Last Monday, we joined a large group of fellow South Australians to hear Darren Ray’s presentation on Climate Change and its impact for South Australia. Darren is the senior meteorologist and manager of the South Australia – Bureau of Meteorology Climate Section and his presentation was hosted by The Alternative Technology Association.
Darren provided evidence of human influence on climate change and explained natural variability and how it contributes to climate change. He also outlined the international reaction to climate change and discussed the latest IPCC report and its implications for SA, Australia and the world. In South Australia we can expect rising sea levels, increasing ocean acidification, more extreme weather events, more heat and less rainfall, with consequences for population health, state infrastructure, agriculture and food security, fire risk and the local economy.
The global ‘carbon budget’ – the amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit while still having a likely chance of limiting average global temperature rise to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, an internationally agreed-upon target – is 1000 gig tons by 2050. According to the latest IPCC report, we’ve already burned through 52 percent of this budget. If emissions continue unabated, we’ll exceed it entirely in about 30 years. To mitigate worst case scenarios, 80% of already discovered fossil fuel resources need to stay in the ground. Darren concluded that we have already radically altered the planet and this is the critical decade for action. Climate change impacts, fueled largely by human-caused emissions, are accelerating.
‘State of the Climate 2014’ draws on an extensive record of observations and analysis from CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, and other sources.
Source: Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO
Further reading:
- State of the Climate 2014: Bureau of Meteorology
- Latest IPCC Report and Climate Risks For Australia | The …The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change …
- Visualizing the Global Carbon Budget | World Resources …
- UN climate change report card: Scientists predict Australia will
- CSIRO and the IPCC | CSIRO
- Threats loom from effects of climate change
