CSIRO News Release
The State of the Climate Report 2024 has found Australia’s weather and climate has continued to change, with an increase in extreme heat events, longer fire seasons, more intense heavy rainfall, and sea level rise.
The report, prepared every two years, was released today by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, and the Bureau of Meteorology.
It draws on the latest national and international climate research, monitoring, and projection information to describe changes and long-term trends in Australia’s climate.
Scientists found the oceans around Australia are continuing to warm, with increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to more acidic oceans, particularly south of Australia.
CSIRO Research Manager, Dr Jaci Brown, said warming of the ocean has contributed to longer and more frequent marine heatwaves, with the highest average sea surface temperature on record occurring in 2022.
“Increases in temperature have contributed to significant impacts on marine habitats, species and ecosystem health, such as the most recent mass coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef this year,” Dr Brown said.
“Rising sea levels around Australia are increasing the risk of inundation and damage to coastal infrastructure and communities.
“Global mean sea level is increasing, having risen by around 22 centimetres since 1900. Half of this rise has occurred since 1970.
“The rates of sea level rise vary across the Australian region, with the largest increases in the north and south-east of the Australian continent.”
The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to increase, contributing to climate change, with 2023 the warmest year on record globally.
Dr Karl Braganza, Climate Services Manager at the Bureau of Meteorology, said Australia is continuing to warm, with eight of the nine warmest years on record occurring since 2013.
“This warming has led to an increase in extreme fire weather, and longer fire seasons across large parts of the country,” Dr Braganza said.
The report describes the shift toward drier conditions between April to October across the southwest and southeast, and reduced rainfall in southwest Australia now seems to be a permanent feature of the climate.
“The lower rainfall in the cooler months is leading to lower average streamflow in those regions, which can impact soil moisture and water storage levels and increase the risk of drought. Droughts this century have been significantly hotter than those in the past,” Dr Braganza said.
“However, when heavy rainfall events occur, they are becoming more intense, with an increase of around 10 per cent or more in some regions.
“The largest increases are in the north of the country, with 7 of the 10 wettest wet seasons since 1998 occurring in northern Australia.”
Although Australian emissions have declined since 2005, Australia is projected to see continued warming over the coming decades, with more extremely hot days and fewer extremely cool days.
The rate of emissions decline will need to accelerate from now to meet Australia’s 2030 emissions targets.
State of the Climate 2024 is the eighth report in a series published every two years by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology. The findings highlight the importance of ongoing monitoring and help to inform and manage climate risk.
The 2024 report can be found on the CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology websites.
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Everyone “knows” about weather, as one looks out the window, listens to TV news, observes sunsets, etc., but, so few have a concept of climate problems, and future trends. We were looking at M Portillo recently, (SBS) in Andalucia, which looked lovely, (a few years ago) and warmly scenic. Suddenly we hear the horrors of storm, flood, death, unimaginably bad and unexpected in that area. Be aware, learn, try to get action, save us all, think ahead. It is our duty, essential and challenging.
Given the demographics and native proclivities of the majority of the readership of this website, it’s probably a safe assumption to assert that most articles about the current climatic challenges both local and global are passed over with not much more than a scintilla of attention. Fair enough, I suppose. If one is in one’s seventh, eighth, ninth or even tenth decade of existence, one might be excused by the justification that global warming, while most definitely a thing, isn’t going to make that much of a difference in one’s life. Human nature, to not pay attention to matters that are seemingly nonthreatening.
A bit different if you’re in your twenties, teens, or younger. A lot different, actually; the kiddies of today will be impacted front and centre by this environmental holocaust in ways we might find difficult to imagine, and in ways which we certainly find it difficult to see how they can be mitigated, let alone avoided or bypassed.
And a bit different if you happen to live within rural regions at risk; fires, floods, cyclones, droughts… all of these phenomena have impacted Australia’s environs periodically. City folk are, to some extent and contingent on where they reside, insulated from the impact of these events. Cold comfort, to be frank.
Carl Sagan was an astute person, lost too soon, but who lives on in the legacy of his vision. He said the following…
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilisation, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
And that mote of dust in the sunbeam is in critical danger of being burned to a crisp…
Well, the USAF did say they would own the weather by 2025, so if we can wait another 2 months they’ll fix it. https://ia601605.us.archive.org/35/items/WeatherAsAForceMultiplier/WeatherAsAForceMultiplier.pdf
But really, what happened these last decades?
https://weathermodificationhistory.com/
Canguro, thanks for the reminder about Sagan, a brilliant man.
With an equally brilliant wife, Lynn Margulis.
“Throughout her career, Margulis’ work could arouse intense objections, and her formative paper, “On the Origin of Mitosing Cells”, appeared in 1967 after being rejected by about fifteen journals. Still a junior faculty member at Boston University at the time, her theory that cell organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent bacteria was largely ignored for another decade, becoming widely accepted only after it was powerfully substantiated through genetic evidence.”
This was one of the most important developments in the history of evolution studies, right up there with the discovery of DNA.
But I love her because she saw through the bogus science behind selfish gene theory, seeing it correctly as a propaganda arm of the cult of individualism.
More juicy bits on climatic Armageddon… surely deserving of being the topic du jour despite many arguing for the primacy of other issues.
Like all soap-box pundits, I recognise you can’t win ’em all and only a miniscule of readers pay any attention to what’s being expounded; mentioned previously is the awareness that apathy regarding this subject is entirely comprehensible.
Nearly 60 years ago, a little remembered English band, Hedgehoppers Anonymous, had a hit called It’s Good News Week. Most prescient, if I may say so.