26
BAMOS
Mar 2019
Article
The state of Australia’s climate
Lynette Bettio, Bureau of Meteorology. Email: [email protected]
Michael Grose, CSIRO. Email: [email protected]
CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology recently released their
fifth State of the Climate—a comprehensive report on long-term
trends in Australia’s climate. The latest findings show further warming of the atmosphere
and oceans in the Australian region, consistent with the global
picture.
State of the Climate 2018 draws on the latest climate observations
and monitoring carried out by the Bureau and CSIRO in the
Australian region and includes a section on future climate.
The report also looks back at past CSIRO (1992) temperature
projections and compares these to observations of the actual
climate. Australia is experiencing climate change now and the impacts
are being felt by communities and a range of industry sectors
around the country.
Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to
rise and continued emissions will cause further warming this
century.
Figure 1: Number of days each year where the Australian area-averaged daily mean temperature is extreme.
Extreme days are those above the 99th percentile of each month from the years 1910–2017. These extreme
daily events typically occur over a large area, with generally more than 40 per cent of Australia experiencing
temperatures in the warmest 10 per cent for that month.