The Australian Disaster Novel; aka, our Climate Report

A report released by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, has showcased facts that suggest Australia will suffer more extreme temperatures in the years to come, thanks all to climate change.

The report forecasted heat waves, less rain and a subsequent increased drought. It predicted that exceptionally hot years, which had originally only occurred every 20 to 25 years, were now more likely to hit every one or two years. And the report noted that all of this could start as soon as 2010.

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In addition, the report noted that rainfall, which has already seen to be falling since the 1950’s, is also likely to decline further. The report concluded that southern Australia, and Tasmania (the island off the south of us), will be the worst affected.

The Australian Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said that the report indicted a risk of drought all but doubled, as did the area in which drought would affect. “Parts of these high level projections read more like a disaster novel than a scientific report,” he told reporters. “What’s clear is that the cycle of drought is going to be more regular and deeper than ever.”

This comes at a time when, only last year, we were hearing that the drought could be waning in Australia. However the report concluded that “the analysis shows that the extent and frequency of exceptionally hot years have been increasing rapidly over recent decades and this trend is expected to continue.”

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who took office towards the end of 2007 from John Howard, noted that the reports finding that the area of Australia that would experience an exceptionally hot year could increase from 5% to 95%, was “very disturbing.”

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credit: suburbanbloke at Flickr under a Creative Commons license

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