CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology report predict gloomy climate outlook

WINTER and spring rainfall in southern mainland Australia will likely decrease, new report reveals.

For the Bush. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH. Generic photos along the Drought Highway

WINTER and spring rainfall in southern mainland Australia is projected to decrease, but increase during Tasmanian winters, a new climate change report reveals.

The CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology’s “most comprehensive” research, released today, predicts most of the changes observed over recent decades will continue.

The report suggests drought will increase over southern Australia, with a greater frequency of severe droughts.

The time in drought and the frequency of extreme droughts may increase elsewhere in Australia, while a projected increase in evaporation rates will contribute to a reduction in soil moisture.

“There is very high confidence that hot days will become more frequent and hotter”, CSIRO principal research scientist Kevin Hennessy said.

“We expect that extreme rainfall events across the nation are likely to become more intense, even where annual-average rainfall is projected to decline.”

He said by 2090, winter rainfall was expected to decrease in eastern Australia.

Southern and eastern Australia will experience harsher fire weather, while tropical cyclones may occur less frequently, but become more intense.

Mr Hennessy said climate information indicated Australian average surface air temperature had increased by 0.9C since 1910, and many heat-related records had been broken in recent years.

The BOM observed that since the 1970s, northern Australia became wetter, southern Australia became drier, the number of extreme fire weather days increased in many places, and heavy rainfall accounted for an increasing proportion of annual-total rainfall.

Snow depths have declined since the 1950s and cyclone frequency appeared to have declined since the 1980s.