Posted on: Monday, 15 March 2010, 10:43 CDT
Australia's average temperature is on the rise, providing compelling evidence of the validity of climate change, claims the country's top group of scientists in a report released on Monday.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), in a joint "State of the Climate" report with the Bureau of Meteorology, presented findings that the country's mean temperature has increased by 0.7 degrees Celsius in the past 50 years, though some areas have experienced as much as a 1.5 to 2 degree hike in temperatures.
Furthermore, this past decade was the hottest in Australia's recorded history and rainfall amounts in the southeast and southwest parts of the country are decreasing, the report found.
"We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate," CSIRO head Dr. Megan Clark recently told ABC public radio. "We are warming in every part of the country during every season and as each decade goes by, the records are being broken. We are also seeing fewer cold days so we are seeing some very significant long-term trends in Australia's climate."
According to the report, as it was quoted in a March 15, 2010 Reuters UK story, "There is greater than 90 percent certainty that increases in greenhouse gas emissions have caused most of the global warming since the mid-20th century. Evidence of human influence has been detected in ocean warming, sea-level rise, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns."
Based on data collected over the past 100 years, the CSIRO scientists claim that they expect the average temperatures in Australia to spike by another 0.6 to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades.
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On the Net:
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO)
- Bureau of Meteorology
- Megan Clark
Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1836372/australian_study_shows_climate_on_the_rise/index.html?source=r_science
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