Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology has weighed into the climate science debate with Director Greg Ayers stating 100 years of climate data shows there is definite evidence of a change in weather patterns.
Speaking to Radio Australia, Ayers said there was solid evidence based on “high quality” data which supported the global warming theory.
Well, when we look back over the last 50 years or so and look at the succeeding decade as we roll forward, what we see in the climate records that’s been produced by the Bureau, which is based on very high quality measurements at a range of stations across the country, we see increasing temperatures, a trend to increasing temperatures from decade to decade.
We also see shifts in patterns of rainfall with the drying in the East and the South and the West of the continent. But we see other things as well. There is an increase in temperature in the surface oceans around Australia as well that goes hand in hand with the, the surface temperature increases over the continent and there’s also an increase in sea level, a rise in sea level.
So all of those things together, simply observed changes in the regional climate.
The director told Radio Australia that the Bureau had made this data available and called on Australians to examine the record for themselves.
Well, it’s in the record. I’d recognise there’s quite a thirst for information at the moment about whether our climate’s changing and if it’s changing and what ways. Well, we provide this high quality observational database and perhaps Australians aren’t aware that it’s available and we’d like them to know it’s available so that they can delve into it themselves.
The director’s comments follows the release this week of a joint state-of-the-climate report by the Bureau of Meteorology and the country’s peak science body the Commonwealth, Scientific, Industrial and Research Organisation (CSIRO). The six-page snapshot concluded that climate change was real and Australia’s average temperature — which has already risen by 0.7 degrees C since 1960 — is projected to rise to between 0.6 degrees to 1.5 degrees by 2030.
However the report said if there is no change in reducing carbon emissions, this mean temperature increase could rise to between 2.2 degrees and 5 degrees by 2070.
On the key question of whether the rising temperature were human-induced, the report found; “It is very likely that human activities have caused most of the global warming observed since 1950,” adding that international research showed it was “extremely unlikely” that natural causes were to blame.
There is greater than 90% certainty that increases in greenhouse gas emissions have caused most of the global warming since the mid-20th century. International research shows that it is extremely unlikely that the observed warming could be explained by natural causes alone. Evidence of human influence has been detected in ocean warming, sea-level rise, continental-average temperatures, temperature extremes and wind patterns. CSIRO research has shown that higher greenhouse gas levels are likely to have caused about half of the winter rainfall reduction in south-west Western Australia.
By Rich Bowden:
Source: theAngle Australasian/Pacific News Coverage
Net News Publisher for World News
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