Impact of Climate Change on Australia

A number of commentators have noted that Australia will be heavily impacted by cliamte change. Australia has always been a country where extremes have dominated the climate. It is frequently said that it is either drought or flood and there is little between.

However, recent experience would seem to indicate that Australia is facing some significant challenges with respect to climate. Most of Australia has been in drought for a number of years now, and as a consequence, water supplies for our major cities is limited. Most cities are under some sort of water restriction.

This summer we have experienced a "summer of records" with records such as the highest temperature recorded and the most number of days in a row with excessively high temperatures being experienced.

The situation has come to a head this weekend (7/8 February) with extreme bushfire conditions in the south of the country and extreme flooding in the north of the country.

Some example news pages:

Fire: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25023335-1243,00.html

Flood: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25023559-421,00.html

Water supplies: http://www.weatherchannel.com.au/Magic94scripts/mgrqispi94.dll?appname=WC&prgname=WC&Template=H2OverviewMap

The Australian environment is very fragile and as a consequence, the end state of these conditions may be a fundamental shift in the natural vegetation as well as a change in the areas deemed to be productive from an agricultural viewpoint.

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