Global Warming in Australia
Global Warming Will Worsen Fires in Australia - 6/1/07
Global warming will put Australia at significantly higher risk of catastrophic bushfires said a leading climate scientists.
Speaking at a climate conference in Sydney, Andy Pitman, co-director of the University of New South Wales's climate change research center, said that Australia will face a 100 to 200 percent increase in bushfire vulnerability by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions aren't curbed.
"If we continue to track a high emissions future I don't believe the increase in bushfire risk would be adaptable to," he was quoted as saying the News Limited.
In recent years Australia has suffered devastating wildfires that have caused billions of dollars in property damage and loss.
Global Warming Threatens Australia's Tropical Biodiversity - 7/25/06
Global climate change will pose serious challenges for wildlife populations around the world in the coming decades. The findings of Dr. Stephen Williams (Centre for Tropical Biodiversity & Climate Change, James Cook University) suggest that endemic wildlife populations in Australia's Wet Tropics World Heritage Area will be particularly vulnerable to the local warming trend.
Williams states that climate change in the Wet Tropics will likely result in species ranges shifting up mountains, to maintain their habitat needs. However, the mountains are not very high and many animals are already restricted to the mountaintops.
There is no room for latitudinal movement as there is no rainforest for hundreds of kilometers to the north or south.
Approximately 350 species of vertebrates occur in the rainforests of the Wet Tropics bioregion, a series of mountain ranges covering approximately 1.8 million hectares, of which about 1 million hectares is rainforest.
Earthwatch volunteers have helped Williams and his research team collect data on vertebrate species ranges in the Wet Tropics for three years, contributing to this latest publication. Using a variety of methods, from combing tropical streams to spotlighting for nocturnal animals, they sampled the abundance of birds, reptiles, mammals, frogs, plants, and insects at 200-meter elevation intervals.
New Report Shows Global Warming Link to Australia's Worst Drought - 1/14/03
A new scientific report by WWF-Australia and leading meteorologists has shown that human-induced global warming was a key factor in the severity of the 2002 drought. The report compares the 2002 drought with the four other major droughts since 1950 and has found higher temperatures caused a marked increase in evaporation rates from soil, watercourses and vegetation.
The report, Global Warming Contributes to Australia's Worst Drought, warns that higher temperatures and drier conditions have created greater bushfire danger than previous droughts. Drought severity also has increased in the Murray Darling Basin, which produces 40% of Australia's agricultural product.
The report states that in 2002 Australia recorded its highest-ever average March-Nov daytime maximum temperature, with the temperature across Australia 1.6°C higher than the long term average and 0.8°C higher than the previous record.
"The higher temperatures experienced throughout Australia last year are part of a national warming trend over the past 50 years which cannot be explained by natural climate variability alone," said Professor David Karoly, formerly Professor of Meteorology at Monash University, who co-authored the report with Dr James Risbey from Monash University's School of Mathematical Sciences and Anna Reynolds, WWF-Australia's Climate Change Campaign manager."
