small property in high rainfall country. Some of the neighbors who have lived in the area for generations are seeing changes in the dates that springs and small creeks begin to flow each season.

Sorry folks, it aint a scientists theory based on computer models that we can argue over. Its already happening on a large scale NOW  !!!!

---

What is happening large scale now?

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

---

@this-one-time-at-bandcamp wrote:

If the polar ice caps melt, you're gonna see that 216 feet.........and that nice lake in California is covering the most productive agricultural areas.........

---

   No...... to achieve 216 feet rise, that would require every ice sheet to melt, no just polar caps.

   But you can relax, Antartica is bigger than ever, and it seems hundreds of glaciers are still growing.

[siggie-reported-by-alarmists]

Higher-than-normal CO2 concentrations dramatically enhance the efficiency with which plants utilize

water, sometimes as much as doubling it in response to a doubling of the air's CO2 content.  These CO2-induced improvements

typically lead to the development of more extensive and active root systems, enabling plants to more thoroughly explore larger

volumes of soil in search of the things they need. 

Consequently, even in soils lacking sufficient water and nutrients for good growth at

today's CO2 concentrations, plants exposed to the elevated atmospheric CO2 levels expected in the future generally show remarkable

increases in vegetative productivity, which should enable them to successfully colonize low-rainfall areas that are presently too dry to

support more than isolated patches of desert vegetation.

Elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 also enable plants to better withstand the

growth-retarding effects of various environmental stresses, including soil salinity, air pollution, high and low air temperatures, and air-

borne and soil-borne plant pathogens. 

In fact, atmospheric CO2 enrichment can actually mean the difference between life and death

for vegetation growing in extremely stressful circumstances.  In light of these facts, it is not surprising that Earth's natural and

managed ecosystems have already benefited immensely from the increase in atmospheric CO2 that has accompanied the progression

of the Industrial Revolution; and they will further prosper from future CO2 increases.