Australian climate has changed for good, say scientists

Australia’s top climate scientists and science bodies have endorsed a major report that says the nation’s climate has already shifted – in some cases, permanently.

Released on Wednesday morning, the peer-reviewed Climate Commission report – The Critical Decade: Extreme Weather – shows that the Australian climate has shifted, increasing the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events around the country.

Last summer over 100 weather records were broken in Australia, including the hottest month and hottest day on record – and the Climate Commission warns that this can not be considered a one-off.

In its most comprehensive assessment analysis, the commission says Australia has a future of records yet to be broken and in some cases day-to-day weather has shifted for good.

“We see a pattern emerging. The south-west and the south-east of Australia have become drier – the south-west since the mid ’70s and the south-east since the mid ’90s,” report author Professor Will Steffen told ABC Radio’s AM program in an interview.

“That tells us for the future that we would expect to see dry conditions more often, more droughts in the future and very importantly we don’t expect to see the previous pre-climate-change weather conditions come back.

“To a certain extent, for a long period of time the best we can hope for, at least in terms of [our] grandchildren, is to stabilise the planet and it will stabilise at a temperature which is probably 2 degrees or more above the pre-industrial.

“That means some changes in patterns will lock in probably for centuries.”

Federal climate change minister Greg Combet said the report showed that climate change was no longer a problem for the future, but was “already here.”

“The Climate Commission’s report is a wake-up call for those who think we can afford to delay taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Combet said.

“Increasing greenhouse gas emissions is like loading the dice for more extreme weather events in the future. We owe it to future generations to clean up our economy and reduce carbon pollution.”

Combet also took the opportunity of the report’s release to have a dig at the Opposition, who have vowed to dismantle several of the the Gillard government’s climate policies – including carbon pricing, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and ARENA – should it win the September election.

“It’s time for Tony Abbott to pull his head out of the sand and start listening to the scientists,” said Combet. “The scientific advice is that this is the critical decade to act. The stakes are high. Australia needs responsible leadership and sound policies on climate change, not opportunistic scare campaigns and negative politicking.”