Transcript

We’ve been preparing projections of future climate change for Australia based on the output of the latest global climate modelling experiments. In these projections we look at ranges of future change in temperature, and precipitation, and other aspects of the climate system, for regions all around Australia, and throughout the next hundred years.

The models are showing for Australia changes in temperature, and changes in rainfall patterns, and other aspects of the climate system. In the case of temperature, we’re looking at a warming of about a degree over the next 20 years. Later in the century though, the warming could be somewhere between two and up to five degrees.

Well, probably the key contributing factor to temperature increases we might see this century is in fact how rapid our increases in greenhouse gases are around the world. If the world is able to follow a low pathway for greenhouse gas emissions, warming in Australia may be limited to two to three degrees through the course of this century. However, if the emissions of greenhouse gases continue to increase rapidly through the century, warmings may get to five degrees, or even higher, in parts of Australia late in the century.

The models show a more complicated pattern for rainfall change in the future than they do for temperature change. We see in the models a tendency for decreasing precipitation across southern areas of Australia, although interestingly they also show that those same regions may see an increase in the intensity of the heaviest rainfall events.

If you move to northern Australia, there we have a less consistent picture, with some models showing increases in rainfall, and some showing decreases in rainfall, and addressing that uncertainty is actually a major focus of our ongoing research.