Energy Saving News
Oz Heats Up With Temp Records For Last Decade
Australia has been experiencing its hottest temperatures on record over the past 10 years, from 2000 to 2009, with an average temperature rise of 0.48 degrees Celsius above the 61-90 degree average, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.
This phenomenon will continue and even increase, and 2010 temperatures are expected to rise of 0.5-1 degrees above average.
A climatologist from the Bureau, David Jones, commented: "We're getting these increasingly warm temperatures, not just for Australia but globally. Climate change, global warming is clearly continuing."
"We're in the latter stages of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean and what that means for Australian and global temperatures is that 2010 is likely to be another very warm year -- perhaps even the warmest on record", he added.
Council Member of the Energy Saving Association (ESA), Ian Wrigley, believes that the most effective way of combatting global warming through carbon emission reduction is to become energy efficient. Saving energy achieves real results in reducing carbon emissions and also has the added bonus of saving businesses a lot of money.
Australia experiencing the first harsh consequences of climate change may result in a collective enthusiasm for adopting energy saving measures to drastically reduce carbon emissions in an attempt to keep global temperature rises under control.
Opposition politicians in Australia have been rejecting the Government's key climate policy - a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) aimed at reducing greenhouse gases causing global warming - and Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, is now able to use this latest report to attack them.
"Australia is one of the hottest and driest inhabited places on earth and our environment and economy will be among the hardest and fastest hit by climate change," said Garrett.
Mr Garrett also added that "Today's statement finds that the patterns of the last year and the decade are consistent with global warming. It (passing the ETS) is in the national interest and it is in the interest of the world."
The ETS legislation is going to be reintroduced to parliament next month, which may entail an early election in 2010 (originally planned for later in the year) if it is once again defeated.
The Bureau of Meteorology claims that 2009 will be remembered for "extreme bush-fires, dust-storms, lingering rainfall deficiencies, areas of flooding and record-breaking heatwaves", as 2009 is recorded as Australia's 2nd warmest year ever, with an annual mean temperature of 0.90 degrees Celsius above the 61-90 degree average.
Outback Australia is warming at a faster pace than other parts of the country, sometimes even twice as fast as coastal regions, according to the Bureau.
While large areas of the country are struggling with a 10-year long drought, Northern Australia is in fact becoming wetter, says the Bureau.
"Australia as a whole has been getting warmer for about 50-60 years and it's actually been tending to get wetter," said Jones. "You see this paradox -- the country, particularly in the north, it's getting wetter but is also warming up."
Tuesday 5th January 2010
